Crucifix Canyon - A Large Cliff and Canyon Themed Map

[Logamuffin]

Inspired by maps such as The Living End and Mt. Erebus, I took a crack at making an incredibly open level with lots of natural details and good vistas. This map, titled Crucifix Canyon is what I came up with. Expect many waterfalls as well as a lot of verticality and some platforming! This map also has a custom MIDI made specially for this level by my fine friend DisPatch (Patrick Chaney). The track is titled "The Dweller Drinks" and it is pretty damn good. 

 

This wad is one level for Doom II, around 15-20 minutes of playtime, moderate difficulty. The map was tested on and designed for GZDoom (UDMF), and requires mouselook due to it being a highly vertical level. Jumping is also recommended though it isn't strictly necessary. Also this is my first map! I didn't want to lead with that because I know that's a cliche but I thought I'd mention it. But since I'm a first timer, I'd really appreciate it if you gave me some feedback!

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

 

Credits:

Patrick Chaney - Music

Mechadon - Skybox Texture

Not Jabba - Waterfall Texture (since doom 2 lacks a waterfall texture for some reason)

cc4-tex.wad - Various Textures

 

Download:

crucifixcanyon.zip (updated)

Edited May 9, 2023 by Logamuffin
Updated level

[Delisk]

 

[baja blast rd.]

FDA: 

 

 

The one big piece of advice I'd give here is lighting. You have some going on, but most areas are a uniform 192 light level, and the improvement from having no lighting to even 10-15 minutes' worth is massive. I noticed you have lighting exclusively in dark areas, so it probably was more intuitive to do there. What you can do in bright areas is basically the inverse of dark areas: look for spots in the area to add darker, shadowed patches.

 

Even mediocre lighting is huge boost over none, and in Doom it does not have to really "make sense."

 

The text file gives permission so I'm doing some quick edits for demonstration. I spent very little time on this and you know the map way more than I do, so for future maps (or this one) you'd be able to do even better. 

 

Spoiler

 

But here's playing around with the tunnel behind the exit cavern, which seems like a good spot to add some moodier darker lighting. Drew a new sector around the sky holes for extra gradient lighting, but that was the only new geometry I added. 

 

Some darker areas are now 112 and 128; the middle range is 160; and the under-sky areas are 208, and I used some gradienting between those (160 -> 176 -> 208; both 16- and 32-gap gradients are fine and you don't don't really need to rely on 16 exclusively). 

 

 

In-game that looks like this: 

 

The big open valleys benefit from light variation in the areas they are peering into or that are attached to them in any way, such as adjoining caverns and those small waterfall tunnels. 

 

If a big outdoor area is too difficult to light, adding extra features like that, extra architecture and pure scenery areas (like caves you are not meant to get into), can give you an opportunity to apply lighting variation. 

 

 

Some other notes on the map:

 

The progression and exploration aspects were fun; the architecture works and there is a sense of adventure despite it being a brief map because of how you travel from one setting to another and how the areas "imply" more spatial depth to the world than strictly exists in the level geometry. 

 

Later on the spheres end up getting redundant. It's hard to use the secret mega and invul for anything for example. Was kind of hoping for something to use the invul on in the exit. With that amount of spheres you could afford more going on. 

 

It is not all that vertical map compared to most (what verticality it does have is good though), so I got around fine without mouselook and used it a couple times only because of the mention of it. 

[Logamuffin]

Thank you for giving some feedback! I'll be fixing some of the stuff you mentioned in a new version I'll be uploading, so let me respond a bit.

 

33 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

The one big piece of advice I'd give here is lighting. You have some going on, but most areas are a uniform 192 light level, and the improvement from having no lighting to even 10-15 minutes' worth is massive. I noticed you have lighting exclusively in dark areas, so it probably was more intuitive to do there. What you can do in bright areas is basically the inverse of dark areas: look for spots in the area to add darker, shadowed patches.

 

Even mediocre lighting is huge boost over none, and in Doom it does not have to really "make sense."

 

Yeah, I kinda skimped out on lighting because I couldn't find any good tutorials for it. Your advice and demonstration is really helpful and i'll be sure to employ some of that.

 

35 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

 

Later on the spheres end up getting redundant. It's hard to use the secret mega and invul for anything for example. Was kind of hoping for something to use the invul on in the exit. With that amount of spheres you could afford more going on. 

 

Yeah the final fight does seem kinda underwhelming with all the stuff you get. I could reduce the powerups but I decided to add some more stuff, namely a trap with some archies and revenants when you grab the yellow key. This forces the player to use the diamond structure like an arena how I intended instead of just firing rockets from above. Also I added a cyberdemon to the exit so you can use the invul on it! :)

 I'll be uploading an updated version shortly once I tweak the lighting. Thanks again for the feedback

[Logamuffin]

Alright I attached the updated version, with lighting, a bit more challenge and some other minor fixes and changes.

Edited May 9, 2023 by Logamuffin

[LadyMistDragon]

Video of the older version. Always like a good outdoor map! I was horrible with the platforming though (: