1995 called. They want their Doom levels back.

[Egg Boy]

I need to play this, I love classic shit like this. Keep it up! How far exactly are you into this thing? If you're not very far, is there anyway we'll get a demo of some sort?

[Zylinderkatze]

Last post for today, I promise.

 

It's funny (read: ironic), that -with the visual aligning tools at my disposal- it actually works against a more organic look in some cases.. like the rocks.

 

What I mean is that with how (relatively) easily I can now align textures horizontally and vertically across several intersecting sectors of varying heights, it makes the rock walls look too uniform and repetitive.

 

Case in point: the wall behind the Cacodemon in my previous post. It has various sections, structurally breaking off of each other.. but with the aligned texture it looks like one repeating pattern.

 

I might go back to spots like this after the general layout is final.. and intentionally offset some individual cliffs so they stand out.

 

Just one of those things I noticed and am planning to correct. Don't mind me xD

[Zylinderkatze]

50 minutes ago, Egg Boy said:

I need to play this, I love classic shit like this. Keep it up! How far exactly are you into this thing? If you're not very far, is there anyway we'll get a demo of some sort?

 

Hi @Egg Boy! Tsk tsk.. you're making me break with my "last post" promise.. But I will just claim that a response to a post is not in itself an autonomous post :D

Also, by now it's the next day (12:25am) so.. loophole?

 

The original levels are one whole episode for Doom: 8 levels + 1 secret level~

Based on a previous suggestion in this thread, once I am done, I will release the old levels alongside the new ones: The new ones will replace Episode 1 and the old ones will replace Episode 2, so you can play them both (and jump between them to compare them), without having to load a whole new WAD.

 

I previously tried to summarize the amount of work I'll have to put into it in this post from March. I didn't give any time estimates, though. And I still won't xD

 

To give you a "done-%" list, however:

• E1M1 is.. 98% done. I'd leave it as it is but I do have a lingering idea on how to create a better transition between it and E1M2.. right now it ends with a switch.
• E1M2 (the one I am currently working on) is.. probably about 70% done. There's only one section left before I merge the new part to the exit room.. but then I'll go back and do some more extensive testing for misaligned textures, as well as some item / enemy / thing "placement polishing passes".
• E1M3 is already at least 90% done even though I haven't touched it yet.. because I won't have to change much.
• E1M4 is similar to E1M3, though I will change a bit more here.. so.. 85%?
• E1M5 is also pretty much already meeting my own expectations, another 90%er.
• E1M6 is a train wreck and I am not sure how much can be salvaged. Maybe 20%, if that much.
• E1M7 has some good ideas but some crappy execution of said ideas. Another sad 20%.
• E1M8 has about 70% of it safe from editing. Some tweaks, scaling issues and texture alignments should do the trick.
• E1M9 is my knife-to-the-heart case.. I had redone about 50% of it in 2010 already but lost that progress. So I'll have to redo those.. redos.

I am adding links to the first post of this thread for each Mission / Map as they reach "publishable" states.. so check back on that to watch the list of testable files grow. Very slowly.

^{Disclaimer of sorts: The first Mission / Map is a complete rebuild from scratch.. so there's no resemblance between the old and the new M1}

Edited April 26, 2020 by Zylinderkatze

[ketmar]

this is one of those cases when i wish to have Duke3D moving sectors. seeing that trolley moving (and crashing) could be a spectacular thing!

[Zylinderkatze]

6 hours ago, ketmar said:

Duke3D moving sectors

Agreed. It would be really cool to have a few more tricks to work with, make things more interactive or cinematic.

 

Although.. then I come back to how I usually enjoy the (engine) limitations, how there's no frills where none are necessary.. and how you have to make do with what you're given. I usually resort to just showing the end product (like a crashed cart / trolley) instead of the process (the crashing).. and maybe use sound cues (like exploding barrels triggered by a crusher before you actually get into the area). 

 

I'm hoping that the environment will be telling enough of a story. Fingers crossed ^^

[Senor500]

6 hours ago, Zylinderkatze said:

I'm hoping that the environment will be telling enough of a story. Fingers crossed ^^

I consider that good storytelling, if you get it right.

[ketmar]

7 hours ago, Zylinderkatze said:

I'm hoping that the environment will be telling enough of a story. Fingers crossed ^^

yeah, that's good too. sometimes even better, because you don't know what exactly happens, and can scare yourself much better than just watching thing collapsing. ;-)

 

p.s.: still, moving sectors would be fine. but implementing hardware doom rendering is tricky enough, and with moving sectors... i changed my mind. thank you, Carmack, we don't need no moving sectors!

Edited April 27, 2020 by ketmar

[Zylinderkatze]

This would be a pretty decent area "shortly before the end of E1M2"

..if I didn't already know that there's a seg overflow (when you stand behind the pillar in the middle of the image and then look towards the spot that I took this screenshot from).

 

Like so:

^{No, that's not sky lasers from a rave party. Sorry.}

 

Time to reduce a bit of the complexity and maybe block a few sight lines. Sadly, wanting (needing?) Cacodemons in this arena, I can't just lower the ceiling above that pillar because then there's the chance of disappearing Cacos when they fly behind it ^^;;

 

Besides that, it's coming along nicely. I'm pretty confident that the actual level layout will only take a few more days now before I go into fine tuning (as mentioned for "E1M2" in this post).

 

Soo.. if all goes well and Vanilla can eventually handle what I throw at it.. I'll say E1M2 will be done some time during the "first third" of May!

 

2020. Just to clarify.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Zylinderkatze
added "ingame" screenshot

[Zylinderkatze]

Another example of "it sounded like a good idea at the time"

A cascading "lavafall"

 

Looked good in my imagination.. but doesn't really "wow" me in game. Like.. it serves no real purpose, doesn't "tie the room together".

Which is likely a lack of execution on my part. Probably too small again. My old nemesis: a too-fine grid setting :D

 

Either way it's a no for me~ but I might stash it somewhere to use later.

 

Maybe together with Forky, the forklift ^^;

 

Good news, though, this room is the last "new" part before having the map meet back up with the exit room from 1997.

I made some headway but I still (feel like I) need to find a better way to span the last stretch until then.

 

Also, as a "joke" I put a spider mastermind in an empty room in the beginning of the level to remember that I still need to fill that room with something actually useful.. and at some point during testing there was an unbroken sound travel connection to it and I "woke it up". That distant scream might've scared me a little :D

 

Silly me.

[Zylinderkatze]

7 minutes ago, Zylinderkatze said:

My old nemesis: a too-fine grid setting

 

As an attempt to combat this, btw, I am now (for the remainder of this level and the coming ones) laying out the general structure of levels with a grid setting of no smaller than 64. Then, for detail passes, I'll go smaller, if and where necessary.

 

I'll let you know how that goes xD

[Zylinderkatze]

Good news (everyone).. I forgot to mention this: The previous seg overflow errors seem to be gone, for all I can tell.

I couldn't find any angle from which there was too much detail. 

That's one thing off the list :)

[ketmar]

4 hours ago, Zylinderkatze said:

Looked good in my imagination.. but doesn't really "wow" me in game.

it looks more like blood. maybe put a squashed body up there, and convert that stream to flowed blood?

[Doomkid]

I agree with Ketmar, I think it actually looks pretty cool as a blood trickling effect. Maybe the streams coming down the side should be a bit wider and 'more pronounced' if you want to keep it as lava?

[Zylinderkatze]

9 hours ago, ketmar said:

it looks more like blood.

Yeah.. it's part of the problem of not replacing any textures (aside from SKY1) so this is the stream (of blood) from the gargoyle's mouth (GSTFONT1).. which is the closest to "something reddish" running down, in DOOM1. Maybe I'd also try one of the "burning" animated walls (FIRELAVA or FIREWALA) but I'm currently too turned off by the surrounding area to keep this bit in. 

 

The lava is more of a light source, really.. it's quite dark in that part of the caves (around 100 light level) but I'll find other ways to keep the lava in there without all the.. cascades xD

 

I'm more focused on getting E1M2 done at all, right now c:

 

I really enjoy the thought & input, by the way. Thanks, @ketmar and @Doomkid.. chances are, you'll end up seeing your suggestions incorporated in E1M2 or perhaps a later level :)

[Zylinderkatze]

When your "hidden switch for the lava escape lift" texture alignment game is strong..

 

^{"in Editor" vs "in game"}

 

Chances are you'll never see it (because falling into the lava isn't that easy), that's why I am posting it because I think it looks cool. Even though it kind of started as a coincidence xD

Edited May 3, 2020 by Zylinderkatze

[Horus]

Ha, that looks really neat actually. I would totally miss something like that in-game

[Zylinderkatze]

1 hour ago, Horus said:

Ha, that looks really neat actually. I would totally miss something like that in-game

Good thing is that- if the player *does* fall into the lava, the actual number of walls to try and press in hopes of getting back out is relatively low so chances are they'll find it by accident (even without seeing it) before they are dead ^^;

 

 

[Zylinderkatze]

I just did my first "ammunition" test run of the level start-to-finish

..and there's at least 2 boxes worth of shotgun shells missing. Or too many lost souls.

 

Also, the yellow key (first making an appearance over a month ago.. damn this is taking long O_o) has been relocated for what I consider a better risk / reward progression. Because you don't *need* it to finish the level, so it shouldn't be in such an obvious place.

 

However, now I need to reconsider what to put there, because to pick it up the player crosses a linedef that triggers stuff necessary for the level progression. hm. hmmm. 

 

I think I'll need a few more thing placement iterations before I'm satisfied.

 

But as you might be able to tell from this update, I am actually fairly close to an actual testable state. I'd say I'm still within my own progress estimation (and expectation) ^^;

[Zylinderkatze]

Like meeting an old friend

^{Too much detail? ^^;}

 

Not sure if I am satisfied with the "track wheels" just yet (the rear ones are mostly obscured by the cover). I actually like the way the "track"-like appearance of the texture turned out (hint: it's TEKWALL5) but there's no really satisfying flat / floor texture to go with it. I might make the cover from the rear wheels extend all the way to the front so only a bit of the tracks peeks out.. but this already looks pretty neat (in game, too).

 

Speaking of "in game": Strangely, the alignment that the editor shows is a few pixels off (vertically) for TEKWALL5, when compared to how Vanilla renders it.. even though TEKWALL5 is a 128 x 128 texture.

Any clues?

[Zylinderkatze]

Better tracks, fer sher.

^{I believe this implies that the only way this thing can turn is.. well.. like a tank xD}

 

Also, I'm off to bed now~ G'night!

[taufan99]

Mentioning @tam because of the Doomcute excavator.

[Zylinderkatze]

Forky now has a furnished home!

^{In-editor view, I know. But it does work in Vanilla. I checked ^^}

 

Also, this is the maximum of Vanilla-safe detail I can put in this room (because Forky leeches a lot of vertexes / lines / sectors). I might reconsider a few textures because this is really.. drab. There's another part that opens up "unexpectedly", shall I say.. and once that's open, there's one spot in this room where the seg-limit is practically already.. being stretched a bit >_>

 

I'm also not 100% happy with the crate right under the editor crosshair.. that might still change, too.

 

But not today because I promised myself I'd go to bed before midnight and.. that means I have 14 minutes to get going! O_o;

 

Goodnight x3

[ketmar]

i wonder what they're planning to do with those barrels. i bet that workers are filling some of them with colored water and putting booze contrabanda inside.

Edited May 4, 2020 by ketmar

[Zylinderkatze]

18 hours ago, ketmar said:

i wonder what they're planning to do with those barrels. i bet that workers are filling some of them with colored water and putting booze contrabanda inside.

 

O_O ...nooooo? no. no that's definitely not it!

[Zylinderkatze]

Don't look so smug >_<

^{Find forky!}

 

Yeah.. so.. the flow of this starting area? I'd say it's pretty golden by now. 

 

There's a bunch of voluntary loopbacks to here, too, if you want to get all the secrets (and all the rocket launchers x3) but even as a straight "run through" with the shortest possible route it's pretty neat. Which means that "the first 50% of the level are done 100%".. and "the remaining 50% of the level are done 80%"*) and in the process of being polished. But not too much. I don't want to blind anyone ^^;

 

*) what a roundabout way of saying that I'm 90% done.. smh.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Zylinderkatze

[Zylinderkatze]

Last post for the day~

^{Too much detail? Psh.}

 

This is just another set piece, letting you see one of the transport carts in (in)action. And to block your path xD

Only an in-editor view because I wanted to tweak the angle.

Also it's not really done yet. But I wanted to share :)

I like how the turntable turned (haha) out.

 

Goodnight!

[ketmar]

perfect FPS killer for k8vavoom with shadow volumes and 3d models. ;-)

[Zylinderkatze]

8 hours ago, ketmar said:

perfect FPS killer for k8vavoom with shadow volumes and 3d models. ;-)

You know, all playful comments aside and without any sarcasm, I'm very curious to see my levels in "k8" when they are done :)

 

I'll get in touch with you about any suggested / necessary adjustments that might have to be made for that.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Zylinderkatze

[ketmar]

1 hour ago, Zylinderkatze said:

I'll get in touch with you about any suggested / necessary adjustments that might have to be made for that.

if you didn't overused exploits like flat floodfill bug, there should be no problems. there is a limited form of floolfill bug support, tho, so chances are everything will Just Work.

 

that barrel setup can be painful only for shadow volume rendering, when barrels replaced with 3d models, and those models cast shadows (because barrels emits green light, and that light produces shadows) -- a very specific case. it won't slow everything down to single digits, tho.

 

so don't worry, i don't think that your maps will require any changes to work. k8vavoom even has support for infinite tall monsters (but i doubt that anybody will voluntary turn it on ;-).

Edited May 6, 2020 by ketmar

[tamara mochaccina]

HoLY cRap The eXCaVatOr Is BacK HOlY cOw!!!!