1994 tune-up challenge (*updated /idgames link*)

[Phobus]

I've had to delay it a week, but tonight I'm going to start working. I'll get back in about 3 hours with a progress report, and then 3 hours after that another. In that time I should have made quite an impact, and be good to start finishing up shortly after.

Sorry for taking a week to start, but now I'm on it things should move swiftly.

EDIT: Here's your three hour update - I've done a bit, but nothing worth showing off. I'll concede I've been distracted once or twice in this time.

[Phobus]

Final update for the night - after 3 hours of work I've got some music (it's quite a clever choice if Castlevania: Dracula X really is the 5th Castlevania game), decided on INFINITY PLUS as a name and basically made a compromise between the initial design and Malinku's changes, tidying the starting area up, aligning textures, etc.

This is a bit harder than I thought it'd be, but I think I've gotten a good feel for what I'm doing now - elaborating on what I think the other two authors' intentions were, generally tidying up texturing and aesthetics and sorting out the odd gameplay and design decisions that the map has. The layout is largely being left unchanged, as I don't see much of an issue there.

Haven't got any screenshots or anything yet, as the current changes seem quite underwhelming to me. Fortunately I've got some plans for the untouched areas that should look a lot more impressive when implemented, and hopefully be less work as they don't involve lots of fiddling with STARTAN! I'll get back to it tomorrow, starting earlier and coming up with some real results, hopefully.

[Megamur]

Phobus said:

...after 3 hours of work I've got some music (it's quite a clever choice if Castlevania: Dracula X really is the 5th Castlevania game)...

If anything, Rondo of Blood would be the fifth game, but it and Dracula X use roughly the same soundtrack, so it doesn't much matter. Heck, if you go by the Japanese naming schemes, the only numbered sequel is Castlevania II--all the rest have alternate titles or subtitles to denote that they're sequels.

But that's not terribly relevant to the topic, is it?

[Phobus]

Varying sources claim that Rondo of Blood and Dracula X are much the same game, just different versions. In any case, no, it's not that relevant - I just was aiming to have VAMPIR5 use music from the 5th Vampire Hunter game. ;)

[GreyGhost]

traversd said:

Sorry mate, I probably didn't explain it right. I meant in place of the ones you had demo'd already is all, not to increase the border etc.

Sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake. Is this what you had in mind?


(640x400 - 23k)

I've more or less finished taking screenshots of the old maps (252 so far) and will start sorting through them tomorrow.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Phobus said:

Varying sources claim that Rondo of Blood and Dracula X are much the same game, just different versions. In any case, no, it's not that relevant - I just was aiming to have VAMPIR5 use music from the 5th Vampire Hunter game. ;)

Little known fact - the X is actually a Roman numeral. Rondo of Blood was the tenth game in the series.

[traversd]

GreyGhost said:

Sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake. Is this what you had in mind?


(640x400 - 23k)

I've more or less finished taking screenshots of the old maps (252 so far) and will start sorting through them tomorrow.

Yeh, that's what I meant. Hrm, I'm thinking your marble looks better. especially with the blood at the bottom. Happy for you to make a call on it. Startan or marble versions get votes from me :o)

travers

[Phobus]

Dragonsbrethren said:

Little known fact - the X is actually a Roman numeral. Rondo of Blood was the tenth game in the series.

Interesting... in that case, some of the impact of the song/name combo is lost. I have, however, grown rather attached to the music, so I'll leave it in.

[Snarboo]

@GreyGhost: Here's the image I'd like to use for my level.

It's taken from the main "hub" area of the original map. I'm worried it might look a little out of place depending on which port you used to take the intermission screenshots, however. If it does, would you mind taking a similar screenshot?

Edit:
Going over traversd's earlier criticisms for my map, I'm going to fix the issues he mentioned. I was satisfied with the map at the time, but I think it would be good to do one last revision so it can be as great as possible.

[GreyGhost]

The screenshots are being taken in Chocolate Doom, so while I won't be able to duplicate the angle of that shot - something similar is possible.

traversd said:

Yeh, that's what I meant. Hrm, I'm thinking your marble looks better. especially with the blood at the bottom. Happy for you to make a call on it. Startan or marble versions get votes from me :o)

I'm leaning towards a slightly cleaned up version of the Startan border - that actually started out as a joke.

[Memfis]

I think you should make those screenshots without gamma correction.

Btw, great map, Snarboo. That music bar (or what was it) is one of the most memorable things in the wad.

[Megamur]

Dragonsbrethren said:

Little known fact - the X is actually a Roman numeral. Rondo of Blood was the tenth game in the series.

Technically, I guess that's true, if you consider the MSX Akumajou Dracula to be a separate game from the NES/Famicom original.

[GreyGhost]

Memfis said:

I think you should make those screenshots without gamma correction.

What! All 252 of them! :P

At most I'm using gamma correction level 1 in my shots, though I agree there's places like here where even that's unnecessary.

EDIT - @Snarboo: How's this look?


(640x400 - 42k)

[traversd]

I've updated Printz MAP26 to better handle the sky effect. It now shows sky3 through the hole in the wall at the start and cacodemon cage, and sky1 everywhere else.

-t

[Snarboo]

GreyGhost said:

EDIT - @Snarboo: How's this look?

Absolutely perfect! :D

[GreyGhost]

Heh - I had to retrofit the map with a lift to take that shot.


I have good news and bad news about the intermission screens - I'll start with the bad. Having finally got around to testing with multiple CWILV** lumps in a wad I've found that of the ports I've tested the prboom family are the only ones that don't handle the screens in a goofy looking way. By "goofy looking" I mean displaying an off-centre CWILV** lump on the "ENTERING" screen. Anyone know of or care to suggest a workaround for that problem?

The good news is I've assembled the first batch of intermission screen candidates (assuming we don't drop the idea), in wad form instead of clogging the thread with image links. Here they are. I'm still open to suggestions for screenshots though some of the original maps are so bland it's hard to find an interesting angle. I've temporarily included VAMPIR51.WAD in there as CVILV31 but without mapper credits until that's resolved.

[traversd]

Am I right in thinking prboom "works better" with this idea than the other ports simply because it does not show the "now entering" screen?

I looked at it in GZDoom and whilst I could tell it was displayed lower than the end-level pic it didn't look out of place. Heck, that screen appears/disappears so quick I don't think I'd stress about it too much.

EDIT: awesome work btw. The chosen screens look great. I know what you mean by boring/dull screenshots of originals but I think you've captured a recognizable part of each map. well done mate :o) thanks for your efforts.

-t

[traversd]

1994TU_23032011A.ZIP --> http://www.mediafire.com/?2g1porwf16a4iib

New version to kick-about with.

Updates:
- Have included original archives.
- Have placed any .txt's provided by new authors in archive. (Will make a new single .txt for the pack just prior to sending to idgames).
- Have included GreyGhost's mapname gfx.
- Map01: updated starting area to prevent HWDs killing player easily; Fixed a teleport pad in the chainsaw secret.
- Map02: altered nukage damage-level down to 5hp; altered radiation suit secret a touch; placed a small island in 2nd nukage room for player to sit on; made red-key door trim brighter; made ceiling skin-effect in red-key area glow and scroll; removed the hanging bodies from red-key area as they were blocking player movement.
- Map11: fixed imps stuck in walls.
- Map12: fixed DNF possibility as seen in Memfis' demo. Also added plasmagun and removed hanging body from RL alcove.
- Map15: altered combo switch to avoid problems shown in Memfis' demo; add switch to lower plat near starting area.
- Map17: added hitscan ammo to area with GR linedefs to open doors.
- Map22: fixed sector 580 (removed damaging floor type)
- Map24: AB sent in new update to fix blue-key door and some other bits; I changed the texture of a door just prior to blue-key area as demo from Memphis seemed to not recognize it was a door straight away.
- Map26: fixed sky transfer setup to work in current map slot.
- Map31: added it to the archive :< whoops.

Those guys working on fixing up maps send me a pm with a link when they are ready and I'll update & re-upload the test-file.

BTW - Greyghost made a suggestion IIRC to change titlepic to a transition image of a map (so 1994 map blends into 2011 map). Happy to hear suggestions on specific map and area that would suit. Also happy to hear from anyone with the talent to make such an image ;o)

[Phobus]

Looks good, although I've not checked in-game, as your screenshots and reported issue paint the picture well enough at the moment.

VAMPIR5 is being worked on by me, and I've retitled it Infinity Plus. I'd credit Malinku and I in the CWILV lump, although I don't know what mapslot it'll end up in yet, as I'm still working through the visuals ATM.

[traversd]

Phobus said:

Looks good, although I've not checked in-game, as your screenshots and reported issue paint the picture well enough at the moment.

VAMPIR5 is being worked on by me, and I've retitled it Infinity Plus. I'd credit Malinku and I in the CWILV lump, although I don't know what mapslot it'll end up in yet, as I'm still working through the visuals ATM.

The tougher you make it... the less maps I then have to move up the order ;o)

I'm hoping it can sit somewhere between map16-20. But if earlier so be it.

-t

[Phobus]

It's a good layout for making tough battles, so aside from the fact that it looks somewhere between an E1 map and one of my tech-bases, it can easily be in the higher slots. I'll lean that way, to make life a little easier.

[Memfis]

MAP16: missing sky-transfer? (http://img841.imageshack.us/i/doom137.png/)

I liked MAP31. It was cool to finally kill those bastards from E1M8's final room.

[printz]

Sorry to come up this late, but I've been thinking that it might really hurt in the long run if it's not done.

Specifically it's about the sky-transfer in my map. The revenant crack has SKY3 which is good, and the accessible areas have SKY1 just like in the original (though Doom 2 SKY2 would have fit better, I understand that it would mean tampering with the texture set, which is too much work to do).

However, the Cacodemon crack has SKY2 in the original, so I think my tuneup should have it as well, so that people from the future who play the map won't get the discrepancy.

The reason I had set it to SKY3 when I was mapping is that I was working with the bare Doom 2 texture set (didn't know there was a set at the time), which only had ONE hell sky available, not TWO like classic Doom 1.

Another recently discovered problem: the faux switch door between the cell dump and the start is jammed in Eternity! It's as if the door is blocked by a neighboring sector, but I don't see any in the editor!

Thank you.

[traversd]

Memfis said:

MAP16: missing sky-transfer? (http://img841.imageshack.us/i/doom137.png/)

I liked MAP31. It was cool to finally kill those bastards from E1M8's final room.

Thanks mate - I've corrected map16 (noticed a couple of other sectors missing tags for the xfer as well.

[traversd]

printz said:

Sorry to come up this late, but I've been thinking that it might really hurt in the long run if it's not done.

Specifically it's about the sky-transfer in my map. The revenant crack has SKY3 which is good, and the accessible areas have SKY1 just like in the original (though Doom 2 SKY2 would have fit better, I understand that it would mean tampering with the texture set, which is too much work to do).

However, the Cacodemon crack has SKY2 in the original, so I think my tuneup should have it as well, so that people from the future who play the map won't get the discrepancy.

The reason I had set it to SKY3 when I was mapping is that I was working with the bare Doom 2 texture set (didn't know there was a set at the time), which only had ONE hell sky available, not TWO like classic Doom 1.

Another recently discovered problem: the faux switch door between the cell dump and the start is jammed in Eternity! It's as if the door is blocked by a neighboring sector, but I don't see any in the editor!

Thank you.

I had a look and think I've got it for you mate. I re-declared the RSKY# patches in the PNAMES lump and made some new textures D2_SKY# so that the original doom2 skies can be used. In doing this I've now made the main part of map26 use the normal doom2 sky2. I've left the new sky3 in the revenant hole and the original doom2 sky3 is in the cacodemon cage.

I've also altered that faux switch to (I think) work in Eternity. It was a DR special but the sector had a tag so I made it an SR special and cleared the DR specials on the outer linedefs. So in essence it's not a faux switch anymore. hope that's OK.

[traversd]

I've made some updates to map12(set a sky transfer as it has it's own sky in the texture lump) and map15, fixed some crates.

-t

[GreyGhost]

traversd said:

Am I right in thinking prboom "works better" with this idea than the other ports simply because it does not show the "now entering" screen?

That's basically the situation (I'm not secretly attempting to make this a prBoom-only wad). ;-)

I looked at it in GZDoom and whilst I could tell it was displayed lower than the end-level pic it didn't look out of place. Heck, that screen appears/disappears so quick I don't think I'd stress about it too much.

To see the full horror of it - select a resolution of 640x400 or 1280x800 with forced 4:3 aspect ratio. I'm investigating ZDoom's intermission scripts as a possible solution.

[printz]

traversd said:

I re-declared the RSKY# patches in the PNAMES lump and made some new textures D2_SKY# so that the original doom2 skies can be used. In doing this I've now made the main part of map26 use the normal doom2 sky2.

Thanks a lot :D

and the original doom2 sky3 is in the cacodemon cage.

Heh, actually I meant using Doom1/Freedoom SKY2 in there, but never mind, because Doom2 SKY3 looks much better, not to mention that we're having a full Doom1-Doom2 fusion going on here with this megawad, and so we get to see both Doom hells in the map.

[Phobus]

If you're using ZDoom's MAPINFO lump you can change the image displayed at the intermission on a map-by-map basis. Whilst this might not be an ideal solution, it'd certainly work. I'll have to check out how the intermissions currently look to get a proper feel for it and see what other suggestions I might have.

[printz]

Much to my horror, I've discovered that the door is jamming (in Eternity) because it contains a free linedef within. It appears that vanilla Doom is NOT supposed to open doors with non-sector linedefs drawn within, but Boom can. Trying it in MBF or Eternity with Boom settings off jams it.

I guess you can move the inset trigger linedef into one of the edges or leave it as it is, with the risk of people forgetting their vanilla settings getting stuck. I don't think that DR was the culprit, now. In fact, I'd keep it DR, so that players can close it down if they want to hide.