Consoles With Messages

[baja blast rd.]

Modifying the stock computer console textures to show messages, or for other worldbuilding reasons, is one of those pwad devices that has burned dimly but steadily over the past 28 years. 

 

Here is an early example from Invasion 2: Upper Decks (1994), a map that was well ahead of its time:

 

 

And an only-sort-of-ancient one from Elysion (2009):

 

 

I love that Doom's font style and even iconography is generally used in these -- even in many of the older ones -- which avoids the whole "clipart text plastered over the wall" feel of just in Arial or whatever, and makes it feel like it's really a message displayed on a computer screen.  

 

What are some of your favorite examples of this trope? 

[yakfak]

disturbia <3

[Chainie]

Console from Kansam's Trial e2m3:

[Xyzzу]

I'll never forget this one:

[Jimmy]

Fuck this thing.

 

[Xyzzу]

6 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Fuck this thing.

 

Spoiler

I shot it and it said that.

 

[Jimmy]

I forgot about that rofl

[Sena]

[Redneckerz]

Wouldn'it be amazing to animate these displays with additional lines of text, or just have the original be animated and in Vanilla?

 

Well, it can.

 

 

Or use it for animated effects:

 

[JadingTsunami]

[Gez]

Hell to Pay, MAP32: Self-Destruct.

 

It has these little countdown timers. Not very precise, they change every two minutes (and I haven't bothered to test the accuracy of those minutes...), but it's pretty good for something kludged in pure vanilla Doom. IIRC, they update more frequently towards the end of the countdown, but the level is quite short so you will generally not get to see the end. Pretty sure you get killed by some voodoo doll in a crusher sector if you do, though.

As you can see if you observe it closely, it's a series of slabs that lower. As the countdown goes, the screen gets closer and closer to the edge of the wall instead of being deep in the niche.

 

The same level has this scrolling marquee:

The whole text reads "message from the military base - to all personnel - - rocket attack about to begin - targets - main colonies on earth". There are a couple of other levels with long marquees in it, all are about these rockets sent by the Hellions to destroy the Earth. One is for other demons and basically says something like "come watch the launch of our Earth-shattering rockets, haha" and another one, also for the other demons, basically says "oh shit Doomguy's coming don't let him reach the rocket control center guys".

 

Then there's this in MAP30: Sky High.

the center screen did not display this message before I turned the switch off...

 

 

And of course, in the spirit of what Jimmy posted, there's this from MAP18: Big Crane.

If I had been late, you would have seen the megasphere that this message taunts about.

 

 

26 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

Wouldn'it be amazing to animate these displays with additional lines of text, or just have the original be animated and in Vanilla?

Even more amazing if that method would allow more than a grand total of 64 texels in length in vanilla compatibility, because it uses scrollers to animate the texture so you need one line per texel and there's a static limit of 64 scrollers in vanilla.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Gez

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

3 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

Wouldn'it be amazing to animate these displays with additional lines of text, or just have the original be animated and in Vanilla?

 

Well, it can.

 

 

Or use it for animated effects:

 

That teleporter effect looks amazing 

[Andromeda]

Mars War MAP20 (Land of the Lame)

[LadyMistDragon]

This comes from Sixareas.wad by Doug Ryerson. I'm not 100 percent certain that's a vanilla texture, but the flashing message says "Just Doom It!" )yeah, yeah, throw all your Shia LaBeauf gifs this way)