Vengeance 2: Invasion (new screenshots)

[Kor]

As I said I would do in one of my previous posts, here are some screen shots from Vengeance 2:  Invasion.  These are all from the same level, which has the very Doomey title of Complex 666.  The textures come from a variety of sources, some were made by me (like the sky textures) over the years and others are from the first Vengeance (which used Gothic DM, Requiem, and Malice textures).  Others are from Ultimate Invasion, Eternal Doom, and texture sets by NiGTHMARE.  The level is Invasion's E1M9, E2M1, E2M2 and E2M5 all combined into one massive level.  The lighting settings are set to bright, since I don't have a room to play Doom in that's both comfy and dark.  So these screenshots aren't truly representative of the lighting.  Besides I want you to be able to see them.  :)

 

EDIT:  I changed the lighting settings in GZDoom and took some better screenshots.  Some are from areas I hadn't taken the first time around.  And no, this level is not yet done.

 

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Kor

[TheGreenZap]

Looks awesome! I can't wait to play it!

Since your post the other day I've been playing through Invasion and Vengeance both. Really enjoying them!

 

 

[Chris Hansen]

Looks great! Perfect amount of detail for me and the texture usage and lighting is spot on.

[Kor]

1 hour ago, TheGreenZap said:

Looks awesome! I can't wait to play it!

Since your post the other day I've been playing through Invasion and Vengeance both. Really enjoying them!

 

 

Thanks :)

[Kor]

12 hours ago, Chris Hansen said:

Looks great! Perfect amount of detail for me and the texture usage and lighting is spot on.

Thanks.  I've played with dynamic lights in GZDoom. While they're way easier to work with I just can't get used to the idea of using them instead of sector based lighting.  And I find levels that are too detailed feel like they bog down the gameplay.  Don't know why though.

[Omniarch]

Hell yes, loving the look of this, especially the goth-tech computer areas. Looking forward to playing!

 

One question though: the sector lighting seems a little, muted, especially compared with the original Vengeance. Is this due to hardware rendering or have you not finished with it yet?

[Kor]

1 minute ago, Omniarch said:

Hell yes, loving the look of this, especially the goth-tech computer areas. Looking forward to playing!

 

One question though: the sector lighting seems a little, muted, especially compared with the original Vengeance. Is this due to hardware rendering or have you not finished with it yet?

It's the lighting settings.  I try to pay a decent amount of attention to the lighting when doing a level.  Unfortunately I'm not playing Doom in a dark room so I have the settings set to be brighter.

[Chris Hansen]

I understand you completely and I tend to do the exact same thing. Maybe it's becasue we're stuck in the 90's ;)

 

Lighting can at least impact gameplay and have quite an influence on how the player is challenged. Darkness helps the demons and plays tricks on the player's mind. Bright areas make them feel comfortable and safe, but can be deceiving. On the other hand we have the immense level of detail where, as you say, it can really bog down the gameplay because it doesn't necessarily add anything to the gamplay. It adds atmosphere and creates immersion, but a super detailed ceiling have very little impact on how the player shoots or gets shot.

 

And yes, your screenshots tend to be on the muted side. That's why I always prefer playing on software rendered sourceports. I like the lighting better. I tried my hand at creating a level once that featured lots of dynamic lighting. Every sector was either 112 or less in brigthness. All lighting was produced by dynamic lights. It looked good, but was gzDoom exclusive iirc. And too labor intensive for me, so it stranded in my scraps folder ;) But it looked good and maybe you should give it another go if you have more patience than me ;)

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Chris Hansen

[Kor]

12 minutes ago, Chris Hansen said:

I understand you completely and I tend to do the exact same thing. Maybe it's becasue we're stuck in the 90's ;)

 

Lighting can at least impact gameplay and have quite an influence on how the player is challenged. Darkness helps the demons and plays tricks on the player's mind. Bright areas make them feel comfortable and safe, but can be deceiving. On the other hand we have the immense level of detail where, as you say, it can really bog down the gameplay because it doesn't necessarily add anything to the gamplay. It adds atmosphere and creates immersion, but a super detailed ceiling have very little impact on how the player shoots or gets shot.

 

And yes, your screenshots tend to be on the muted side. That's why I always prefer playing on software rendered sourceports. I like the lighting better. I tried my hand at creating a level once that featured lots of dynamic lighting. Every sector was either 112 or less in brigthness. All lighting was produced by dynamic lights. It looked good, but was gzDoom exclusive iirc. And too labor intensive for me, so it stranded in my scraps folder ;) But it looked good and maybe you should give it another go if you have more patience than me ;)

 

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Nice screenies.  Dynamic lights certainly have their pros.  Like creating lots of gradual lighting changes is easier, I think.  Better one dynamic light than five or six sectors.  What I don't like about them is they don't cast shadows.  And if you put too many it hogs up processing power.  At least that happened on one of my older computers.  But that was back in the mid 2000s.

 

As for the muted lighting, perhaps I'll change the settings so it won't look so plain and take more screen shots.  

[Chris Hansen]

11 minutes ago, Kor said:

What I don't like about them is they don't cast shadows.

Then take a look at what Ketmar posted a while back using (an unreleased version of) k8vavoom! :)

[Kor]

2 hours ago, Chris Hansen said:

Then take a look at what Ketmar posted a while back using (an unreleased version of) k8vavoom! :)

Looks cool.  I'm pretty much only familiar with Boom (since I was on the team of level designers that did the demo levels for it) and ZDoom-based stuff.  It'd be nice if GZDoom could do that.  But I'm not sure I want to convert around 40 levels to a format that k8vavoom can work with.  The level displayed in this topic would work, since it's in UDMF format, but the rest are just in GZDoom/Hexen format.

[Korozive]

You had me at the first screenshot. Will play this soon.

[Kor]

10 minutes ago, Korozive said:

You had me at the first screenshot. Will play this soon.

It's not released yet, but your enthusiasm is appreciated :)

[Gez]

While K8Vavoom's shadows are a lot more advanced, GZDoom can still cast shadows from dynlights, in a more limited way -- only single-sided linedefs do.

 

 

[Chris Hansen]

Cool, @Gez! Looks really good!

[Kor]

5 hours ago, Gez said:

While K8Vavoom's shadows are a lot more advanced, GZDoom can still cast shadows from dynlights, in a more limited way -- only single-sided linedefs do.

 

 

It's been so long since I experimented with dynamic lights I didn't realize.  Plus I recall someone saying that shadows would never be implemented in Gzdoom because of how much of a programming challenge they were.  Thanks for the demo.

[Afterglow]

Since returning have you had a look at OTEX? It has drop-in replacements for many textures in those scenes including some really good bricks. In the post-BTSX era, the SurgeDM stuff can look a bit dated now. Although we're making Doom levels here - dated is our jam.

[Kor]

3 hours ago, Afterglow said:

Since returning have you had a look at OTEX? It has drop-in replacements for many textures in those scenes including some really good bricks. In the post-BTSX era, the SurgeDM stuff can look a bit dated now. Although we're making Doom levels here - dated is our jam.

Yeah I've checked out OTEX.  Very good set of textures.  I was considering using it for this project but that would mean abandoning V2's massive texture set, some of which I did myself.  I am considering finally finishing Invasion 2 and using OTEX for it, though.

Edited March 30, 2021 by Kor