Welcome to this series! I've wanted to make something like this for a very long time, in order to have a reference point - particularly for new mappers - to point people towards who would like to learn the fundamentals of mapping. If people think this is good, I could expand it into a larger series for intermediate and possibly even advanced mapping techniques and fundamentals.
This series is aimed at beginner/learning mappers, however, I think that probably even some more experienced mappers could learn from this, as it will be focusing on fundamentals - things you need in order to consistently make solid, enjoyable, fun, and pretty maps, and I think even some more experienced mappers are lacking certain fundamentals.
Lastly, before we start I'd like to say that this guide assumes you understand how the editor works. If you don't, please check out pishifat's video or look over the wiki.
Let's get started!
So, you may be wondering; what does Nyxa mean by "fundamentals?"
To answer that, you should ask yourself; what makes a map good?
There's a catch, though. Your answer can't contain the word "good" or anything similar. So no "good jumps," "nice spacing," "fun rhythms," as these are all subjective observations, and thus they can't be fundamental as each player will experience each pattern differently.
So, what makes a map good?
The answer is rather complicated, and opinions may vary, but there are a few things which are nearly unanimously agreed upon by mappers and modders.
- The map's rhythms match and accentuate the song's rhythms
- The map's styling is unique to the mapper
- Playing the map feels like playing the song, not like playing a map
- The map contains no unreadable elements*
- The map's difficulty is appropriate to the song's intensity*
- The map is memorable in one way or another
* = Part of the Ranking Criteria
Now, if you're entirely new to mapping, this may be quite a bit to take in; and quite a bit of an expectancy. You shouldn't feel like any criteria provided to you (other than the ranking criteria) are absolutely necessary before deciding to rank a map. But, these things are some fundamental factors in what makes a map "good". They are a little vague because high quality maps come in quite a large variety, and this is a good thing; it means that no matter your preference in style, you can make a great map as long as it adheres to the basic fundamentals of one.
We'll be going over each of the fundamentals above (there's more, for later) one by one, but first I'd like to mention that despite there being some elements that are part of the RC (and as such a map is unrankable without them), I'd still like to go over them and discuss how they can be properly applied within your map.
With no further ado, let's get into the first topic!
osu! is a rhythm game, and as such, rhythms are a very, very important aspect of the game. You may have the prettiest patterns in the world; if your rhythms suck, the map will suck. Thankfully, the way osu is designed allows us to add much of our personal style into our rhythm choices. You may think that due to it being a rhythm game, any two mappers will use the same rhythms between two songs, and the patterns will just be different. But that's not how it works.
Osu only has three objects. Hitcircles, Sliders and Spinners. Those are the only three things you have at your disposal to convey a song with, on a 512x384 grid, with spinners being used very sparingly, and sliders and circles being the most common objects. But, thankfully, they're very flexible, and can allow us to express any sound a song may throw at us.
Many people consider mapping to be an artform, and this is quite true, as it quite literally matches the definition of art
As you can see, both of those definitions refer to creativity, which is one of our fundamental aspects of a map - it being unique to the mapper's styling. However, unlike some other expressive artforms such as painting or drawing - which provide you with a blank canvas to fill with whatever your heart desires -mapping never occurs from a blank canvas. Instead, mapping is more like being given the lineart to an art piece, and being asked to paint it. The lineart will be visible no matter what colors you choose to slap onto the canvas, so, in order to make good art, we must stay within the lines of the song.
What this means is that you can't just use any rhythm for your map. Remember, we only have three tools, and we will primarily only be using sliders and circles to create rhythms. This limits us quite a bit, since a song has many layers of instruments, but we can only express one layer at any given time. However, we can freely switch between layers to our heart's content.
You'll probably recognize the fact that one map can be mapping the drums now, and then the guitar, and then the piano does a crazy solo so there's a crazy stream, and then we change to a sad violin with lots of sliders to represent the long tones - all of these instruments can be expressed in sliders and circles. So, since we can freely swap between those, the question then becomes: Which instrument do I pick, at what time, and how do I express it?
Before we get into that, it'd be good to learn two foreign sounding musical terms: The staccato, and the legato. These two are opposing terms which describe how a note is played.
A staccato is a short, sharply played note, which is always followed by a period of silence from that particular instrument. Example
A legato is its opposite - a note which is played smoothly and connected to the next note. Example
Staccato should almost always be represented with hitcircles, and legatos should almost always be represented with sliders. It's not that hard to remember:
- Short sounds -> Circles
- Long sounds -> Sliders
- Very long -> Spinners
If you're listening to drums, there are usually no pitched notes like with most instruments, but, for example, an open hihat is a long sound, whereas a snappy snare is a short sound. Drums also use both sliders and circles.
Ultimately, what instrument you choose is up to you. However, practically, the most prominent instrument in any given part of the song is always worth mapping. If you don't know what instrument to map, just listen to the song. Which instrument sticks out the most? If there's a crazy guitar solo going on, map the guitar. If the drums are in the foreground, map the drums. If the piano is rattling off arpeggios at the speed of light, you know to map a stream. This part isn't too difficult - all you need to do is listen to an instrument and stick with it until it loses importance. This is how you accentuate the music; by highlighting whichever instrument stands out the most, or is the most worth playing at that given time.
However, this is only half the work. Another big part of rhythm choice doesn't happen in the editor, but outside of it. Before you even choose a song, you need to make sure that the song you're choosing has rhythms that are interesting to map. Even if the song may be cool, if the most prominent part of the song is the same drum rhythm repeated for 3 minutes, you're gonna have a hard time making a good map out of it. Remember: Just as good preparation is half the work, a good song choice is half the map.
Once you've found a good song, and you know what rhythms are prominent, you're still left with options on how to express them. A triple in the music can be expressed through a trio of 1/4 hitcircles, all stacked together or spaced apart slightly, or maybe spaced apart very far. It can also be expressed through one 1/4 slider (also known as a kick slider) followed by a hitcircle, or a hitcircle followed by a kick slider. The circle and slider may be stacked, they may be spaced apart. It can also just be a kick slider with one repeat on it. As you can see, even a single rhythm leaves us with a myriad of choices, which brings us to the next, and final topic of this post.
A good rhythm doesn't only represent the song in osu!, it accentuates it.
The reason we pick two hitcircles for two staccatos as opposed to a single slider is that the sound is sharp and pronounced - and you can replicate that feeling of sharpness by having the player press down on their keyboard for each note. On top of that, the spacing between these notes also serves as further accentuation. If the two staccatos are of the same pitch, you may want to stack the two circles on top of each other, since the note doesn't move, and is only repeated - you replicate that feeling by creating a circle that doesn't move, and is only repeated. If the pitch between the staccatos changes slightly, you may want to space the notes apart slightly. If it changes drastically, you can make a fullscreen jump and it will be perfectly fitting.
Drastic change in the song requires drastic change in the map. Minimal change in the song requires minimal change in the map.
For legatos, it is similar. If there are many notes in the song connected to each other, playing on every 1/2 beat, it would be perfectly okay to create many 1/4 sliders with their ends silenced, to replicate the feeling of connectedness by keeping the player's finger depressed for each note pressed until the next note has to be pressed. Your rhythms must be as connected in your map as they are in the song. This will serve to accentuate the song and make the player feel like they're playing the song, not playing the map.
This is something to be very aware of. You as the mapper aren't merely charting the song, you're also creating gameplay. Every note you place asks for a physical action from the player. This is incredibly important to be aware of, as, without it, people are likely to end up telling you your map feels bad, awkward, or weird to play. They may find it hard to read, or think it has awkward angles, or weird rhythms. This is why, first and foremost, you always need to be aware that your map has to be played (and enjoyed!!!) by another human being, and as such is subject to limitations.
Let's summarize everything we've learned today.
- Fundamentals are key, global parts of any map that play a large role in its quality.
- Rhythms are a very important aspect of the game.
- Sliders and circles are most commonly used - spinners are used sparingly.
- Mapping is like coloring lineart, as opposed to making art from scratch.
- osu! allows you to freely switch between the instruments you map at any time.
- Staccato are almost always mapped to circles, while legato are almost always mapped to sliders.
- You accentuate the music by highlighting the instrument that matters most in each part of the song.
- Just as good preparation is half the work, a good song choice is half the map.
- A good rhythm doesn't only represent the song, but accentuates it.
- Changes in the map should occur in equal proportion to changes in the song.
That's quite a lot! It's okay if you don't understand everything at once, or don't know how to apply it all. You can always come back to this post and re-evaluate things, or re-read them, in order to get a better grasp of its contents. Please keep in mind that I will try and focus as little on specific examples as possible, throughout this series. Mapping is a learning experience and requires you to do a lot of work yourself, and self sufficiency is a great trait to have as a mapper. This series won't be about how to map as much as it will be about what a good map is and why it is so.
So, get out there and start mapping! The more the better, and remember to take your sweet time if you want to make sweet patterns.
I hope this helped, and there's more to come!
I would really appreciate feedback on things that I didn't convey properly in this post, and things that I could've done better in order to improve these as time goes on. I'm working on improvement just as much as everyone else, so feel free to leave your criticisms below, or PM them to be (either on osu forums, ingame, or Discord).
Also, if anyone is skilled with graphic-y things and wants to make me a banner for this series, please let me know.