Mappers Interviews: Bukz

[Pi_Halo]

This time, I interviewed Bukz. Having two official maps (ac_edifice and ac_stellar) he has made himself known to the mapping world. Also later on becoming a dev and posting code day in and day out makes him, what he is. Time for the questions and answers.

* Note, the nature of this interview has changed due to being answered by private messages and not on irc like other interviews.

Questions by Halo:
1. Lets jump right in shall we? How are you today? Care to give a small introduction of your mapping past?"

2. To date, what do you think your greatest mapping achievement has been, and why?

3. How do you feel about coop editing?

4. What would you say your best attempt of a solo map has been?

5. How did you get into mapping?

6. Where do you draw inspiration for your maps from?

7. If you could go back, and fix any map of yours, what would it be and why?

8. Just who is your all time favorite mapper, and why?

9. What do you feel is the worse map in the official package and why?

10. How do you, as a dev, feel about the mapping restrictions?

11. Do you think these restrictions help or hurt creativity?

12. How do you feel about custom media maps?

13. If you could say one thing to the new mappers, to help them out, what would it be?

14. Last few questions, you planning on any releases soon? If so, care to drop some hints as to what?

15. In closing, is that anything else you would like to add? How was this interview for you?

Answers by Bukz:
1. I'm fine, cryptocurrencies are up today. :)

Mapping for AssaultCube is frustrating. You start off thinking you're doing something awesome that will be enjoyed by many then you're disappointed when reality strikes after the release. I started my mapping "career" making crappy maps like most other players. After making my first few poor quality maps I started wondering how I can improve. I started dissecting other quality maps to see how things are really done. I teamed up with other players who also wanted to become better mappers and I believe we achieved that.

2. ac_stellar

Its not the greatest layout, its not the prettiest map, but god damn we put a lot of time into that thing. I wanted to say ac_dingy because we did some innovative things with it, but overall stellar has the most amount of time put into it.

3. Coop editing is the best way to create maps for AssaultCube.

2 is better than 1 and its not just some cheesy saying this time. Coop editing not only makes mapping for AssaultCube way faster, but it tends to improve the quality of the map. Having another opinion is important if people want to make quality maps that will be enjoyed by many.

4. ac_safari, it was actually my only solo map. I really enjoyed jiba and a_slow_old_man's style of mapping, so I tried to run with it. Its not really everything I wanted it to be but it can be a fun change of pace from the officials.

5. I accidentally triggered edit mode while playing against bots a long time ago. Started messing with things, and I was really intrigued by the engine. A close friend of mine and I started making crappy maps for fun and the rest is history.

6. I think about real life environments and do my best to replicate them with our limited game engine. It will never come out the way you thought of it in your head, but you make compromises along the way and usually come out with something nice if you are patient and willing to redo things.

7. I'd redo some of the long hallways/routes on ac_edifice, it was my first "good" map and I didn't know as much about the engine as I do today. I understand now that those kind of hallways don't work well with AC gameplay or the engine. I'm still proud of the work optus and I did on it and hope some people still enjoy playing it.

8. jiba hands down. Hes extremely creative and his layouts always inspire interesting gameplay strategies for all kinds of players.

9. ac_snow, rarely played, uninteresting layout, in my opinion only good for small games of OSOK/other FFA modes.

10. The mapping restrictions are obviously not perfect, but were implemented in hopes of preserving the style of gameplay AssaultCube was intended for. If the restrictions were perfect (they never will be) I'd be 100% in favor of them, but they're not so I do think some revision is necessary.

11. Both. Having to work around the restrictions can often lead to interesting results that wouldn't of happened otherwise. At the same time some ideas may never come to fruition because the restrictions simply won't allow it. Its a love/hate relationship for me.

12. Custom media maps are awesome. Now that AC has the auto-download system integrated with akimbo, custom media maps should be more popular than ever. Of course this probably isn't the case currently.

13. Don't get discouraged just because the first few maps you create don't become popular/noticed. Continue to improve by analyzing other maps. Figure out how other mappers are doing things and why. If you stick to it you will be a successful mapper.

14. Unfortunately I have no maps currently in the making. I'm in the middle of a long hiatus from AC and not sure when I'll return. Now that I'm no longer stuck on dialup internet I can enjoy the finer games in life, like TF2. :)

15. I enjoyed doing the interview and hope that my responses are adequate. If anyone wants to know more about me or my maps, feel free to leave me addition questions in this thread and I'll do my best to respond to them all.

I want to thank Bukz for another good interview and thank you, the reader, as well for positive feedback and lots of views so far. I am running low on interviews left to post, so if you, or someone you know, is a mapper in AC and would like to be interviewed, you can send me a message via private message on these forums. I have a few people I need to finish up, but my list is still short. As always, I will post a preview of next weeks. This guy has won best new-comer in a mapping contest with his only published map.

1. Lets jump right in shall we? How are you today? Care to give a small introduction of your mapping past?"

Definitely! I'm fine, just a little exhausted from today, just got home ;)
I began to map in the early stages of 1.0 and thaught most of the stuff myself, later learned a
few nice tricks and workarounds from you, Floppy and generally DES. Most of the time I spent
thinking about possible layouts and or details, only released one map officially so far.

Please leave feedback below if you have any to share. Thanks again and hope you enjoy another interview.

[+f0r3v3r+]

ac_stellar <3

[DrauL]

Can't you just put the questons above the bloody answers? Who wants to scroll all the way back to read the blood questions. Christ.

[Ronald_Reagan]

Can't you just put the questons above the bloody answers? Who wants to scroll all the way back to read the blood questions. Christ.

This ^^, except better worded and a little less angry.

Buuuukkzzzz, you can still edit edifice. No map is ever completely finished.

I have a shoddy memory sometimes, have you interviewed jiba yet? If you could entice him, you could interview RandumKiwi.

[SrPER$IAN]

nice interview, Halo, you have started a good job and I really appreciate it, but I also have to admit it that your past interviews were much more interesting and professional than this one both in the questions field and also the presentation form.

Imo, Providing more new challenging questions than repeating the cliche' ones would absorb more tastes. Plus annexing some pictures(such as the maps screenshots and also maybe some personal pictures of the mappers) to the interviews might make them more interesting, plus gives the newbie players/readers more idea of the mapper you are interviewing.

btw, I'd request to interview Mr.Floppy if it's possible, please.

[Pi_Halo]

Well, I copied the interview just like it was responded to. I kept the nature of the interview the same as when I had it. The reason I haven't finished another set of interviews (I got about 4 people I haven't finished yet) is because I am working on new questions. This was from the first batch and all of these were done pretty much at the same time. I also had planned on making screenshots of mentioned maps and maps created by the person I am interviewing and still might do that in the next batch of interviews. I much rather interview the person on IRC, because it creates a better connection and you can read what they say and respond with follow up questions and what not, however, not everyone is available on IRC. I do like that I got some ideas and feedback. It gives me stuff to work on. I will try to work on making every interview, even those conducted via forums, more personal and better connected. I hope to get the next batch done soon, and this gives me some ideas on what to work with.

[ExodusS]

Those interviews are really interesting, the mapping scene is another side of the game and nobody until today gave interest to this. The questions are complete and offer the opportunity to the mapper to gives tons of tips and advices during the mapping process.

No provocation but, I see a lot of similar answers about restrictions (mostly about hurting the creativity) and insiprations (also the way of reproducing the real environment "with the limited engine...").

Nice interview and as I previously said, I'd kill to see an interview about Jiba or Mr.Floppy. :D
I think I'll create a section in my personal website about all those interviews.

[Nightmare]

Make a new map, Bukz!

p.s: take over as lead dev and get 1.3 out

---

good interview, +1 to halo-bukz-draul's comment.

[Pi_Halo]

I guess I will drop a spoiler. Jiba is on my list of next batch of interviews that I am still working on.

[ExodusS]

^hot

[Pi_Halo]

So, noone is gonna hazard a guess at my next person? I was hoping to see some guesses on this one.

[Andrez]

@ Bukz, a true Sir among many sheeps.

Nice interview too!

[Ronald_Reagan]

I'm going to guess Robtics.

[-Subjective]

Nice interview,
Next time put the questions above the answers.

[ExodusS]

i've put all the interviews in a better form to read
http://exo.ac.free.fr/interviews.html