"New year, new URE" - URE:E2 - E2M2 up!

I think it's time for a break ^^;

I connected the passage from the previous screenshot to the rest of the map, showing STEP1 and STEP2 some love in the process:

^{Some might say too much love.}

No Drawsegs- or Visplane trouble yet or anything.. but it doesn't really fit in this area so it might have to go again.

I'm leaving for tonight..

..and for a whole week! D:

I'm going to some convention about artificial intelligence on Monday- and depending on how that goes, I may never return O_o

But I am not going without an update!

^{Feeling like it's URE2020!}

So.. I worked on all that stuff in the green area, these past few days. Today: Added that whole area under the semi-translucent purple oval that's completely unnecessary. I don't know what's wrong with me.

And I did all that (the new section), even though there's still a whole area waiting to be finished in the upper right D:

All in all I'd say I'm about 90% done with E2M4. Did I say that before? Now it's really 90%.

That area in the upper right is basically "almost done"(^TM) but it still needs vanilla-/drawsegs-sensitive detailing.

So I'll leave that for when I am back.

Maybe I'll even move that whole section over to E2M5. Not sure yet!

Goodnight! Have a great week everyone :)

Good luck with your convention, mate! I do hope the "never return" bit is humourous, but regardless, I wish you well :)

1 minute ago, Omniarch said:

humourous

I'm hoping the same ^^;

...

I'll probably still post here but I won't be able to map anything out.

12 hours ago, Zylinderkatze said:

probably

"probably" ZK said. Of course he posts!

I' at work right now, train doesn't leave until 2:25pm (which is another 3-and-a-bit hours from now). It's that weird "today is a half day, what can / should I work on that can be paused at a moments notice" mood. Too much thinking, not enough doing! >:o

I'm not sure if I should post pictures on here, in case I see anything neat on the way. It's not really part of the URE:E2 theme.

If there is such a thing as a "theme" to this xD

Then again, maybe if I see any architecture that inspires me, I might post that!

12 hours ago, Zylinderkatze said:

post that!

It's not pretty. In fact it's kind of bleak. But I saw this on the way and though it might as well be straight from Doom:

^{Only that slanted roof won't work in vanilla.}

I'm on mobile so this is all you'll get for now ^^

Goodnight!

When you think about it, there's a small but nonzero chance that we never return anytime we step outside our front door in the morning.  Or anytime we get out of bed for that matter.

Also, I hate the sort of "half-day" you get when there's a major event that doesn't take the whole day, hours-wise, but still distorts the entire day around it.  It's like, oh, I can't get comfortable doing X because I have Y.  When?  In two hours...  I'm sure some people can effortlessly switch on and switch off tasks to slot everything efficiently into the time they have available, but I am not those people.

7 hours ago, jerrysheppy said:

there's a small but nonzero chance that we never return anytime we step outside

That does sound so much better than "#YOLO" :D

(Non-)Update!

At the convention still (and for one more day), currently chilling during lunch break.. for 10 more minutes ^^

I am using the time to watch some doom let's plays.. and musing about URE:E2.

I'm already missing mapping D:

Reference image?

So I saw another thing that reminded me of how there's a disparity between normal scale doom levels.. and mine ^^;

I mentioned before that I suspect it's because of growing up in Europe and here's a visual proof:

^{That's a mighty tiny hatch, man} 

The steps leading up to it are barely wide enough to spend on with one foot ^^;

So don't feel bad for making things small-ish. It's more realistic than you might think xD

Finally!

I'm 2 hours outside my home town city. Sadly, I will arrive after midnight, so I won't be mapping when I get there.

Probably.

Guess who got sick the day after he got back home!

I suppose that's kind of a "leading" question.. yes, yes it is me.

Spent the last 30-something hours mostly in bed, trying to give my body time to get better again and it seems to have worked!

I'm back at mapping.. not because I have to but because I really want to ^^;

Currently closing the last few holes in the city rooftop part of the map.

Still not 100% sure it should be in E2M4. Maybe I'll move it to a later map after all.

Also, I think this is a good indication that my map is getting too big:

^{Maybe it's time to call it a wrap.}

Not all your ideas have to go into one sinlg map, ZK.

smh.

Another sign..

..uh.. wait. No, I need to stop starting my texts in the headline.

Imagine that was a viable headilne at the top.

Another sign that I've spent too long on a single map: I have a kind of sensical manner of naming my screenshots: "eXmYZZZ".. where

"X" is the episode and "Y" the mission / map (so far, so obvious)..

..then the "ZZZ": 

• starts at "a", usually, to denote the batch of screens (not always from a theme / the same area but rather a session)
• then is followed by a number, for the screenshot in that batch and
• sometimes has another letter after it (again, starting at "a"), for before / after or otherwise comparing images.

My last screenshot was "e2m4w1.png".. I'm running out of letters xD

That said, here's e2m4w2.png"!

^{That's one wide "DOOR1" door. Maybe a "DOOR1.2"?}

This used to be the stairs leading down to a water basin connecting to the rooftop area from one side. Used to. Meaning the rooftop area is now gone from E2M4!

I moved it over to E2M5 for now.

I might even make it visually connect to some part of E2M4 retroactively, so it makes more sense that it's rooftops of buildings you don't enter.

We'll see. So far, this sounds like a good idea.

Watch that last sentence come back to haunt me xD

16 hours ago, Zylinderkatze said:

wide "DOOR1" door.

It's not a "DOOR1"-themed door anymore. Instead, it's now more rooted in the environment, with darker, more "metal" theme.

Also, it feels really good to me to have removed that rooftop area in the upper right- and not just because it clears up the list of TO-DOs for E2M4.

I also created an alternative path to get through a previously "one-passage-only" section.. which makes sense in a mapping way but not so much in a "this is an actual place" sense.

Writing this (after an extensive mapping session last night let's say.. yesterday), I actually have 2 ideas on how to continue from here:

• There's a yellow key in this map that's only for optional sections (like the E2M2 lookback) I might make the second path key-locked
• There's an actual "core" inside the sight-blocking tower..thing in the main area, which is currently the way to open that passage I might just leave that

Also, I am not 100% sure I am happy with that section (the new passage) as it is. I didn't get it done last night (believe me, I tried ^^;) so it might still go a completely different direction.

I'll share pictures later (probably tomorrow), when there's actually stuff (like a before & after, maybe) to show you :)

No pictures because I'm at work (shh!). This is just a quick update of the state of E2M4.

8 hours ago, Zylinderkatze said:

It's not a "DOOR1"-themed door anymore.

Self-quoting marathon!

It looks like this now (couldn't post sooner because work):

^{So much metal and.. stuff.}

Looking at both images.. I am kind of thinking the DOOR1-version looked better. I'll have to think about this some more while I work on other stuff in E2M4

TFW..

..the Visplane Explorer looks like a trippy picture of rays of sunlight:

^{Time to wake up!}

There was a light distribution detail in this area which I had to remove, otherwise this would've looked a lot worse.

I'm off to bed, trying to get to sleep before midnight today xD

10 hours ago, Zylinderkatze said:

sleep before midnight

Hahahahahahaha! *inhales* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!

Instead I went back and edited a bit more, then uploaded this around 1am but didn't share it because I felt ashamed :D

^{So many different textures.. hm.}

This is a "dead end road" which is currently not actually "dead" yet. So.. a zombie end road?

Meaning:

• Down that lift on the left, this connects to that area with the strange ceiling light fixture (which I eventually did have to remove because Visplanes)..
• Off to the right, that "road" just ends abruptly in a wall (with more actual map behind it, so I can't even fake a continuation there.

So instead, this is just going to be a loading area (indicated by that crate :D)

In the process of that, there will likely still be changes (like maybe actually creating a bay to drive into or reverse on, instead of just this straight strip of road) but so far this already feels nice.
 

Oh.. and into the distance, that tunnel thing connects to yet another part of the map.. currently planned to be kind of a secret.. but without much of a reward, other than offering an escape during an otherwise kind of "trappy" situation later on.

Look at me, planning orchestration of tension.

Like a fool.

"Help, lol"

I think I might be a little too much into making stuff look believable.. even when there's no one to look.

^{These are two angles of the same outside area..}

^{..which only exists for some visual variety. You never actually get in here.}

And you'll never see this part at an angle that would justify the (admittedly, small) effort of height variation.

But I know I'm not the only one who does this ^^;

Old Red Eyes is back

I think I actually *removed* stuff from the "sight"-line of that little area down there..

^{..yet it got hotter.}

Maybe just bad luck xD

Okay.. so..

I think my subconsciousness is trying to tell me to take a break.

^{Goodnight for now ^^;}

9 hours ago, Zylinderkatze said:

Old Red Eyes is back

 

I think I actually *removed* stuff from the "sight"-line of that little area down there..

 

^{..yet it got hotter.}

 

Maybe just bad luck xD

well, if the mapping gig doesn't work out, you have a great career waiting for you making clickbait youtube thumbnails

And then, this happened!

^{No clickbait}

You'll never believe what happened next!

^{More heat, this time of the Visplane variety. Seemingly okay.. but..}

^{..not so much in Chocolate RL :(}

I'll see if I can reduce floor / ceiling variety somehow. But not today xD

No mapping today (again)

I'm visiting my parents and someone forgot to pack his PC.

That was a joke but now I'm kind of wondering whether I should reactivate my (very) old laptop for "mapping on the go".

Hmm.

HMMM.

On 4/17/2023 at 2:54 PM, zokum said:

You might get away with a better split model if you placed some strategic double sided linedefs in order to hint to the nodebuilder where to partition.

This might've just saved my life. Figuratively.

For some reason, the heat, which previously seemed controlled, recently grew out of proportion even though I *think* I didn't change anything in the whole outside area.

^{Stay out of the kitchen.}

I remembered this tip by @zokum (everyone should always remember tips from zokum!) and today finally checked out what the node builder was doing in that area. Here's what I found:

^lol.

I figured "no one knows that you used to be able to see the edge of that* building right next to the hot zone..

^{*(this building)}

..so I might as well wrap it around and thereby block some sight lines (1). Also, this one fake area was only there so no one would be able to step into the "hot zone".. but it didn't align with the edges of some other sectors (too wide), so I made it narrower as well (2).

^{Fig. A: B.}

All this almost solved the problem. I was down to a few "pixels" of too-hot-for-Vanilla DrawSegs heat.

So then I also added a few lines to tell the BSP builder where there are actual concave (even just simply square) sectors.. and I am down to just one. single. spot. where the Engine can't handle it.

^{That's still one too many.}

Either way.. a little thoughtful reconsidering and looknig at the Nodes Viewer Mode already helped tons.

So I think I am almost on the safe side.. and hopeful that I'll be able to tweak away that last one "hot spot".

Phew.

49 minutes ago, Zylinderkatze said:

 

 

I want to get a massive print of this, "whut" and all, and put it on a wall somewhere and see how long it takes for people to figure out it isn't modern art.

38 minutes ago, jerrysheppy said:

"whut" and all

ZK™ art prints, coming soon! :D

Trick of the eye.

So I am a little too concerned, sometimes, about how light would (at least semi-)realistically travel.. and it brings me to trying stuff like this:

^{Light on the floor but not the ceiling!}

Which is semi-simple by just using helper sectors without a lower (or upper, if you want to make a celing brightness disappear) texture, which has its floor lowered out of sight (or ceiling raised, respectively).

However this would be one of those "can of worms" things where it never gets good enough for my liking. Because with how the lights are really only on the lower ceiling above that road segment, there would be hardly any light on the ceiling outside that room at all (aside from the light reflected / refracted). 

Meaning.. there would not just that fake cut-off (as if the metal structure is blocking some of it).. but hardly any light on the ceiling at all.

I'll leave it like this for now and then come back to it later.

TANGENT TIME!

Also.. and this is probably not anything new to anyone who's tried stuff like this before: those lowered, nut player-crossable shadow sectors can actually also be a sort of "logic gate" for enemy types!

Because any walking type enemy won't cross a lowered sector that's too steep to be a step.. even if that sector is only one map unit wide.

While flying enemies will obviously cross it without much of a problem.

That's actually something I plan to use "intentionally" (instead of accidentially, like I think I have, in previous maps) in a future map. 

Bonus fun if that walking-monster-blocking sector is actually tagged and gets raised at a later point, suddenly making enemies (that the player thought could be disregarded for the time being, while they focus on the flying nuisiances) suddenly become a threat. Like.. Pinkies, for example.

Wherefore amst I?

I think I should maybe just consider a "career" in Vanilla Doom detailing and leave the actual map layout to someone else xD

In other words..

^{I got a little carried away ^^;}

But before I get carried too much further.. farther.. I'll just relocate myself to bed!

Goodnight :)

... Did you make slopes out of 1 pixel staircases?  In vanilla?  You madman.

8 hours ago, jerrysheppy said:

madman

You're not wrong :D

8 hours ago, jerrysheppy said:

1 pixel

Except about this. It's 2 pixels xD

Which is enough in this area, it being dark and all. Also, I was lazy.

Still not sure if I'll keep it. It's not really serving any purpose, not even for the mood, if I am really honest.

In a way, this stuff is kind of just what I might call a "Fingerübung" in German. Which uncerimoniously and underwhelmingly translates to "finger exercise".

I think so far I've been good about adding stuff for a reason, instead of just "because I can". This one is skirting that line closely, though.

We'll see where this goes- I'm about to map some more now!

Maybe even live, if you read this within an hour of two of me posting this!

TODO: Use more exclamation points!