How long do you think it takes to make decent content?

I know EVERYONE on this forum has the skill to make excellent maps, skins, and stuff, 'cept that they always rush.

The best time for a 2-Act Zone, should be around two weeks.

Skins should take at least 19 days if you work consistently.

I believe SOCs should take a week of testing and editing.

So, what do you think?

"As long as it takes."

Ten hours for any standard SRB2 level. That's how long it took me to make Mercury Sea Zone.

If it's one of the more "odd" maps that utilizes more complex scripts and level design, I'd say twenty hours.

Any where from a few hours to a year depending on if the map is dropped then picked up later.

It depends on what you're making. Good single player stages generally should take a week or more, good match stages can reasonably be made in a few days.

I could say the same for CTF stages.

Honestly, a lot of it depends on your working habits, and what you're actually working on.

For the record, BSZ took me one year of active working time to develop. That includes the level, the secret level, boss, and polish. For me, most of the time I take developing involves making design decisions. If you're good at that, or if you have a concrete plan, constructing the map itself is relatively straightforward. The creative process takes a lot longer. I'm absolutely meticulous about decisions, hence why BSZ took me a year to make. :P

Mystic said:

It depends on what you're making. Good single player stages generally should take a week or more, good match stages can reasonably be made in a few days.

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Well, how long did it take to Make Mystic Realm (yeah i know that's a mod but oh well)

I'm able to make small match stages (about 3328x3328, give or take, units) in about one to two hours. My huger, more magnificent levels take about two months to six months.

I have a lot of time on my hands.

For me, one act of a single player zone takes at least a month, probably around two or three with school factored in. I can clearly remember doing NSZ1 in a month and a half, as well as NSZ2. More detailed levels take longer as well, mind you. Forever Forest has been in the making for quite a bit longer than either act of Nuclear Sunset, and rightly so. It's definately more detailed than anything I've made previously, and quite a few areas have been steamrolled and replaced with something else.

Kinda hard to believe anybody can polish off a map in a week, obviously.

Chaos said:

I know EVERYONE on this forum has the skill to make excellent maps, skins, and stuff, 'cept that they always rush.

The best time for a 2-Act Zone, should be around two weeks.

Skins should take at least 19 days if you work consistently.

I believe SOCs should take a week of testing and editing.

So, what do you think?

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Let's see. That estimation is based on a person doing 9 frames a day. Sure, this will work if you want to do a really crappy wad :D

I used to take about two weeks on single player levels. Seeing how my older levels sucked, I spend about 1-2 months on a good single player level. However, I do not work every day, so if you total up the hours, it comes out to about 25-30 hours per level.

I have yet to finish a decent character WAD, or SP level. However with matches I can say that a couple years ago I made some matches that weren't too bad in a matter of days. I then went back to those matches to enter them into contest, VDZ in this case, and spent around four months on it not including my recent progress on updating it as per criticism received in the contest.

Now add that to the fact that I seldom spend all day on something, generally get sidetracked every other day, and for one or two of those was taking a break from level design. As well as that it wasn't the only level design project I was working on.

I will still say that it did take a while. I generally like to have a lot of detail and VDZ has had a major overhaul in layout two or three times after I had once considered it finished. It was also a factory level where a lot of the depth was achieved by stacking fof's correctly, using specials, stacking those with the fof's, placing a good deal of the level in close relation to the acid and then looking through the mess of fof's and fixing errors, updating the level etc. I probably still have a deal of fof's that are no longer attached to anything.

Maybe I should pay a little less attention to the detail... but then my levels would likely be bare and ugly.

Time = Quality
More Time = More Quality
Experience + More Time = Epic

Jazz said:

"As long as it takes."

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on Edge said:

Time = Quality
More Time = More Quality
Experience + More Time = Epic

Jazz said:

"As long as it takes."

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This, ladies and gentlemen, is the theorem you should use when wadding. Not some pathetic time limit set upon by a few impatient bastards who want these things now. Now simply cannot come without consequences, the main being the general shittiness of your work.

Sykotic said:

Chaos said:

I know EVERYONE on this forum has the skill to make excellent maps, skins, and stuff, 'cept that they always rush.

The best time for a 2-Act Zone, should be around two weeks.

Skins should take at least 19 days if you work consistently.

I believe SOCs should take a week of testing and editing.

So, what do you think?

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Let's see. That estimation is based on a person doing 9 frames a day. Sure, this will work if you want to do a really crappy wad :D

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pretty much how long it took my to do my Old Light Dasher Wad

Syko, as happy as I am that you agree with me and Jazz, that's the wrong approach. This is for people who haven't done a lot of wadding before and want to budget their time, in addition to gauging the difficulty of possible first projects.

Aye, but I was talking in the more experience people's range. If you're not as good, you needn't spend as much time, but you should spend enough to know what you're doing.

For a short, 20-second level? 48 hours, at the very least. To make a good level, it takes a long time. A very long time. Solidity is very important, and taking time to ensure your level is solid is a very good idea.

on Edge said:

Time = Quality
More Time = More Quality
Experience + More Time = Epic

Jazz said:

"As long as it takes."

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I constructed BSZ with this general theme. "Experience + More Time = Epic" more or less embodies BSZ entirely.

Not only is time instrumental to a good work, but experience is, too.