Doom Levels In The PS1 Version?

[Dark Pulse]

1 minute ago, The Strife Commando said:

Weren't Doom 2's levels made with the PS1 in mind since Doom 2 wasn't released on the Jaguar?

Not quite "made with it in mind." But they weren't cut down for it, since up until that point, there was no console release of Ultimate Doom's E4/Doom II, so in that sense the PSX became the "baseline" for Doom II stuff.

[famicommander]

I like that some of the maps are altered. It gives me more of a reason to play the PS1/Jag versions. 

 

If they're largely identical to the PC versions, what's the point?

I mean, I get the point in 1995. Because most people didn't have a PC that could run the game as well as a PS1. But what about in 2019? 

 

The different lighting, sounds, and slight map changes makes it feel more fresh.

[Dark Pulse]

15 hours ago, famicommander said:

The different lighting, sounds, and slight map changes makes it feel more fresh.

Precisely why I'd love to do it in the D64 engine sometime. :)

[A Nobody]

Well the lighting shouldn't matter.

[Dark Pulse]

33 minutes ago, The Strife Commando said:

Well the lighting shouldn't matter.

Trust me, colored lighting definitely makes a huge difference.

[seed]

2 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

Trust me, colored lighting definitely makes a huge difference.

 

Yup, it greatly enhances the atmosphere and goes hand in hand with the sound effects of the console versions.

 

Try using only the sounds with vanilla levels, something feels very wrong.

[CoTeCiO]

On 9/4/2019 at 10:09 AM, riderr3 said:

IIRC, @CoTeCiO already working on converting true Doom 1 maps for PSX Doom.

I actually have all the maps already done for quite a long time and I'm happy to say that the PSX can handle every single map with its original geometry without crashing (although framerate suffers quite a bit more at some places than with the Jaguar mapset) except for Spawning Vats, that crashed when respawning. After simplifying some stairs, it worked fine. I'm just waiting for @Erick194 to release the tools to build a custom PSX image to release the whole thing. 

 

My project uses Final Doom instead of the original PSX Doom because of the mouse support and the fact that has 30 maps (I have three special maps to fill those extra slots as well) and it's more than enough to have the entire original game. I didn't touch Thy Flesh Consumed since I consider that those maps are close enough to the originals and the rest are being worked on in the Master Edition. The maps can be easily converted to standard PSX Doom if anyone wants to convert the whole thing to that game and replace the Jaguar mapset with mine, good luck finding a spot for Slough of Despair, though.

 

Textures were a massive pain in the ass, though. I'm not very happy of how some maps turned out in that department, but considering the limitations, they are as good as they can be, I suppose.

 

None of the maps had any problems with sprite limitations. Considering the small bestiary from the original games, that should be no surprise. Of course, a project like this one would require more testing, but I burned a CD for each map (30 CDs!) and tried each one of them, one by one, on my console and managed to go through them with no problems.

Edited September 10, 2019 by CoTeCiO

[A Nobody]

4 hours ago, CoTeCiO said:

I actually have all the maps already done for quite a long time and I'm happy to say that the PSX can handle every single map with its original geometry without crashing (although framerate suffers quite a bit more at some places than with the Jaguar mapset) except for Spawning Vats, that crashed when respawning. After simplifying some stairs, it worked fine. I'm just waiting for @Erick194 to release the tools to build a custom PSX image to release the whole thing. 

 

My project uses Final Doom instead of the original PSX Doom because of the mouse support and the fact that has 30 maps (I have three special maps to fill those extra slots as well) and it's more than enough to have the entire original game. I didn't touch Thy Flesh Consumed since I consider that those maps are close enough to the originals and the rest are being worked on in the Master Edition. The maps can be easily converted to standard PSX Doom if anyone wants to convert the whole thing to that game and replace the Jaguar mapset with mine, good luck finding a spot for Slough of Despair, though.

 

Textures were a massive pain in the ass, though. I'm not very happy of how some maps turned out in that department, but considering the limitations, they are as good as they can be, I suppose.

 

None of the maps had any problems with sprite limitations. Considering the small bestiary from the original games, that should be no surprise. Of course, a project like this one would require more testing, but I burned a CD for each map (30 CDs!) and tried each one of them, one by one, on my console and managed to go through them with no problems.

So then id Software was lazy or didn't try when making the maps at the time?

Edited September 10, 2019 by The Strife Commando

[Dark Pulse]

6 hours ago, The Strife Commando said:

So then id Software was lazy or didn't try when making the maps at the time?

id had nothing to do with the PSX port, that was purely Williams Entertainment. AFAIK the only console ports id ever directly produced were the 32X and Jaguar ones (which were actually produced by the same codebase), and obviously both those consoles needed some pretty heavy reductions in terms of assets to fit on ROM cartridges; both were 3 MB carts or so IIRC.

 

3DO was subbed out and basically one-womanned by Burger Becky, Williams handled SNES and PSX, Saturn was mostly Jim Bagley and intended to be a not-cut-down-at-all version (i.e; pretty much identical to the PC) but Carmack hated the affine texture warping that that console generation had, so he forced Bagley to toss the work he'd done on a 60 FPS hardware renderer at that point, do the renderer in software, and to get the game out the door in time they reused the PSX's assets pretty much whole sale (the LIGHTS lumps are still in the WAD, totally unused, for example). Carmack did mea culpa on Twitter years later that he should've let Jim experiment in hindsight.

 

Reusing the Jaguar level set was just a way to save time. I mean, for PSX Doom, they still had to convert like 30-ish levels, made at least five new ones for the game (probably more that we never got to see), and so on. Not a quick task. (And even the ones where they reused the Jag geometry still had to go through lighting and texture adjustment and so on.)

 

And trust me when I say that converting levels is definitely not a slouch job that can be done in a quick amount of time. We're using way more advanced tools for the GEC project than the Williams guys got and it's still taken me at least a good 15-20 cumulative hours on Bloodsea Keep, and it's still not done. I can only imagine tackling Tech Gone Bad will be even worse because I have to reduce Sidedefs like crazy for that.

[A Nobody]

1 hour ago, Dark Pulse said:

id had nothing to do with the PSX port, that was purely Williams Entertainment. AFAIK the only console ports id ever directly produced were the 32X and Jaguar ones (which were actually produced by the same codebase), and obviously both those consoles needed some pretty heavy reductions in terms of assets to fit on ROM cartridges; both were 3 MB carts or so IIRC.

 

3DO was subbed out and basically one-womanned by Burger Becky, Williams handled SNES and PSX, Saturn was mostly Jim Bagley and intended to be a not-cut-down-at-all version (i.e; pretty much identical to the PC) but Carmack hated the affine texture warping that that console generation had, so he forced Bagley to toss the work he'd done on a 60 FPS hardware renderer at that point, do the renderer in software, and to get the game out the door in time they reused the PSX's assets pretty much whole sale (the LIGHTS lumps are still in the WAD, totally unused, for example). Carmack did mea culpa on Twitter years later that he should've let Jim experiment in hindsight.

 

Reusing the Jaguar level set was just a way to save time. I mean, for PSX Doom, they still had to convert like 30-ish levels, made at least five new ones for the game (probably more that we never got to see), and so on. Not a quick task. (And even the ones where they reused the Jag geometry still had to go through lighting and texture adjustment and so on.)

 

And trust me when I say that converting levels is definitely not a slouch job that can be done in a quick amount of time. We're using way more advanced tools for the GEC project than the Williams guys got and it's still taken me at least a good 15-20 cumulative hours on Bloodsea Keep, and it's still not done. I can only imagine tackling Tech Gone Bad will be even worse because I have to reduce Sidedefs like crazy for that.

So it's all because of John Carmack...

[Dark Pulse]

1 hour ago, The Strife Commando said:

So it's all because of John Carmack...

No, it's because the Jaguar version was the base for several ports, and so as to be more efficient and not take tons of time porting them while Doom was still a hot game, several ports reused the same base levels.

 

This is why the fourth episode and Doom II levels have less cuts though - the Jaguar's cut-down versions only include the first three episodes.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Dark Pulse

[famicommander]

I wish some of the PS1 Doom II and Final Doom levels had cuts like the inherited Jag version levels. Because some of those levels hit single digit frame rates in places on a real PS1.

 

Edited September 10, 2019 by famicommander