Some stuff on freedoom I'd like to talk about.

[Carny Goat]

I noticed on map 6 of Freedom 8.1 beta a bunch of hazard signs have X_X on them with the word danger below. Why not use the traditional radiation symbol or bio-hazard symbol? I know it's generic, but the X_X doesn't mesh well with toxic waste all over the floor. (A skull and crossed bones would work better.)

We got red armor vest now, but every time I pick one up, it says "you got the blue armor vest." Could use an update. Also why is the music on map 5 so dramatic? Can we go with something a little more from the waste tunnels map from Doom 2?

I finally picked up this thing after 4 years or so, I noticed things have changed a lot in freedoom. Namely the maps, they look more detailed than their Doom 2 counterparts. Are you sure your trying to create a freedoom? Or a higher quality Doom 2?

Edit: Btw, what does AGM stand for? Is this like a parallel to UAC?

[Gez]

Carniverous Goat said:

Edit: Btw, what does AGM stand for? Is this like a parallel to UAC?

Apparently, it stands for "AfterGlow's Mom" and is an in-joke; though if an actual story is ever written for Freedoom it'll probably get a more serious meaning like Advanced Genetic Manufacture or whatever else.

And yes it's a replacement for UAC.

[wesleyjohnson]

Probably because they are trying like mad to avoid any recognizable symbol that might be copyrighted.

[Carny Goat]

Replying late to this. No, I don't think hazard symbols of radioactive, biological, or even death or serious injury symbols are copyrighted to require purchasable licenses. Even if somebody puts a trade mark on the Radiological Hazard symbol, it should be redundant. Prove me otherwise with the law books.

Can't we just redo that texture to have a skull and crossed bones? I could replace the texture myself, no problem. I'd like to give the contributor a chance redo it himself. I just can't take it seriously. My apologies.

[Blastfrog]

It's an annoying emoticon that seems more "internet injoke"-like than anything in a serious game. I'll probably make a more respectable face later if the maintainers will accept it.

[hex11]

How about trollface with gas mask? ;-/)

[fraggle]

I'll be sad to see it go. I think it was one of the very first texture replacements submitted to the project back when it started. I'm kind of surprised it's survived this long without being replaced.

[LkMax]

How about an exclamation mark? Or just a nuke symbol, it's not copyrighted as far as I know. ;)

[Carny Goat]

fraggle said:

I'll be sad to see it go. I think it was one of the very first texture replacements submitted to the project back when it started. I'm kind of surprised it's survived this long without being replaced.

But dude, this is Doom. A freeware clone of it featuring non-copyrighted textures. This texture in particular detracts from it, making it feel less like Doom and more like a joke wad. It only survived because nobody spoke up about it until now. Unless you can show me another post talking about it. Just put some skull and crossed bones in it's place, it will work. Trust me.

[wesleyjohnson]

If it is on steel or stone then it is part of the industrial textures.
Industry uses ANSI, OSHA, D.O.T., standard industrial signs. I have a plastics company catalog that sells all the standard signs. An ANSI, OSHA, D.O.T. sign should be OK to use as long as someones rendering of it is not literally copied.

Skull and cross bones is only used for "Poison".

I suppose a new ANSI standard style sign could be invented, a 2050 era update to the standard signage, now covering more kinds of industrial sewage.
But no joke wad signs please.

You can put skull and cross bones on a wood background.
It was really a pirate sign (used by only a few pirates), but from what I remember one company used it on their product (rat poison I think) and that version was copyrighted (surprise!).

Also can internet search for "ANSI OSHA signs", will get about 3,000,000 hits.

Got out the catalog.
Useful D.O.T signs

Generic warning: Diamond shaped sign, top half is black and white vertical stripes, no text, bottom half is white, with number 9 in lower corner.

Corrosive: Diamond shaped sign, top half of which is white with two symbols (hand with notch in it with corrosive dripping from test tube, and rectangle getting same treatment from another test tube),
lower half is black with "CORROSIVE" in white letters, number 8 below.

Oxidizer and Organic Peroxide: Yellow diamond shaped sign, top symbol is big circle on fire, middle text is "OXIDIZER" (number 5.1 below), or "ORGANIC PERIOXIDE" (number 5.2 below).

Flammable gas, Flammable liquid: Red Diamond shaped sign with Fire above,
"Flammable Liquid" in center, and number 3 below.

Flammable solid: Red and white vertical stripe pattern on a diamond shape sign, with flame symbol above, "Flammable Solid" in middle, and
number 4 below.

Poison Gas: White diamond shaped sign with Skull and crossed bones above, "Poison Gas" in center, and number 2 below.

Inhalation hazard: White diamond shaped sign with white skull and crossbones on a small black diamond, "Inhalation hazard" in the middle, and a number 2 (or 6) below.

Biohazard: White diamond shaped sign, with biohazard symbol above (black ring, with three superimposed 3/4 rings in triangle (points out), in middle "INFECTIOUS SUBSTANCE" with lots of warning text, and the number 6 below.
The ANSI biohazard seems to have larger pointed rings, with small white circle in center.

There are others like "marine pollutant",
and "Keep away from foodstuffs".

Other industrial signs.
Warning pinch hazard: Sign with hand being cut in half by a sharp triangle. There is an ANSI version of this too.

ANSI:
Almost anything with a red circle with a slash line, like "no smoking" sign.
Most are rectangular sign with color bar above with text (usually just "DANGER") and small white triangle with exclamation mark in it, bit symbol in center, and black below with white explanation text.

Electric: several versions. Symbol is hand being touched by wire with lighting symbol on hand.

Electric: "Danger 480 volts". Symbol is black hollow triangle, with lighting symbol vertical

High voltage: "High voltage". Symbol is hollow triangle with vertical lighting zig-zap symbol. Sometimes appears without the triangle.

Emergency first aid: Symbol is Green circle with Green hollow cross within it.

X-Ray: Symbol is magenta, small circle in center, Three large circle segments.

Laser: Symbol is red line with red sparkle at left end.

Hands in machinery: Symbol is two gears with hand, and fingers going through the gears.

Acid: symbol is hand with acid dripping on it from test tube.

Poison: Hollow Triangle with skull and crossed bones.

Hot: Flames below with hand getting burned.

Flammable: Big flames.

Lots of shipping labels that might be applicable to any warehouse.
Our crates should have an assortment of these.
Exact reproduction of these labels would be copyrighted, each printer has created their own version, but the text is the same."
"DO NOT DOUBLE STACK"
"DO NOT STACK"
"DO NOT BREAK SHRINK WRAP"
"DO NOT DROP"
"DO NOT CRUSH"
"DO NOT INVENTORY"
"DO NOT LAY FLAT"
"DO NOT X-RAY"
"DELICATE INSTRUMENTS"
"THIS SIDE UP <arrow>"
"FRAGILE"
"NO FORKLIFT"
"CAUTION HEAVY"
"REFRIGERATE UPON ARRIVAL"
"ELECTRONIC MATERIAL (DONT DROP, DONT CRUSH)"

[Blastfrog]

Here's a better "danger" sign.

[fraggle]

Carniverous Goat said:

But dude, this is Doom. A freeware clone of it featuring non-copyrighted textures. This texture in particular detracts from it, making it feel less like Doom and more like a joke wad. It only survived because nobody spoke up about it until now. Unless you can show me another post talking about it. Just put some skull and crossed bones in it's place, it will work. Trust me.

I think you mistook my post for a complaint or objection. I'm just expressing a personal sentimental attachment :)

[Blastfrog]

What do you guys think of my edit?

[Carny Goat]

fraggle said:

I think you mistook my post for a complaint or objection. I'm just expressing a personal sentimental attachment :)

No problem. I understand the feeling.

And Sodaholic just did what I described, it's pretty fitting. Considering we don't know much of what we are trudging through in levels. Apparently the marine will die if he stands in for to long. While skull and crossed bones is only used for poison. It usually means "risk of death." Warning signs change with the ages. What wesly dug up was essentially today's standards.

[Slippy_Pig]

Does anyone else hate the snake monsters? They are just so out of place and boring. I mean, they don't even look like demons and they look much stronger than they are.

[Dragonsbrethren]

I like them.

[hex11]

I think they're cool. But the archvile is meh (and hard to see), and arachnotron is weird.

[printz]

Sodaholic said:

Here's a better "danger" sign.

http://i.imgur.com/Vya0M.png

When I see the sign "danger", I expect to see an exclamation point.

[fraggle]

Sodaholic said:

What do you guys think of my edit?

The text looks a bit messy and there are some vertical lines in the background that look like they should be cleaned up.

[Blastfrog]

Disregarding the blurriness of the text (which I'm about to fix), how does this version look?

[LkMax]

Better I guess.

[printz]

Okay, there are DANGER signs with death (skull) pictures. But shouldn't the nuclear danger sign use the RADIATION caption? Not all poison is of the radioactive nature.

[wesleyjohnson]

The problem I have is that having only one choice is constricting level design. Makes it hard to put in the appropriate signs for an industrial level design.

Instead of the one sign on everything,
I would like to see:
Radiation sign on concrete
Corrosive sign on green metal
Poison sign on brown
Flammable sign on concrete
Biohazard on some white clean modern
High voltage on green metal
Lazer warning on concrete
Hands in machinery on concrete
Some shipping labels on a set of alternative crate sides

Mix it up with some being Rectangular, some triangular.


I had started on a bunch of signs like:
"Transit", "Office", "Warehouse", "Docks" with arrows, and a set of numbers "0" to "13" (so you can do "Dock 8"), and "Warning", "Danger", "Acid" too.
But I am hung up on how to put them on textures.
One texture with all of them is going to be difficult to use, but having a new texture for each is going to be restrict usage also because of the background chosen, and require many new textures.
I am considering something like black lettering on white rectangle,
put on a suitable background for the context, maybe 3 per texture.

The example signs:
The skull and crossed bones should say "Poison".
The radiation sign should say "Radiation"
"Danger" is usually in smaller text with the specific danger being larger text, from what I remember.
They don't look too blurry.

I tried to find some examples of triangular signs, but they seem to be rectangular signs containing the symbol in the yellow triangle, with text only on the rectangular area.
A rectangular sign would be much easier to paste onto another background texture using offsets.
I suspect the yellow danger triangle alone is something from the 1920's to 1970's because OSHA got more stringent after that.
I makes Doom look a little weird in having signs from the 1950's (and buildings, windows, etc..) on a modern Mars moon setting.

OSHA & ANSI Compliant:
* Danger Signs shall be present where immediate hazard exists
* They shall have red as the predominating color for the upper panel, a black outline, and white lower panel with additional wording

But you could have one like the "Confined space" ANSI sign, except that the walls are from above and below, it could say
"Crushing Danger". Sometimes seen in space below elevators and moving platforms. I can think of a few places to use that sign.

[Slippy_Pig]

So I know this is off-topic from the current discussion here, but I feel like this little complaint would be stupid of me and very much hell-worthy to make a new topic about.

What's with the music in MAP08? I mean, it's so sad...when I first played it, I expected that to be the end of the game since it was so intense and dramatic and melancholy, as if the character was about to shoot himself or had killed the big bad dude and was about to say "It's all finally over..." with a dramatic sigh. And then, on the next level, the music is back to it's nice metal theme with fast paced action and all that jazz. Very odd transition of musics, very jarring. What's up with that?

PS: I really really love the music in MAP08, even though it's horribly unfitting, don't take this complaint as in me saying it's bad music! It's just completely unfitting for the level.

[d1337r]

Now, come to think of it, I think that in a game like DOOM, adding too much realism into it is a bit wrong. Especially when it comes to low-resolution textures.

The fact is, a (most likely corrupt, if following the DOOM story) corporation such as UAC AGM would most likely give little attention to the pesky OSHA / ANSI standards, especially those on warning signs.

Here are my variations on the "danger" sign:



(Note: the thing on #4/#5 is supposed to be an AGM logo, probably indicating areas where $whatever_caused_monsters_to_appear was taking place. The thing on #6 is supposed to be a "crushing ceiling" warning, though it probably sucks.)

(Note #2: the GIFs are somewhat animated, using frames of animation as layers.)

[schwerpunk]

I really like the two exclamation mark ones, especially the one in the little black diamond - reminds me of the missing sprite sprite in ZDoom (in a non-copyright-infringing way). They're eye-catching, and general enough that they could be applied to almost any situation; it's up to the mapper's discretion.

[wesleyjohnson]

Maybe. But if there was anyone that could make AGM do anything, it would be OSHA. The real reason for looking at OSHA signs is that they have already figured out simple symbols and colors, and there is a chance that our players might recognize them.
Most of your already use OSHA symbology and colors.
Our signs do not have to be completely legible.
They could be very simplified.

Yea, I don't know what the fourth sign symbol means. It looks like a doctor's staff.
A staggering zombie would be more to the point, if you got enough pixels.
Using the AGM logo as a warning ? Does that mean "warning, AGM ahead"
(would not be approved by AGM management!).

A big 'Z' for zombie (in a yellow diamond or triangle) would make as much sense, and most people will be able to figure it out.
Worse areas would be marked 'ZZ', and 'ZZZ'.
The Z's could have heads on them (anthropomorphized).

___X___
_XXXXX_
____X__
___X___
__X____
_XXXXX_


Crushing ceiling should really be a stick man with something
crushing him. You don't need the inner black diamond.
Could make the crushing thing red.
R______R
RRRRRRRR
X__XX___
_X_XXX__
__X___X
______X_
____X_X_
__X___X_
___X___X

Yea, low res graphics. It is not because of my low bandwidth. I just did not feel like making a PNG.

[d1337r]

wesleyjohnson said:
Maybe. But if there was anyone that could make AGM do anything, it would be OSHA. The real reason for looking at OSHA signs is that they have already figured out simple symbols and colors, and there is a chance that our players might recognize them.
Most of your already use OSHA symbology and colors.
Our signs do not have to be completely legible.
They could be very simplified.

Well, that's (mostly) what I meant. I meant that trying to squeeze a realistic textual graphic into 62x31 pixels (the size of those "danger" signs) would be a bad idea. We need something understandable for the players (and color/layout-compatible for PWAD makers).

Yea, I don't know what the fourth sign symbol means. It looks like a doctor's staff.
A staggering zombie would be more to the point, if you got enough pixels.
Using the AGM logo as a warning ? Does that mean "warning, AGM ahead"
(would not be approved by AGM management!).

Well, as I would imagine myself in place of an AGM redshirt worker, if there's teleportation whatever experiments going on in some place, I clearly wouldn't want to go into there unprepared unless necessary and get telefragged killed/mutated/infected.

Probably the AGM logo is a bad choice, but, as far as we don't even know what in the world AGM even does... I'd imagine something like a DNA helix for genetic experiments, a swirly portal for teleportation experiments...

A big 'Z' for zombie (in a yellow diamond or triangle) would make as much sense, and most people will be able to figure it out.
Worse areas would be marked 'ZZ', and 'ZZZ'.
The Z's could have heads on them (anthropomorphized).

I don't think they would be prepared for their zombie apocalypse. Even if they're a genetic research company.

Crushing ceiling should really be a stick man with something
crushing him. You don't need the inner black diamond.
Could make the crushing thing red.

R______R
RRRRRRRR
X__XX___
_X_XXX__
__X___X
______X_
____X_X_
__X___X_
___X___X

That's a nice idea. I'll try to make something like that tomorrow.

[schwerpunk]

Agreed: the crusher warning idea is a great one.

[wesleyjohnson]

If there was going to be a Zombie warning sign, then it would likely
be ad-hoc.
Take an available yellow triangle sign and put a big 'Z'
on it in red tape or red paint, or BLOOD.
Once that was done, it is very reasonable that a more severe danger would get multiple 'Z's, such as 'ZZ' and 'ZZZ'.
You could take any of your danger signs and put a sloppy red 'Z' on it.

However, there are many other signs for which I have more immediate needs.
One is an arrow pointing right, and one pointing left.
We have an exit sign, but hardly anything else.
At my entrance I could not even put direction signs. I had to use
one of the screens of the SOLAR texture.
I looks vaguely like a directory.