Doom 2 In Name Only - Now (supsiciously) on a load of gaming articles

[cannonball]

CorSair said:

Oh fucking hell with my luck today. I bet cannonball is gonna find Map 12 demo either amusing, or probably quits halfway. I think I lost my count of deaths in that map...

I'm sure I will have fun. I am currently giving the map another overall to reduce the grindiness of the map so hopefully it should become a little easier to play. Monster count is now just over 200 as I speak instead of 253 :)

[Tristan]

There's several tuttis at the start of MAP16 and a small one on a switch in MAP11, but I'm not sure how to fix them. Lower unpegging didn't seem to work on the MAP16 ones.

[Antroid]

To fix those you probably have to reset vertical offsets to close to zero, that might fuck up the lionhead textures above but there should always be a way to solve that - like a slight edit of geometry moving those onto different lines, if there's room for the sidedefs in there. I have no idea which switch does tuttis in map11 but I'm fairly certain that should be 100% fixable by using the vertical offsets that display the "tile prime" and not one of it's copies from up or down, since those are what does tuttis.

[cannonball]

Here is a newer version of map12
http://www.mediafire.com/download/xc42ql2zs967qye/cbfactory.wad

Hopefully it should be less grindy and much more fun to play.
There are a few minor things to fix but that can be done at the end of beta testing as these are quick things.

[mouldy]

Eris Falling said:

There's several tuttis at the start of MAP16 and a small one on a switch in MAP11, but I'm not sure how to fix them. Lower unpegging didn't seem to work on the MAP16 ones.

You are still using an old version of map 16, I fixed those tuttis and posted it here in december, though I see nobody downloaded it:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/a9880219k8mba43/map16-dec15.wad

I think this version also fixed other stuff like vpos.

[Antroid]

Is there something wrong with 30? Romero's head appears to be in some side room, impossible to reach or even provoke. Another old version?

[mouldy]

Antroid said:

Is there something wrong with 30? Romero's head appears to be in some side room, impossible to reach or even provoke. Another old version?

oops!

Thats my mistake, I must have been testing it with no monsters and forgot to move him back. Here it is with romero and spawners in the right central position:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/m37v133niiwie87/ios7-feb25.wad

[glenzinho]

I've been playing continuously and have just passed maps 11 & 12, and I'm now considering upping the difficulty considerably due to being way overstocked on ammo & weapons and to bring it in line with the difficulty of the previous two maps. This will most likely make it much more difficult to complete on pistol start, which was one of the original project guidelines, so I'm looking for opinions on whether the maps should be weighted more toward continuous play, with pistol start completion a secondary priority. A second thing, I've been playing HMP and I'm wondering if the project authors have put much consideration into the difficulty settings, as I can't see a lot of difference in some of the maps.

[Antroid]

I probably haven't. I really don't like doing difficulty levels normally, so on my levels there might just be a few mobs missing here and there and maybe some ammo too. But I have intended all of them to be beatable from pistol start, and even tried to balance ammo in such a way that you don't amass a hoard of everything by the end, although some people still managed to do that (I'm looking at you CorSair and your demo of an older version of map24!)...

[mouldy]

glenzinho said:

I've been playing continuously and have just passed maps 11 & 12, and I'm now considering upping the difficulty considerably due to being way overstocked on ammo & weapons and to bring it in line with the difficulty of the previous two maps. This will most likely make it much more difficult to complete on pistol start, which was one of the original project guidelines, so I'm looking for opinions on whether the maps should be weighted more toward continuous play, with pistol start completion a secondary priority. A second thing, I've been playing HMP and I'm wondering if the project authors have put much consideration into the difficulty settings, as I can't see a lot of difference in some of the maps.

Its always going to be a problem when you base the difficulty of a map around limited ammo but the maps before it leave you with loads. I think most people play continuous for the fun and pistol start for the challenge, and as long as you have a bit more ammo than you need to kill everything then you will always end up with a surplus after several maps, so I would prioritise pistol start myself. Your map is enough of a bastard from pistol start as it is.

I expect most people do lower difficulties by taking a few monsters away and maybe even adding ammo, so that will amplify the problem.

[Antroid]

I can't help but notice that in some maps, such as Citadel or Wolfenstein, there's some pretty obvious and horrific vertical sky tiling in places which could be easily avoided by adding some fences and whatnot. Why was nothing ever done about that? It really kills my opinion of a map when I see a sky tiling vertically.

[mouldy]

Antroid said:

I can't help but notice that in some maps, such as Citadel or Wolfenstein, there's some pretty obvious and horrific vertical sky tiling in places which could be easily avoided by adding some fences and whatnot. Why was nothing ever done about that? It really kills my opinion of a map when I see a sky tiling vertically.

the map 19 sky tiling is particularly jarring. I mentioned it back in july but can't remember what the response was.


I have a bit on one of my maps that I've been trying to get away with, though if people complain I wouldn't mind fixing it.

[Antroid]

I think we considered custom skies then for a bit but noone made any, obviously. Although, for the city sky, I just noticed for the first time, the very bottom of it is probably supposed to be like a reflection, as if it's flooded? I made a quick and dirty version of it that could be used to prevent tiling:

You could cut off the bottom, added part (and like five bottom pixel rows of the actual texture since there's some blurring involved I think), fill the rest under it with black and make a "custom" texture that would look alright.
I could probably conjure something up for the third sky as well, and do we have such problems on levels with the first sky? I only know of maps 19 and 31. Although sky3 could be challenging, it would really be easier just to fix Wolfenstein. I can't understand why Xaxer even left those places in it like that. Surely it could have been avoided.

Critical question though: can you even do heretic-like sky textures in doom that would not tile vertically and span the entire screen? If you can, what should the size be? I remember trying back then and I couldn't make it work.

[Da Werecat]

Antroid said:

Critical question though: can you even do heretic-like sky textures in doom that would not tile vertically and span the entire screen? If you can, what should the size be? I remember trying back then and I couldn't make it work.

The sky should be 128 pixels tall for vanilla Doom. Taller texture will be cut off, shorter texture will give you tutti-frutti.

There are other pitfalls. You can make 200 pixels tall sky that will span the entire screen in Boom, but it will look like ass in ZDoom.

[Antroid]

Well crap. I guess someone should just fix the maps. Hopefully their authors can pitch in, otherwise...

...mouldy, you busy? ;D

[Gez]

Antroid said:

Critical question though: can you even do heretic-like sky textures in doom that would not tile vertically and span the entire screen? If you can, what should the size be? I remember trying back then and I couldn't make it work.

Vanilla refuses to work with 128-pixel-tall skies. This engine limit reaches amusing height when you look at Heretic: it has taller skies than Doom to accommodate for looking up and down, and indeed the sky patches in Heretic are 256x200 pixels. However, the textures themselves are still defined as 256x128... The sky renderer in Heretic actually ignores the texture definition and keep displaying the patch's pixels outside of the established boundaries! Why code things cleanly when you can make a horrendous hack instead?

Anyway, the problem of the skies can be alleviated a bit in advanced ports by using advanced features to change them, such as MBF sky transfers (to change the sky in given sectors in MBF-compatible ports), MAPINFO (to change the default sky in ports with such a feature) or TEXTURES (to redefine the skies in ZDoom-compatible ports).

[mouldy]

At this late stage in the game its probably a good idea to appoint someone as quality control to fix these kind of issues and save waiting on individual map authors, and I don't mind doing that if Eris has other commitments. I'd need Eris's approval so we don't end up with conflicting versions though.

I'm not taking about changing gameplay stuff, just fixing bugs and visual glitches.

[Antroid]

Gez said:

...and indeed the sky patches in Heretic are 256x200 pixels. However, the textures themselves are still defined as 256x128... The sky renderer in Heretic actually ignores the texture definition and keep displaying the patch's pixels outside of the established boundaries!...

Oh!
I think zdoom also does this for everything, does it not? I think I remember using a patch for a custom sky that poked from out of the defined borders at the bottom, and the sky texture displayed it fully instead of only the 128 pixels. Yes, that must have been it. Pity that it isn't just a bug that vanilla doom could also have.

Also, mouldy, you've saved us before, I don't think Eris will be against you adding some pitch black fences to some maps (at least, that's what I would do, to minimize the meddling with how the author intended it to look, but still have something infinitely preferrable to tiling).

[Tristan]

Annoyingly, I have map16-dec15.wad, so it shouldn't be an outdated version.
Also, @mouldy: Since you know far more about fixing bugs than I do, you have my approval to do that. Just post the fixed links here and I'll add them in.

[scifista42]

Antroid said:

I could probably conjure something up for the third sky as well ... Although sky3 could be challenging...

There's this sky, which was used in Zones of Fear, I don't know where it originates from though:


EDIT: I know that issue with my MAP19. I personally didn't mind it that much, but if you want, I'll myself try to get rid of all instances of clipping sky in the map.

[Antroid]

scifista42 said:

There's this sky, which was used in Zones of Fear, I don't know where it originates from though

I made something similar in concept:

before finding out that we can't use such a sky in a vanilla-compatible wad.

Also. Just took a brief look at map09. Aside from the aesthetical complaint that everything is way too bright (like that warehouse building with no holes in the roof OR lamps, but heck, the entire outside would look better if it was darker IMO, the part without lava of course), I also noticed that mudfalls don't animate. Dunno if it's a problem just with the map (perhaps a texture with a wrong number was used instead of the one that's animated?), I don't want to idclev through the entire wad looking for liquidfalls and whatnot. Might be good to check if the rest of the custom falls in the wad animate, or if it's just map09's problem. I would also argue that it needs to be darkened like 15 was at some point, but that might be way too involved a task.

Oh, and Eris, maybe you should save this thread title for later and change it to something that reflects the fact that we're suddenly doing all these fixes? Well, mouldy is, apparently (so make it something like "now mouldy's delaying it, gah", only we need to be sure mouldy would be a good sport about it!).

[plums]

In case you guys want it, I made a tiling version of RSKY1 a few days ago for a GRB wad.

[Antroid]

If there are sky tiling problems in any of the 01-11 maps, we should totally use that sky to, again, minimize the meddling with other people's maps.

[scifista42]

Wouldn't there eventually be a way to create a 128-high tiling version of SKY2 too?

Also, plums, you're awesome for that SKY1. :)

[Tristan]

All other liquid falls animate, and all maps use the first frame
Shame about the skies, because Antroid's SKY3 kicks ass.
Anyway, added to the OP is a list of things to fix before the next beta. I've added a numbering system so we can all keep up. Current version is Beta 4.

[Da Werecat]

Gez said:

The sky renderer in Heretic actually ignores the texture definition and keep displaying the patch's pixels outside of the established boundaries!

Vanilla Doom works in a similar way. 256x64 texture with a 256x128 patch will work as a 256x128 texture, for example. Except unpegging.

Not that this is of any use.

[plums]

Glad you like it. I'm sure the others can be improved for vertical tiling at 128px high, but they're always going to look a bit funny since the top really doesn't match the bottom. I think Antroid's skies are a good start, you could probably fade the bottom into the top to get something OK.

Alternately: make new skies entirely! Or use some from other iwads.

[Antroid]

The thing about sky1 is that it's uniform in content, it's just a sky, but trying to loop a city into a sky or mountains into a sky will look crazy, if it is even possible. I think that fixing the maps for this particular case is both an easier and less impactful-on-the-final-picture solution. I don't think we should entirely change skies at this point either.

[scifista42]

plums said:

Alternately: make new skies entirely! Or use some from other iwads.

Back then, others didn't agree with my suggestion to put a TNT night sky to E2.

A "floating city" SKY2 edit wouldn't look bad to me.

[Gez]

Antroid said:

Oh!
I think zdoom also does this for everything, does it not?

In order to support Heretic properly, ZDoom patches the definitions of sky textures in Heretic mode.

ZDoom itself draws textures as it's being told to, so without this "CheckForHacks" function, the Heretic skies would be cut off.

Antroid said:

Pity that it isn't just a bug that vanilla doom could also have.

It's not a bug, it's a hacky feature the Raven devs used as a workaround for Doom's limitation of sky textures needing to be 128 pixel tall. I think it has to do with finding which line is on the horizon. In Hexen they did it properly and Hexen's 200-pixel-tall skies are defined as being 200-pixel-tall.