Nothing, Absolutely Nothing

Weelllll this all stems from not having any confidence in your design, once you can eliminate that all inspiration will come flowing back like a tsunami.

Are you having problems with design ideas, or artist look ideas?

i got banned for threads like this.

No you got banned for being a dick.

Like anything, sitting there with a blank page is the worst thing you can do. Like most people it seems like your afraid of making something bad. If you can't come up with something good, then just come up with something bad, and then work with that from there, or throw it away and start again.

Its not just about inspiration or motivation, its about working with what you got. trust me just draw a bad level, then scrap draw another bad one. then you might get into a zone, you might learn things then the good ideas will flow

no matter how bad or unispired an idea is, it can always improve, beyond your imagination.

Try having a few beers.

Try to get some really basic things down first. Just as artists do speedpaints/sketching. They mostly don't even know what they want to shoot for and lay in some basic shapes, then they get something out of it, don't be afraid to try out things. It's a bit like trying to see figures in the clouds. Of course it's not that easy regarding level design, it's just meant to break the creativity barrier somehow and get your ideas flow. Maybe you should jump right in and playtest things and see how you can improve them.

8 step program, "start actually working on it when you know what you want to do"

-think what you want to do

-set a location / make a rough top layout (ROUGH!)

-look for references for this kind of location

-hammer out rough map (ROUGH)

-take a brake for few minutes/days/weeks/months/years/centuries/milleniums etc.

-rethink whole thing

-make concepts/paintovers

-work

BE SURE to do something interesting all the time before you start working, sleep well, have fun and start with energy and fresh ideas. Sitting for hours and mapping something you don't know what it is is exhausting and time unefficent.

Turning off web browsers and other useless stuff is key too so you won't get too distracted with porn.

so... have you finished your thearts map?

Try going someplace real, like a real place in the real world and draw it, and then build it in your editor, the change it, look at it, and start drawing again using that as a style reference. It's easier to get a layout I think when you understand the style you want to use, as different areas have different design and artistic elements that lend themselves to different gameplay.

Get some architecture books, like school books. Surveys that have a wide range of stuff representing all kinds of different styles. We just looked at at some of Frank Furness's work in Architecture class, now don't you just want to map this?

[Blocked Image: http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/MrHappy_photos/furness.jpg]

Get a cat.

[Blocked Image: http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/711/monkeysw6.jpg]

Look at some pictures of a location you'd like to make, and try to draw some inspiration for layout from them. Then add some layout between the points, and map it out in hammer.

You might be coming at it from the wrong approach. You may know what shapes or foundations you want, but tying it all together with aesthetics is keeping you away. Gray (or orange) box it (the design method, not the game package )!

play other FPS's

that'll kick start some ideas...

I know what you mean.

But If I got an Idea , I most likely can't use it and the map gets trashed. :\

But sometimes you get really get ideas , so you should always have a pencil and some paper , so when your brain starts , you can directly write your new ideas onto the paper.

Make an aim_gg_1337_orange map until you can come up with an idea. Make sure you release it here under finished work too so you can be sneered at and ridiculed. It will motivate you.

Quote from propaganda

Make an aim_gg_1337_orange map until you can come up with an idea. Make sure you release it here under finished work too so you can be sneered at and ridiculed. It will motivate you.

True, that

Quote from Psycho

The layout was awesome but the idea behind the map was poor. I'll probably end up recycling the layout into a different map.

Thanks for all the input guys.

maybe you should try remaking something. like making flagrun for tf2, cs_backalley for css, etc. while working on that you're probably gonna have some neat ideas