esselfortium

hey cuties

Streets saying that they fixed status updates . . ? We're so back .

Thank you murdering those silly threads.

Honestly not very sure what to do with Earthless. Happily accepting suggestions!
 
There's only a handful of maps missing, but a small amount more that are lying at half-finished. So I still have time to change the direction of the project without an inordinate amount of redoing, but the question is do I just need to push through to the finish in the direction I'm gone? Or is it worth taking an about turn? Ignoring the sunk cost fallacy for a moment.
 
My goal was for it to go on the Unity port, and therefore keep it Vanilla. But I think the rigidity of this format is making me feel creatively stymied.
 
I could repurpose it for MBF21/DSDeHacked/UMAPINFO, and that would (a) help it stand out a bit more on its own instead of feeling like "just another Vanilla megawad" and (b) remove all the biggest stumbling blocks and let me make the maps I wanna make, but then it wouldn't be accessible on the Unity port when Earthless: Prelude (the first 12 maps) already is. The problem is, I'd probably find it even less fun to work on repurposing the maps for this format. I've been mucking around with this format to create new assets and that's been fun - so I do have stuff already made that I could conceivably add in, but whether it would fit in with Earthless or not is a different story.
 
I think at this point I really wanna branch out and do something I haven't done before, but I feel like I've done... a bit of everything. I've done vanilla maps, Boom maps, UDMF maps, Heretic maps, even maps for my own game(s), and most recently something for my sibling, which employs their custom weapons mod. (That's releasing on Christmas Day.)
 
Maybe I need to bounce to another WIP project, or find a good collaborator who I can bounce brand-new ideas off of, or do something for a new IWAD altogether like Hexen or Strife. Or maybe I just need a break from Doom altogether. I dunno, it's not that I don't want to create, it's just finding where to put  that creativity. The drive to map for stock Doom has been largely absent for about a year or maybe two, now. Only time pressure from external sources seems to be able to discipline me to do so, and the intrinsic motivation to create, even though I have ideas, has waned quite a bit, with tiredness and distraction becoming a daily thing I have to deal with.
 
Gotta figure out how to get my mojo back.
 
Ideas appreciated!

Grungo tip of day: Use bare hands to catch food, it make you feel strong

Some relief for my pain might be upcoming soon. I've been in touch with a shoulder surgeon about getting my torn right rotator cuff fixed. The first doctor I approached turned me down because I had too many other problems with which he wasn't willing to deal (including a need for post-op inpatient rehab). This second doctor is much more cooperative and has a much better bedside manner, and he's accepted me as a patient. Now that I've got certain other maladies healed up, he's put things in motion in a big way. First off, he's scheduled me for surgery on Friday, December 15th. He also called me *himself* to discuss certain matters involving the surgery yesterday, including the fact that I don't need another MRI because my last one was right at one year ago. So, here's what I've got going so far:
 
- Call primary care physician and cardiologist today and schedule appointments prior to December 8th.
- Make arrangements for lifting recliner chair rental prior to surgery from medical goods outlet.
- Stop taking 81mg Aspirin dose one week prior to surgery.
 
That's it, except for actually having the surgery itself. I'm not looking forward to the 4 to 6 weeks of post-op pain and immobility (i.e., right arm in a sling), especially since I'm extremely right-handed, but I *am* looking forward to the eventual resolution of the constantly massive rotator cuff tear pain. I'll keep you up to date on the progress.

According to my podiatrist, I've officially recovered from my foot surgery from a few weeks ago - specifically, the one to remove the sesamoid bone from the bottom of my right foot. He took the final stitches out this past Friday, and it feels like the swelling is finally going down. It feels like more than that, in fact - it feels like I've got something missing down there, which in fact I do. This is going to be hard to get used to. It feels weird. It just kind of mucks with my balance a tiny bit. I'm sure I'll get over it in a week or two.
 
The surgery on my left big toe is healed up as well, although the podiatrist had to nip off some excess rough skin from the healing process on Friday. I've got a bandage on it at the moment.
 
Next up is shoulder surgery talk with an orthopedic surgeon today for my torn right rotator cuff. I'm going to see whether or not he'll take me on as a case. Wish me luck.

I'm home from the hospital. As far as I know, everything went without problems. I've got a bit of bleeding on my left big toe where the doctor trimmed a bit of bone off the tip, but it's nothing serious and should stop at any time. As for the right foot, well, I've got some throbbing with it elevated and a good deal of pain when I try to walk on it. It definitely hurts.
 
They've got me in surgical shoes on both feet. I definitely look weird, and I feel sorry for my wife, who's taking care of almost all of my walking duties for the foreseeable future (bathroom duties are still left to me). It's going to be a real pain when she leaves to take care of cat duties.
 
Thanks for the support and well wishes! I appreciate them all.

Plutonia MIDI Pack just turned a decade old.
 
why the fuck is time
 

In attempting to diagnose my inability to create consistently and figure out how to improve things, I've hit upon a realization that I've felt for ages but never consciously noticed: I am positively terrified of putting things out there nowadays. All I've managed recently is either a few maps for outside projects, or a couple solo pieces pulled from incomplete or abandoned works. For the past few years, it feels like reviewers who do thorough map-by-map analysis (the Doomworld Megawad Club, Dean of Doom) have been contributing to my ever-growing self-consciousness regarding every decision I make within the editor. It stresses me out thinking that whatever I do may be picked apart and heavily scrutinized, map by map, piece by piece. All I want is for people to play my work and hopefully have a good time, without the perceived weight of expectations on my shoulders and without the fear of my ideas being torn to shreds by players.
 
Is this an irrational fear of something that every creator out there has no choice but to face and accept? Yes. Does it still eat away at me like you would not believe? Also yes, and sometimes I feel as if I'm approaching wit's end when it comes to the creative process. Is this a necessary post? I don't know.

Damn, birthday again already? 31 laps around the Earth completed?.. Where's that lone candle and stale cupcake I've been reusing for the last few years..

If all goes well - and if all is as it seems on Facebook - this could be a very big day for me in the real world of music, for today could mark the first real world reading of my second woodwind quintet, "Theme and Tangents." Someone on the Facebook "Composers for Performers, Performers for Composers" group offered to have their woodwind ensemble play through my work once I got it finished. It's taken me a while to wrap it up neatly and put a bow of completion on it, but I finally got it finished and sent off to her. I found out last night that today was her group's rehearsal day, during which they would go through the piece.
 
To say that I am nervous would be putting it mildly. I have no idea what kind of woodwind ensemble she has, much less whether or not the thing really exists. Time to put ye olde faith into action and hope for the best. I believe she's in Colorado, so it'll probably be sometime after 6pm Central before I hear anything if it comes to pass.
 
Please wish me luck on this one, folks. I can use all I can get.

Back in the olden days they used sound tubes!
 
But we enlightened modern mappers know better...
 
 

I FUCKING LOVE LEVEL DESIGN 

New map layout has been finished.

On Discord, we got to talking about the longest distance over which an archvile will initiate an attack unprovoked, and I got really curious about exactly what it was. (Someone mentioned a speedrun that relied on an AV jump and how it'd be really useful to know the exact distance.)
 
"About 1024 map units" is the commonly understood distance that I've seen referred to the most. 
 
Like, it's what mappers have historically used when making cursed challenge encounters that spam ridiculous numbers of perched viles and place corpses as a cue so you can stay out of vile attack range to escape a horrific death. (When I say mappers I mean  Dubbz.) 
 
Some references give the value 896 -- the Wiki as I'm typing right now, but possibly will be fixed later; and a highly watched Doomtube video --  but outside of any ports that alter the behavior, that number is wrong and based on a misreading of the source code.
 
Focusing on these lines in the source code would suggest 896:
 if (actor->type == MT_VILE)     {     if (dist > 14*64)             return false;    // too far away     } But that glosses over these lines that come before it.
    dist = P_AproxDistance ( actor->x-actor->target->x,                  actor->y-actor->target->y) - 64*FRACUNIT;          if (!actor->info->meleestate)     dist -= 128*FRACUNIT;    // no melee attack, so fire more     dist >>= 16; Which basically mean the check (if (dist > 896)) only happens after we subtract 64 and then 128 from the distance -- which would mean its true range is 1088 (896+64+128 = 1088). Thanks Rayziik for spotting the 64 too.
 
It's worth testing stuff like this because taking the code at face value can hide a misreading. It's pretty easy to empirically check that 896 is way off and "about 1024" is correct (but not precise). But verifying the exact range was harder.
 
In a test wad where I placed the player start some distance from a carefully monster blocked vile, I can get the vile to attack 1088 units away. This is easy on -skill 5 since the vile will go into its attack with no delay, but on UV the archvile moves around a bunch and will spend most of its time slightly further than 1088 units away from the player and not able to attack. You might want to use DSDA-Doom with the game sped up. I got up and got something to drink instead and eventually heard myself being attacked, showing that was in range. With the player start 1089 units away instead, even the NM vile just jiggles around forever, so that's out of range. 
 
Also, it's not quite as simple as there being a consistent maximum range.
 
The P_AproxDistance function basically maps to something shaped like this:
 

 
The range is at its highest at direct cardinal directions (1088) and falls off to about ~1024 at 45-degree offsets from that.
 
But yeah, it seems like the theoretical maximum unprovoked range is 1088. The way it works out in practice, it has a steep dropoff in its likelihood of attacking you that far away outside of NM (and still kind of a dropoff on -fast), since it can't be perfectly monster-blocked without being stuck, and it'll be too busy backing slightly out of range pulling off its sick dance moves.

I've been wondering this for a while now: to what extent do other people plan out their larger solo mapsets? I've attempted to start more than a few over the past several years, and with one exception none of them have (currently) gotten further than two finished maps. I think my approach of "have a decent idea of what the maplist will be before any of the maps have actually been made" is helping to destroy any chance I have of creating, as I feel unable to totally satisfy the lofty goals I set for myself. Curiously, the one instance in the past several years where I was able to make five maps was one where I did not plan out a maplist ahead of time, and simply threw things together into an order as I went. This is also how I used to work, and while it could potentially lead to less consistency and cohesion, it could also lead to actually finishing something. Perhaps that's a worthwhile trade?
 
Would love to hear some other thoughts on this, how other creators go about putting together their mapsets. Do you work linearly from MAP01 onwards? Do you create a bunch of maps and then figure out how to order them later? Maybe you do something totally different that I wouldn't even consider on my own!

Do you consider "low-effort" or "lazy" maps worth creating?
 
Over the years I seem to have developed an aversion to making things that I don't consider to be good, whatever that may mean. It could be that it the work has genuine design issues that I cannot seem to solve, the work feeling lazy and rehashed, or that I simply do not like the results for more nebulous and intangible reasons. I feel terrible about having seemingly "wasted" my time, having only become more acutely aware of how limited it is in recent times. This has progressed to the point of considering giving up the practice of mapping entirely several times now, and I am yet again at that point, perhaps closer than ever before. I'm not sure what to do.
 
A change in thought process is absolutely needed, but that is much easier said than done. Something I've deliberately avoided for a long time now is "tiny, forgettable, disposable maps made primarily for the sake of making something". Maps that don't really have much time or thought put into them, but still may provide some amount of enjoyment. If I don't put my all into a map and make it the best I feel it can be, I have a hard time feeling like the result is worth much of anything, but maybe this isn't the case? How much value do people see in tiny three minute maps that they may blast through once and never think about again? Or are they meant as more of an exercise for a creator to release some pressure? I don't know. All I do know is that the way I'm currently trying to approach things is not working.

From Tetanus m05. (This is spoilery since this is still in the RC stage.) BK on a pillar, BK doors, diving suits, all in one compact view at a central juncture of the map. Prior to this, you will have probably encountered an extensive passage of damaging -- well, it's not damaging floor, you'll see. So in one moment, when you see this, everything crystalizes into a directive about how you're supposed to play the rest of the map (which is quite an accomplishment because there's still quite a bit of map to be played from this point). Thought this was a really good bit of conveyance, telling you what might otherwise take a sentence or two of ZDoom console text through just visual staging and proximity.   

Cacove
 
Boom-format speedmap
 

 
500+ monsters, beatable in under five minutes
 
cacove.zip

It's been awhile, KM. Here's hoping that all is well and we hear from you soon. :)

Alright gather round folks for mapping class. When you are having trouble getting started on a map, think of something you know your map will contain and then create it. 
 
 
 
I'll quote Ernest Hemingway who once said, of writing, "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."
 
It is sometimes useful to try to apply quotes from one context to another, so let's give it a try here. 
 
"All you have to do is make one true zombieman spam teleport battery. Create the truest zombieman spam teleport battery that you know." 
 
Profound af. 
 
Thanks for reading.

Happy new year Doomers!
 
I've put Dorian's Doom back up in my dropbox if anyone missed it and would like to play.
 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ia4qhjt2u2bsvf8/dd_b1.zip?dl=0
 
I've decided to add two more maps to this as it was very fun to make. A mash-up of The Pit and The Chasm and Bloodfalls with Nirvana. They bear little resemblance but will still feel oddly familiar. 
 
Otherwise I have two more projects I'm hoping to release this year, including Nilla Complete, which still needs some serious testing for vanilla compatibility among other things. Look for a beta of that this summer if all goes well and I can maintain this mapping spree.
 
Also I have a discord now! I don't know how it really works but if anyone needs to find me there you can. 
 
Use3d#5035
 
Take care everyone. 
 
Use

Back to Saturn X E1 is ten years old today... It's strange because creating it still feels so recent to me, even though I also think I've learned and grown a lot since then. Time is weird.

Back to Saturn X E1 is ten years old today... It's strange because creating it still feels so recent to me, even though I also think I've learned and grown a lot since then. Time is weird.