Parallel Doomensions - Quake 1 Styled Community Megawad

[Egg Boy]

I thought the point of a community project was to have a large variety of mapping styles. This isn't dtwid. To me it seems like the point is to make quake themed levels not levels that emulate or necessarily play like quake.

[whirledtsar]

Id like to make a map for the medieval episode.

 

Also, id like to chime in that using death exits for custom episode lengths could be a good idea. Or perhaps each episode could start with a base map (like the original Quake's format). Because base is the least unique theme in quake, and might be less popular for mappers.

[plums]

@Nine Inch Heels I agree that everything I said would be an issue with using ZDoom format maps would also be a problem with Boom format maps. But I think ZDoom would exacerbate all those problems, significantly. I've certainly played my share of Boom-format community projects where every map had its own feel, lots of maps feel like they're clearly done by the authors of those maps, etc., but many still hold together well enough as a cohesive experience. Any ZDoom community project I've played that comes to mind (and in fact many single author ZDoom maps or projects) has either lacked this cohesion, or is so full of ZDoom features-for-the-sake-of-features that I quickly lose interest in playing it. Admittedly, I haven't played too many ZDoom CPs, there's definitely some self-selection bias there; also, as you say, these things can be ironed out in playtesting, but that ups the requirements for quality control and project oversight more.

 

Anyhow I'm coming off as pretty anti-ZDoom here so I want to stress that I've played lots of great ZDoom maps, and opening up the project to ZDoom features definitely has the potential to make it different from Dimension of the Boomed, in addition to being able to capture the Quake feel better. I just think it's a double-edged sword that has the danger of making the overall results worse, and/or requiring a lot more management decisions.

Edited March 16, 2020 by plums

[Agentbromsnor]

2 hours ago, Morpheus666 said:

Is it possible if i can do a Secret map that has nothing to do with Quake but is still in the ID universe?

 

(i already have a special plan for it)

Please keep it within the Quake 1 style. It would be jarring to have a secret map that suddenly breaks style.
 

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Unless there's an insane degree of quality control and kind of "invasive" project lead decisions, this will happen anyway. Every community project I've made a map for, or just played, was inconsistent in theme, mapping approaches, design decisions, scope of maps, quality of maps, visual aspects of maps, style of gameplay, etc... Also I'm not buying into the "unnecessary scipting" argument, because that's stuff that can easily be ironed out during playtesting, if it even becomes a problem in the first place. Custom durations on lifts or doors are also not an argument, because you can very well have those in boom format maps too.

I agree with the first part; I think the large variety of mapping-styles is what makes a community project so interesting. It's cool to see what each mapper brings to the table.

In that regard, I think it's good to keep Boom format as our base considering that this will allow our project to remain accessible to most mappers and modders in our community.

I love GZDoom, but the problem with managing a community project using such an advanced source port is that it would become really difficult to manage without setting really explicit restrictions on what people can make for it. For example: scripting would become an option, which is cool on paper, but I don't think every Doom mapper will have the knowledge to properly use this to their advantage, while others might go absolutely nuts with it and risk alienating every other map on the roster.

Tl;dr: Let's just keep it Boom format.

[Agentbromsnor]

5 hours ago, Juza said:

Why, similar to E4 of Quake, of course. Large, abstract castles and forgotten, empty cities.

 

I don't see a reason for a mix of Runic x Medieval when we could use E4's own theme.

 

I'd prefer if Boom was kept. I'm not familar with ZDoom and it would probably require a lot more work and organization to keep consistencies with level design and teach mappers like me to use its features (for it has tons of them), who are unfamiliar with it. Boom is versatile and easy enough for about everyone to take advantage of its tricks to remind the player of Quake-like scripts, while still keeping the feel of Doom.

 

Edit: Can we get a Discord or IRC to discuss this project more conveniently? Completely fine if you'd rather keep discussions here, though.

 

I'd still want to include at least *some* Tech bases since they were featured in Quake.
I also think it would help in giving the WAD a nice level of variety since we only really have two themes to work with besides Base.

For instant messaging: I mostly use Telegram for this. I'm also on Discord, but I don't use it as often. PM me if you would like to trade usernames!

[Nine Inch Heels]

11 minutes ago, Agentbromsnor said:

In that regard, I think it's good to keep Boom format as our base considering that this will allow our project to remain accessible to most mappers and modders in our community.

The one thing I don't get is how it's possible that 2 people in a row missed the part where I said that including ZDoom as an option doesn't exclude boom mappers. You can quite comfortably have both formats in the same WAD-file and have it run in good old ZDoom (GZDoom would not even be necessary). But I'm over it. Would have liked to make a ZDoom map for this with plenty verticality and maybe even with custom gravity (Like Ziggurat Vertigo, but for Doom-gameplay and monsters), but since it's not in the cards I'll see myself out.

 

Looking forward to what people come up, though. So have fun everybody.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Nine Inch Heels

[IvanDobrovski]

One thing I need to mention is that all the bias against scripting is a little misguided. I see that it might alienate other maps but here's the thing, what if a mapper doesn't know Boom scripting and sequencing with voodoo dolls? A lot of maps use those, don't you think that person would be alienated if they can't use that feature? Or the "sliding door trick". What if someone uses that and the other person just doesn't get how to use it at all? Hell I still don't know why it works myself. Those things are comparably easier to achieve in Zdoom formats than Boom, they are more straightforward. I think all the problems could be subsided with proper restrictions on what features would make the cut or not. But I won't push it further if the decision is final.

 

In short I'd honestly say this is a bit of a missed opportunity but alas, good luck with the project.

Edited March 16, 2020 by IvanDobrovski

[Miss Bubbles]

This is a really cool idea! I'd like to take slot 17 :)

Edit: Oh wait, if the themes are being figured out and re-arranged still then I may have to claim a different number. I was intending to do one of the medieval map slots.
 

Edited March 16, 2020 by Miss Bubbles

[Aurelius]

3 hours ago, plums said:

Well the point of me making this resource pack is so that the textures are exactly the originals, so that aspect won't matter.

I'm actually wondering what you mean by exactly the same? Like Urthar said, Quake has a completely different palette to Doom, and so if you want the exact original textures, you'd need the exact same palette. And if you do that, then what happens to all the sprites? Those won't convert nicely to the Quake palette, so all guns, monsters, effects and decorations would have to be converted from Quake variants (which is a massive undertaking) or chosen from existing custom Quake assets that would transfer better, or some completely unrelated content that is more close to Quake's palette. 

 

The point is that Urthar already did all the work for you. BOOMQTEX has a custom palette that makes Quake textures look very close to the originals, and also incorporates Doom sprites without any significant loss to quality. And like I said previously, the entire pack is of very high quality, and trying to reinvent the wheel by doing it all over again seems very counterproductive. Now I'm not undermining your skills, and respect the idea of doing stuff for yourself, but I feel that the best approach by a mile in this case would be to work with BOOMQTEX as the base, and add any desired textures or other assets to that, with some helpful guidance from Urthar.

Now if you still want to do it all by yourself, then I won't bring it up again and wish you luck. But if nothing else, BOOMQTEX should be a quality benchmark, because the q1tex.wad is nowhere near the same quality.

[Agentbromsnor]

9 minutes ago, Miss Bubbles said:

This is a really cool idea! I'd like to take slot 17 :)

Edit: Oh wait, if the themes are being figured out and re-arranged still then I may have to claim a different number. I was intending to do one of the medieval map slots.
 

If you want to be completely sure, just state your preferred theme like you just did. If we do happen to reorganize the episode structure, it will make things much easier.

[Agentbromsnor]

9 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

I'm actually wondering what you mean by exactly the same? Like Urthar said, Quake has a completely different palette to Doom, and so if you want the exact original textures, you'd need the exact same palette. And if you do that, then what happens to all the sprites? Those won't convert nicely to the Quake palette, so all guns, monsters, effects and decorations would have to be converted from Quake variants (which is a massive undertaking) or chosen from existing custom Quake assets that would transfer better, or some completely unrelated content that is more close to Quake's palette. 

 

The point is that Urthar already did all the work for you. BOOMQTEX has a custom palette that makes Quake textures look very close to the originals, and also incorporates Doom sprites without any significant loss to quality. And like I said previously, the entire pack is of very high quality, and trying to reinvent the wheel by doing it all over again seems very counterproductive. Now I'm not undermining your skills, and respect the idea of doing stuff for yourself, but I feel that the best approach by a mile in this case would be to work with BOOMQTEX as the base, and add any desired textures or other assets to that, with some helpful guidance from Urthar.

Now if you still want to do it all by yourself, then I won't bring it up again and wish you luck. But if nothing else, BOOMQTEX should be a quality benchmark, because the q1tex.wad is nowhere near the same quality.

I agree, actually. One thing that is kind of annoying is that BOOMQTEX is not compatible with Q1TEX, so I'm going to have to texture my level all over again (but that's okay).

Regardless, I think we need to make a clear stand on what resources to use. I think using BOOMQTEX is the best option to go about this.

[plums]

17 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

The point is that Urthar already did all the work for you. BOOMQTEX has a custom palette that makes Quake textures look very close to the originals, and also incorporates Doom sprites without any significant loss to quality. And like I said previously, the entire pack is of very high quality, and trying to reinvent the wheel by doing it all over again seems very counterproductive. Now I'm not undermining your skills, and respect the idea of doing stuff for yourself, but I feel that the best approach by a mile in this case would be to work with BOOMQTEX as the base, and add any desired textures or other assets to that, with some helpful guidance from Urthar.

 

@Agentbromsnor So I'm opening BOOMQTEX right now and it is indeed quite good, and would probably be a great base to work from. The biggest downside is that the texture names don't match q1tex at all. How far are you on your maps? I'm still willing to assemble the pack from scratch, but Aurelius is right: a lot of the work has been done already.

 

Oh and you just replied :) OK, you should post a link to BOOMQTEX in the OP and direct people to use that. I'll look at what it's missing (if anything) and make myself available for improving it etc.

 

(@Aurelius Last night I made this post, however I didn't realize that BOOMQTEX existed at the time.)

 

edit: @Urthar is BOOMQTEX your work? Is it OK if I modify it for use with this project? I didn't see any permissions with it, or DOTB.

Edited March 16, 2020 by plums

[Agentbromsnor]

3 minutes ago, plums said:

 

@Agentbromsnor So I'm opening BOOMQTEX right now and it is indeed quite good, and would probably be a great base to work from. The biggest downside is that the texture names don't match q1tex at all. How far are you on your maps? I'm still willing to assemble the pack from scratch, but Aurelius is right: a lot of the work has been done already.

 

Oh and you just replied :) OK, you should post a link to BOOMQTEX in the OP and direct people to use that. I'll look at what it's missing (if anything) and make myself available for improving it etc.

And done! :)

Thanks for your help. I wanted to wait for your reply since I knew you were looking into this.

I'm going to have to retexture most of my map, but I'll manage. :p
I wasn't completely happy with my texturing anyway, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

[Aurelius]

5 minutes ago, Agentbromsnor said:

One thing that is kind of annoying is that BOOMQTEX is not compatible with Q1TEX, so I'm going to have to texture my level all over again (but that's okay).

This is mainly due to the discrepancy in naming conventions. BOOMQTEX uses a more systematic naming convention as far as I know, so it's also better for any asset additions. And the palette is work of art.

 

5 minutes ago, plums said:

Last night I made this post, however I didn't realize that BOOMQTEX existed at the time.

I noticed, hence I gave my recommendation for BOOMQTEX because of it's outstanding quality. Not to take anything away from Afterglow, but I feel that the work he put to q1tex back in late 90s was focused more on convenience, as it did not try to replicate the colors in Quake but rather just bring a few extra textures for Doom mappers to use.

[plums]

4 minutes ago, Agentbromsnor said:

Thanks for your help. I wanted to wait for your reply since I knew you were looking into this.

 

To be clear, my interest in this project is mainly stemmed from wanting a better quality pack than q1tex. If it turns out that I don't have to do anything to make that happen, I'm OK with that :)

[Urthar]

12 minutes ago, plums said:

@Urthar is BOOMQTEX your work? Is it OK if I modify it for use with this project? I didn't see any permissions with it, or DOTB.

 

Sure, modify it as you need. Just remember to credit the following if you use these assets:

 

Shambler sprites generated from Skiffy's updated Shambler MDL.            
Spawn sprites generated from Arcane Dimensions updated Spawn MDL.
Scrag sprites directly lifted from Eriance's Wicked monster.
Minigun pickup sprite from Tormentor667's Minigun.

Quake Theme & Parallel Dimensions MIDI by Silent Zorah.

[Morpheus666]

1 hour ago, Agentbromsnor said:

Please keep it within the Quake 1 style. It would be jarring to have a secret map that suddenly breaks style

 

I had a idea to recreate One of the Secret Levels from Doom 64 using the Quake Assets

Edited March 16, 2020 by Morpheus666

[DJVCardMaster]

Only IF the map styles are rearranged, I'd like to place my map on MAP01 of the second episode, for now it's OK on MAP02.

This is what I did so far: 

[Agentbromsnor]

Looks cool!

I'd like to bring up skies though, since we haven't really discussed them yet. Look at the screenshot below; this is how it looks for me using regular F_SKY1 with BOOMQTEX. This can't be right. Do we need to use DeHackEd to get this to load properly?

Also: @Urthar, I notice that BOOMQTEX also contains MIDI renditions of the Quake NIN songs (which are seriously cool). Are you okay with us using those too? How about altering the menu title to "Parallel Doomensions", is that allowed?

Edited March 16, 2020 by Agentbromsnor

[Morpheus666]

I'm having isssues with the Pallete, Should i just merge My wad with the Resources or should i just have to deal with the ugly Pallet Raped textures while i design it?

 

P.S Disregard this since i was just being a idiot.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Morpheus666

[Agentbromsnor]

@Morpheus666, did you remove any other WAD besides Doom2.wad from your resources tab?
This isn't how it looks for me.

[Morpheus666]

Apparently my version of GZdoom builder didn't like me Loading The Resource wad BEFORE the Doom 2 Iwad

(i just realized that i had accidentally clicked Doom builder 2.0 So apparently the wads aren't compatable with older versions of Doom builder.)

Edited March 16, 2020 by Morpheus666

[plums]

@DJVCardMaster looks good, but in case you haven't, make sure you have switched to BOOMQTEX! The texture names aren't going to be compatible with q1tex after all. I'm partly responsible for this confusion, so my apologies to anyone who's affected. If anyone is really put out by this, I can maybe help convert your maps.

 

@Agentbromsnor I don't know if there's a good way to make sure people aren't going to use q1tex, maybe update the thread title? Who else was asking for a resource pack already, @Walter confetti, anyone else?

 

@Morpheus666 Doom 2 has its own palette which will take precedence over boomqtex, if you load it after.

[Agentbromsnor]

@plums, I've already mentioned it in the opening post. Perhaps we should give everybody who asked for the resource-pack a mention just in case?

[Morpheus666]

7 minutes ago, plums said:

 

@Morpheus666 Doom 2 has its own palette which will take precedence over boomqtex, if you load it after.

 

Thank you for clearing that up, I have decided to try to mimic American McGee's Quake level styles. (to the best of my abilities obviously.)

[Aurelius]

@Agentbromsnor Just as a clarification (and if the episodes are now locked in), I can take the slot 23 for a Runic map.

[Walter confetti]

Cool to see new rules added and using a "stable" texture / resource pack (i have a boomqtex version downloaded long ago that i'm not sure if it works for this project, otherwise i've downloaded the new version to use)!

 

I'd like to make a base style map...

[Agentbromsnor]

9 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

@Agentbromsnor Just as a clarification (and if the episodes are now locked in), I can take the slot 23 for a Runic map.

Done. I'll also take the MAP01 slot, seeing as people are maybe a bit hesitant to start out the WAD. :p

Not sure if this needs to be specified, but I think it's fine if people take on two or even three slots as long as you can get them done.

[Morpheus666]

Has a deadline been debated on for the Project yet?

 

As well as the fact that i am creating a custom level for Map 31, it's based off Various H.P Lovecraft stories

Edited March 17, 2020 by Morpheus666

[plums]

Here is version 1 of pdqtex.wad: pdqtex-01.zip

 

Currently there is very little difference from boomqtex.wad, but that will change soon.

• Skies work properly. E1 sky is the blue sky, E2 is the purple one, E3 is stars that kind of suck and could be improved. Assuming you're targeting PrBoom+ and ZDoom (or anything else that supports sky transfers) you can change the sky with a linedef 272 action -- there's a demo MAP01 that shows this, and scrolls the sky as well. This might be hard to figure out for some people so I can possibly make a template that you can just paste into your map.
• ALL other Doom 2 textures besides skies don't work. They didn't work before, but now they super don't.
• Black textures ALLBLACK and ALLBLAKF have been added. There were already some black textures but I added new ones to make sure they work properly, and so people don't think they can't use the old ones because they were called AVOID. I recommend using the new ones.
• A new dummy texture called ADONTUSE exists. It looks bad on purpose. Don't use it.

Plans for the next version:

• Add bloodfalls from Doom 2, and other liquid wall textures based on Quake's liquid flats.
• Add any other stock Doom 2 textures that are required. @Agentbromsnor let me know if there are others you want.
• Add some more Quake textures that aren't in boomqtex.

Anything else needed?

 

Also Agentbromsnor, boomqtex (and now pdqtex) has some custom monsters, a replacement for the chaingun, etc. You should decide if you want to use these resources as well, or not.

 

@Urthar sorry I didn't realize the extent of the work you did when you first suggested this project use boomqtex, that's some top-notch work in there. How did you swirl the liquid flats? That's something I'd previously played around with a lot, but could never get a satisfactory result using 64px flats. These ones look great though.

 

pdqtex-01.zip

Edited March 17, 2020 by plums
it would help if i actually attached the file wouldn't it