Hello!

If you are new to mapping and looking for a guide, then this could be useful for you.

This is still quite a heavy WIP, however I wanted to share what I currently have with you all. Any and all input, whether you disagree with something I say, or think I could explain a concept better, is appreciated. I will try to put out frequent updates as much as I can and will post in this thread everytime I do.

The Mapping Handbook

The Mapping Handbook wrote:

The passive notes in Standard are slider bodies, slider ends and spinners (excluding the very beginning of a spinner. Passive beats are called passive because the player must only move their cursor.

as far as I'm aware of, you don't need to click on spinner beginning, which with the description you give the line after would make it passive as well. ?_?

looks promising. for anyone looking to use this as beginners though, must read it from top to bottom without skipping. hope as you continue, its kept as easy to read as necessary.

what about basic theory among mappers and how to break from those theories for better song representation, between 1.2 and 1.3?

I love your pencil analogy when representing musical intensity. And I appreciate how you distinctly defined the fact that aesthetics are not the sole factor that goes into determining what makes a good map; however, if you want to keep things professional, it's best practice to not specifically name names.

Looking forward to seeing you continue to expand this project.

foss wrote:

I love your pencil analogy when representing musical intensity. And I appreciate how you distinctly defined the fact that aesthetics are not the sole factor that goes into determining what makes a good map; however, if you want to keep things professional, it's best practice to not specifically name names.

Looking forward to seeing you continue to expand this project.

I guess I should stay away from names as much as I can. I just know that undeadcapulet is a well known mapper and maps like his are often referred to as “uc-style” maps.


@thekinghenry youre right. A spinner would be a passive note.

Ashton wrote:

I guess I should stay away from names as much as I can. I just know that undeadcapulet is a well known mapper and maps like his are often referred to as “uc-style” maps.

some styles of mapping are known based off of a mapper popularizing it, like as you said, uc style. reform, for example, has a recognizable style, despite being somewhat similar to sotarks'. honestly, i think you should go in depth into other things, like preview points and backgrounds. they aren't important, but i think you should discuss them, considering momoiro typhoon got disqualified for having an absurd bg of 3 big tiddied girls, although sotarks and other similar mappers could've gotten away with it. as for preview points, there's no set rule for it, so i could literally set a preview point at the last second of a song and it wouldn't break ranking criteria.

MinNin wrote:

Ashton wrote:

I guess I should stay away from names as much as I can. I just know that undeadcapulet is a well known mapper and maps like his are often referred to as “uc-style” maps.

some styles of mapping are known based off of a mapper popularizing it, like as you said, uc style. reform, for example, has a recognizable style, despite being somewhat similar to sotarks'. honestly, i think you should go in depth into other things, like preview points and backgrounds. they aren't important, but i think you should discuss them, considering momoiro typhoon got disqualified for having an absurd bg of 3 big tiddied girls, although sotarks and other similar mappers could've gotten away with it. as for preview points, there's no set rule for it, so i could literally set a preview point at the last second of a song and it wouldn't break ranking criteria.

I'll probably make a 'song preperation' section sometime in the future. This will cover things like preview points, hitsounding, storyboarding, background, combo colors, metadata, etc.. although quite frankly I'm not the best at some of those things so I will probably link lasse's hitsounding guide or some good storyboarding guide.

I think if I need to mention names I'll just put them in brackets. For example: blah blah blah (like mapper 1, mapper 2, or mapper 3's styles..)


edit: Alright I've added another section. It was a shorter section but I explain the difference between mapping styles and mapping fundamentals.

I've also added two new sections. The 'song preperation' section, which will talk about Storyboarding, Metadata, Hitsounding, Difficulty Settings, Timing, Design, and The Timing and Control Points. I also added the 'fundamentals' section, where I talk about Flow, Visual Structure, Patterns, Rhythm, Difficulty and Consistency. You'll notice I actually moved the "difficulty" part under the fundamentals section. This is to improve continuity of the handbook.

My plan for the entirety of Section 1.0 is:

-First three sections (1.1, 1.2, and 1.3) to familiarize the mapper with what mapping is
-Final two sections (1.4 and 1.5) to teach mapping and give practice work for the mapper.

This means that section 1.4 and 1.5 will be rather large, and I may update them chunk by chunk.

My plan for section 2.0 is to:

-For the first three sections (2.1, 2.2, and 2.3) is to teach people how to effectively mod a beatmap while I will throw in another section (2.4) giving some extra bonus tips I've gathered in the past years of my modding experience.

For section 3.0 and 4.0 I don't really teach anything, and these sections are going to be heavily opinionated, but I take a critical approach to things such as 'quality' beatmaps, the toxic culture of some mapping discussions, the ambiguities of what is and isn't acceptable. These sections will probably change heavily but I'm not going to try to refine a plan for them very soon, as they aren't as important as section 1.0 and 2.0.

If you find this handbook useful and want to share it with other people, I'd really appreciate it!

i could help you a bit, especially with the 3rd section. if i were able to, i could make videos based off of this and basically be pishifat 2.0 lmao

Ashton wrote:

I've also added two new sections. The 'song preperation' section, which will talk about Storyboarding.

My plan for section 2.0 is to:

-For the first three sections (2.1, 2.2, and 2.3) is to teach people how to effectively mod a beatmap while I will throw in another section (2.4) giving some extra bonus tips I've gathered in the past years of my modding experience.

If you find this handbook useful and want to share it with other people, I'd really appreciate it!

I'm interested in learning Storyboarding. Although I've mapped like 20 or 30 maps, I've always been afraid of modding. You are right that aesthetics arent the only thing that makes map attractive.

Asphyre wrote:

I'm interested in learning Storyboarding. Although I've mapped like 20 or 30 maps, I've always been afraid of modding. You are right that aesthetics arent the only thing that makes map attractive.

hmm i don't really storyboard, but i have a bit of experience in video editing. i just try to avoid storyboarding because of how outdated the storyboard editor is.

Yeah the storyboard editor is no lonher used. Storybrew and other coding programs are used more often now.

All I know how to do in terms of storyboarding is make some basic effects with storybrew. I would probably link to other guides in the handbook when it comes to that, as it is pointless to have a second hand storyboard guide just for the sake of it.

Ashton wrote:

Yeah the storyboard editor is no lonher used. Storybrew and other coding programs are used more often now.

All I know how to do in terms of storyboarding is make some basic effects with storybrew. I would probably link to other guides in the handbook when it comes to that, as it is pointless to have a second hand storyboard guide just for the sake of it.

Thank you that would really help. I didn't know that its so outdated.