“Too many anime maps? Not enough anime maps?
Take matters into your own hands and learn how to map!”
Last fall, a group of mappers set out to catalog, review, and consolidate all written knowledge on community mapping for Beat Saber custom songs. We found more than 26 written guides and 15 individual tutorial videos – some current, and some woefully out of date – so we embarked on a project to work with the original authors and repackage it all into a wiki format that was organized, consistent, and easier to use.
BSMG Mapping Wiki
The new mapping wiki launched in December 2019 as part of the BSMG Wiki overhaul and, while a wiki is never really done, all of the essentials and then some are up and running.
For those who are new to mapping and just finding their way, or those who are “mapping-curious” and are looking for how to get started, the wiki has it all including a glossary of mapping terms, helpful quick starts (like the one above), basic/intermediate/advanced level information on audio setup, mapping, and the critical steps of playtesting and releasing your map.
Tutorial Video Series
If reading isn’t quite your thing you may be familiar with BennyDaBeast’s tutorial series from 2018 and 2019 or Freeek’s tutorial series from 2018, which are still great resources from OG mapping trailblazers. The challenge with videos is that editors and mapping “fashion” change so quickly that tutorial videos can age quickly.
We now have a brand new tutorial video series by Fruhead. This six part in-depth series literally walks you through the entire mapping process from choosing editing software and your first song all the way through playtesting and publication. They’re not short, but neither is the mapping process (a new mapper may need ~20 hours of work to make a release-ready map).
Mapping Support
Even after reviewing available text and video resources, some people still want some extra support. The good news is that we have the #mapping-discussion and #testplays channels on the BSMG Discord and a (mostly on topic) group of enthusiastic mappers ready to help you whip those maps into shape.
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A tease of mapping discussion… they all know they’re screenshot famousIn #mapping-discussion ask questions, post screencaps or video snippets for feedback, troubleshoot issues, and generally socialize with a chunk of the mapping community. In #testplays, complete some basic information and post your work-in-progress maps for community testing and feedback before you upload to release.
Mapping Knowledge Thanks
More than thirty community members have made contributions to the content in the mapping mapping wiki. Without their efforts dating back to the early days of Beat Saber in 2018 and their permission to mold their content into a new form, none of this would be possible so THANK YOU to each and every one of you for getting us here!
What’s Next?
We are also working on some things like live mapping tutorial streams with Q&A and maybe even panels with well known mappers so let us know in the comments or come hang out in #mapping-discussion if that might be of interest! We’re glad to have you aboard!
Thank you for the overview. I think i give it a try. But my experience in other rhytms games like osu! or DDR/In the Groove teels me, that im not good in mapping :d but i miss many songs, sooo i just try it again
Read through/watch the resources and then head on over to #mapping-discussion… we’ll help you whip that map into shape! 😄
how do I upload maps here
Hi there – you don’t upload maps to BeastSaber. Maps are uploaded at BeatSaver.com but it is down at the moment. This is a great time to head to the BSMG discord and get your map playtested while you wait!
Does it still work for some people? Since maps are still being uploaded in posts to this website?
The site *just* came back up this afternoon. It’s under VERY heavy load right now with everyone rushing to download things so uploading doesn’t always work. Keep trying (and do get your map tested if you haven’t already: https://discord.gg/beatsabermods
They (BeatSaver) had shut down their API which both broke their front end (no one could log in) AND disabled syncing to sites like BeastSaber. Thanks for your patience!
yeah I can tell its overloaded. I tried making a new account and it doesn’t load from there after clicking register a few times
also, how is the website down?
So, I upload to BeatSaver and it ends up on this site?
That is correct.