[NNC]

Talking about Randy and The Birth, it's kinda amazing how influential this hated man's mapping style was on the community output, particularly in the AMC era. It's Impossible, Area 51 and even The Queen (except for the crappy symmetric layout) looked like typical Duke usermaps from 2002 to 2010, with their vibrant colours, crowded (sometimes irrelevant) spritework, texture variety, etc. Most techbase and alien levels looked similar to them (influenced by them), and even city maps have a tendency to take inspirations, at least the indoor locations. While most credits go to people like Pascal, Maarten Pinxten, Alejandro or Bob Averill as the biggest mapping influencers, their maps are also heavily based on the Birth/Randy style. Pascal took it into the extremes, and that might count as something novel.

While Blum and Levelord are both hailed as the people who inspired the community, I rarely saw maps or mappers who used the same design philosophies. Blum's stylized reality, emphasized little details in the crepuscular greyness, the conceptual grandness is something I would love to see in someone else's work, but Levelord's Shrapnel City is also highly obscure in the community output. I've literally never seen maps like those in Shrapnel City, not even attempts. I mean those avantgarde, often nonsensical, multiplayer focused maps with very close, unrealistic outdoors and interconnections everywhere. A map like Raw Meat or Fahrenheit for example.

[ck3D]

The Watchtower, on 12 April 2020 - 04:54 PM, said:

Talking about Randy and The Birth, it's kinda amazing how influential this hated man's mapping style was on the community output, particularly in the AMC era. It's Impossible, Area 51 and even The Queen (except for the crappy symmetric layout) looked like typical Duke usermaps from 2002 to 2010, with their vibrant colours, crowded (sometimes irrelevant) spritework, texture variety, etc. Most techbase and alien levels looked similar to them (influenced by them), and even city maps have a tendency to take inspirations, at least the indoor locations. While most credits go to people like Pascal, Maarten Pinxten, Alejandro or Bob Averill as the biggest mapping influencers, their maps are also heavily based on the Birth/Randy style. Pascal took it into the extremes, and that might count as something novel.

While Blum and Levelord are both hailed as the people who inspired the community, I rarely saw maps or mappers who used the same design philosophies. Blum's stylized reality, emphasized little details in the crepuscular greyness, the conceptual grandness is something I would love to see in someone else's work, but Levelord's Shrapnel City is also highly obscure in the community output. I've literally never seen maps like those in Shrapnel City, not even attempts. I mean those avantgarde, often nonsensical, multiplayer focused maps with very close, unrealistic outdoors and interconnections everywhere. A map like Raw Meat or Fahrenheit for example.

You are making great points, and reflecting over the first paragraph made me ponder to what extent the introduction of the 'new' episode 4 textures might or might not play a subconscious role in that perception (of course in addition to the other technicalities: layouts, amount of gameplay-oriented surrealism vs. attempts at photorealism/'micromanagement' as you once coined etc.). It might be a dumb detail, but growing up with version 1.3D of the game for years before being introduced to the Atomic Edition/Plutonium Pak, when I finally did (as well as to the new options they brought to the table for mapping), for a great while I thought all the new textures had a very different vibe from the original ones - more colorful but most importantly, in general more sophisticated, less abstract, so with less room for interpretation and suggestion in favor of more explicit designs and more accurate or higher-res depictions of real-world items - even redoing that red font changed a lot of the feel of the game to me. That evolution I've learned to embrace since (I mean, thankfully - it's not like I never had the time to), but to this day part of me thinks in general, episode 4 assets look less obscure and for that reason, are probably easier to use be it by newcomers to the game, or by people with a different experience altogether who discovered the four episodes at once for instance and thus see the Atomic Edition as one complete piece vs. something that was chronologically put together (because at the same time, now, why not?). The convenient availability of more explicit tiles also probably discourages certain creators from going in too deep when it comes to abstract constructions, instead playing it safer with 'realistic' environments.

But my basic point is, the original game's textures didn't rely on crazy colors as much as episode 4 did, making for a much more old-school vibe and dystopian atmosphere than something more cartoony (again, we're just talking aesthetics). Come to think of it, the parts of The Birth that mixed the old and new assets were the most memorable moments of that episode to me, and that's probably because the old assets there acted as strong support to the new stuff, marking for strong callbacks to the original levels (pretty sure that grey wall texture that's commonly used to enclose levels will always be subconsciously associated to Hollywood Holocaust by players). Also following that logic, AWO ditched a lot of the classic texture set in favor of mostly stuff going even further in that directly descriptive direction and in the end, many seemed let down that maps such as High Times didn't really feel like Duke (all the while remaining fun to play since the basic engine of the game itself is fun to just roam around in, but the experience could have been different).

Textures are just one thing though, although something crucially important since the visual style dictates a major part of the feel of a game before one can even appreciate other qualities such as map layouts, etc. Don't get me wrong though, I find (1.3d or above) Duke 3D's art style in general amazing, and it's probably a big part of what keeps drawing me back to the game after decades. But it's 2020 and to this day, in Mapster, going past the 1.3d enemies in the tile selection menu and onwards to the later 1.4 stuff still feels like choosing to cross a line whilst making a level, to me.

[gemeaux333]

JSJ's performance is even way better than the poem itself :

https://youtu.be/l6nQAKMxRXU

[Ninety-Six]

The Watchtower, on 12 April 2020 - 04:54 PM, said:

Talking about Randy and The Birth, it's kinda amazing how influential this hated man's mapping style was on the community output, particularly in the AMC era.

Bad people can still make good things. (I'm not necessarily saying I think Randy is a bad person but the point remains)

ck3D, on 13 April 2020 - 03:02 AM, said:

But my basic point is, the original game's textures didn't rely on crazy colors as much as episode 4 did, making for a much more old-school vibe and dystopian atmosphere than something more cartoony (again, we're just talking aesthetics).

I can't say I noticed the change in textures between the original 3 episodes and then The Birth, but I absolutely noticed a change in tone. There was a lot more silly stuff front and center, and Duke commentated on a lot more. Versus Episodes 1-3, where jokes and references were kept to well-hidden secrets, and Duke only spoke on special occasions (such as a boss fight or coming upon the corpse of a famous character). Duke Burger is probably the best example of the contrast, with the whole dog meat thing, and the Beavis and Butthead reference, the "SPCH" acronym, plus Duke having 2 unique lines exclusive to this level that you are going to encounter through normal play.

Meanwhile, even in Shrapnel City the atmosphere of the levels was pretty grim. The references were there but far less numerous and obvious, instead having either a small nest with captured women, or otherwise just a fairly normal-looking building that was empty and dark. Instead of being a parody of some real organization, it was just "a bank" or just "a movie set." The jokes and references came off as more as "laughing through gritted teeth."

Like you said it's not necessarily a bad thing but the shift from episode 3 to episode 4 is pretty tangible.

[Steve 64]

gemeaux333, on 13 April 2020 - 08:11 AM, said:

JSJ's performance is even way better than the poem itself :

https://youtu.be/l6nQAKMxRXU

I heard him do even better in that other thing that he did the one with the sickness.

[gemeaux333]

Indeed !

I have seen some comentaries saying that this poem could be a great intro for a new Duke Nukem game...

Spoiler

assuming Duke have become a negligent husband and father

[NNC]

ck3D, on 13 April 2020 - 03:02 AM, said:

You are making great points, and reflecting over the first paragraph made me ponder to what extent the introduction of the 'new' episode 4 textures might or might not play a subconscious role in that perception (of course in addition to the other technicalities: layouts, amount of gameplay-oriented surrealism vs. attempts at photorealism/'micromanagement' as you once coined etc.). It might be a dumb detail, but growing up with version 1.3D of the game for years before being introduced to the Atomic Edition/Plutonium Pak, when I finally did (as well as to the new options they brought to the table for mapping), for a great while I thought all the new textures had a very different vibe from the original ones - more colorful but most importantly, in general more sophisticated, less abstract, so with less room for interpretation and suggestion in favor of more explicit designs and more accurate or higher-res depictions of real-world items - even redoing that red font changed a lot of the feel of the game to me. That evolution I've learned to embrace since (I mean, thankfully - it's not like I never had the time to), but to this day part of me thinks in general, episode 4 assets look less obscure and for that reason, are probably easier to use be it by newcomers to the game, or by people with a different experience altogether who discovered the four episodes at once for instance and thus see the Atomic Edition as one complete piece vs. something that was chronologically put together (because at the same time, now, why not?). The convenient availability of more explicit tiles also probably discourages certain creators from going in too deep when it comes to abstract constructions, instead playing it safer with 'realistic' environments.

But my basic point is, the original game's textures didn't rely on crazy colors as much as episode 4 did, making for a much more old-school vibe and dystopian atmosphere than something more cartoony (again, we're just talking aesthetics). Come to think of it, the parts of The Birth that mixed the old and new assets were the most memorable moments of that episode to me, and that's probably because the old assets there acted as strong support to the new stuff, marking for strong callbacks to the original levels (pretty sure that grey wall texture that's commonly used to enclose levels will always be subconsciously associated to Hollywood Holocaust by players). Also following that logic, AWO ditched a lot of the classic texture set in favor of mostly stuff going even further in that directly descriptive direction and in the end, many seemed let down that maps such as High Times didn't really feel like Duke (all the while remaining fun to play since the basic engine of the game itself is fun to just roam around in, but the experience could have been different).

Textures are just one thing though, although something crucially important since the visual style dictates a major part of the feel of a game before one can even appreciate other qualities such as map layouts, etc. Don't get me wrong though, I find (1.3d or above) Duke 3D's art style in general amazing, and it's probably a big part of what keeps drawing me back to the game after decades. But it's 2020 and to this day, in Mapster, going past the 1.3d enemies in the tile selection menu and onwards to the later 1.4 stuff still feels like choosing to cross a line whilst making a level, to me.

You have a great point here. I'm not sure if the Plutonium Pak textures were made by the same people who made the original ones (Hornback for example), but they definitely have a shinier, more to the point (more modern) look. I suspect the original textures were made directly with Blum's level design in mind (as he worked alone in the LameDuke days, and Levelord only arrived a few months before release), while the new ones weren't exactly made for the actual E4 levels, but 3DRealms possibly wanted a larger catalog for the forming mapping community (or in other words, by that time they knew the game is a success, so the new elements felt more like a fanservice, and using them on various leftovers was the best way to sell them). Well, at least that's what I suspect, that's not neccessarily true. I actually like the PP textures a lot, without them the game would have had much less fan made content by now, even if they altered a few things in the game's atmosphere.

However, I still think level design takes a huge® role in the game's aesthetics. For example Duke Burger and Going Postal were both filled with shiny new textures, yet, they still managed to capture the ""classic"" essence of the game well (not just the grey wall, but the entire thing). They are notably different, and can't see any of them in episode 1 or episode 3, but they still have that "canonic" feel Randy's maps don't have. And that's not neccessarily a bad thing on Randy's side, it's just a different presentation. Randy's levels (like most user levels) have a wider selection of textures, you can even check it if you look at them in Build, micromanagement takes a bigger role in his maps than in Allen's levels, where conceptual grandness, grey colour and pulsating darkness dominated over the details. Also Levelord's maps are very different to both Allen's and Randy's, curiously his style more relied on the graphic set he worked with. With the original v1.3D set, his maps were abstract, enclosed, a bit more Sandy Petersen-ish, while with World Tour graphics, his maps felt like something you or Pascal made with crazy emphasis on micro-details. Allen on the other hand kept his old LameDuke style more in levels he truly cared, no matter what set he used. High Times is a highly uncharaceristic map by him, I didn't even recognise his style until checked credits, and Babe Land in E4 is also a weird outlier aesthetically. But these are still the exceptions, and not the rule, so my main point is that the texture set is just one part of the presentation (albeit an important one), the design philosophy is another, and I think the latter is the bigger one.

I still think Randy's mapping style had a much bigger impact on the community than Allen's, while Levelord's abstract, enclosed, MP friendly stye he used in E3 or even in E2 (Incubator/Spin Cycle/Lunatic Fringe) has never been even attempted by anyone to replicate.

[NNC]

Ninety-Six, on 13 April 2020 - 10:12 AM, said:

Bad people can still make good things. (I'm not necessarily saying I think Randy is a bad person but the point remains)



I can't say I noticed the change in textures between the original 3 episodes and then The Birth, but I absolutely noticed a change in tone. There was a lot more silly stuff front and center, and Duke commentated on a lot more. Versus Episodes 1-3, where jokes and references were kept to well-hidden secrets, and Duke only spoke on special occasions (such as a boss fight or coming upon the corpse of a famous character). Duke Burger is probably the best example of the contrast, with the whole dog meat thing, and the Beavis and Butthead reference, the "SPCH" acronym, plus Duke having 2 unique lines exclusive to this level that you are going to encounter through normal play.

Meanwhile, even in Shrapnel City the atmosphere of the levels was pretty grim. The references were there but far less numerous and obvious, instead having either a small nest with captured women, or otherwise just a fairly normal-looking building that was empty and dark. Instead of being a parody of some real organization, it was just "a bank" or just "a movie set." The jokes and references came off as more as "laughing through gritted teeth."

Like you said it's not necessarily a bad thing but the shift from episode 3 to episode 4 is pretty tangible.

That's why I respect Derelict for what it is. It felt like a bit of outlier in Birth with it's old LameDuke based dark feel. Without the newbeasts and the commanders, it could have worked as a level in episode 1.

[Fox]

The Birth contained many obvious references and themes, compared to the original levels.

Personally I think that, unfortunately, the more realistic level design had a negative impact on gameplay.

The Watchtower, on 14 April 2020 - 12:54 AM, said:

I'm not sure if the Plutonium Pak textures were made by the same people who made the original ones (Hornback for example), but they definitely have a shinier, more to the point (more modern) look.

They were, what changed was the direction.

Specifically, they are more situation-oriented. For example, most of Duke-Burger areas use custom walls. Even the outdoor area, the textures are made specifically for that ceiling height.

[ck3D]

The Watchtower, on 14 April 2020 - 12:54 AM, said:

But these are still the exceptions, and not the rule, so my main point is that the texture set is just one part of the presentation (albeit an important one), the design philosophy is another, and I think the latter is the bigger one.

Loving and mostly really agreeing with this analysis (only cutting it for formatting). I think overall, Duke Burger and Going Postal feel more canonic because besides the visuals (although to play devil's advocate, I think the custom textures from those levels are my favorite out of all E4, working with both said level's styles and the original game's tone), they basically had the same type of vibe and purpose as the E1 levels: locate, recognize, infiltrate then nuke one location with a specific theme (something Derelict also shares, just on a larger scale), and the effects and gameplay applied throughout complemented the design in a very cinematic way, making for an immersion that feels complete. In comparison, Babe Land and High Times feel like they don't succeed as much, maybe due to their mostly flat terrain and lacking the infiltration and cinematic parts, and maybe relying on the art a bit too much when it comes to establishing a theme as opposed to actual level design.

The sentence I kept in bold ties in with my own conclusion, the textures are only part of a bigger ensemble, but I felt the need to point them out in particular because it's something that definitely affects everybody's original impression of a level before they can even discover its intricacies and get familiar with the actual map, and also because a lot of the detail we tend to remember from those levels has to do with the sensorial experience we get from them which includes visuals which includes the tones and the artwork. But we do mean to express the same thing I think and just go at it from complementary angles, it's like debating over if the lines drawn or the colors used make the painting.

Like you were saying, E4 textures (to me too, at least) feel like they were made as a (welcome, convenient) addition to an existing corpus instead of 'more source material' if that makes sense (which is exactly what happened, technically, so it probably does somewhere), in order to complement an already strong basis established with the original package of three episodes, in a way that's an interesting mark of baby steps in the general progression towards modern gaming - over the span of just one year, the devs already reevaluated the players' expectations and changed directions when they could have chosen not to 'progress' and deliver something completely different as E4 had their mindset been something else entirely. It's probably quite futile, but I love pondering and imagining this type of alternative historical scenari. In a way, practically, that makes the original three episodes' artwork a more naive body of work than the later additions, after the game had been exposed to criticism and appreciated by a fan base for specific traits. Naive works tend to feel more sincere and authentic in general, when extra layers are a sign of sophistication which is just as interesting to study as a process but can also cover some positive technical weaknesses.

I think every mapper should try and make a 1.3d only type of map once if they haven't. It's quite the different experience from making a general user map, both in terms of limitations you can actually get creative with in different ways if you're into that and - most importantly - in terms of feeling and general output. Just now I'm thinking, a community episode of nothing but 1.3d maps could be a lot of fun.

Also I've said it before but again I really like your way of using adjectives to describe mappers' styles - it's usually on point under many regards and as such, useful for mappers to identify the right keys to insert into their own creations depending on the type of feel they would like them to convey. It's actually really fun to retain some of your articulations, try to apply them to user maps and see the resulting changes in style.

[NNC]

ck3D, on 14 April 2020 - 11:01 AM, said:

Loving and mostly really agreeing with this analysis (only cutting it for formatting). I think overall, Duke Burger and Going Postal feel more canonic because besides the visuals (although to play devil's advocate, I think the custom textures from those levels are my favorite out of all E4, working with both said level's styles and the original game's tone), they basically had the same type of vibe and purpose as the E1 levels: locate, recognize, infiltrate then nuke one location with a specific theme (something Derelict also shares, just on a larger scale), and the effects and gameplay applied throughout complemented the design in a very cinematic way, making for an immersion that feels complete. In comparison, Babe Land and High Times feel like they don't succeed as much, maybe due to their mostly flat terrain and lacking the infiltration and cinematic parts, and maybe relying on the art a bit too much when it comes to establishing a theme as opposed to actual level design.

The sentence I kept in bold ties in with my own conclusion, the textures are only part of a bigger ensemble, but I felt the need to point them out in particular because it's something that definitely affects everybody's original impression of a level before they can even discover its intricacies and get familiar with the actual map, and also because a lot of the detail we tend to remember from those levels has to do with the sensorial experience we get from them which includes visuals which includes the tones and the artwork. But we do mean to express the same thing I think and just go at it from complementary angles, it's like debating over if the lines drawn or the colors used make the painting.

Like you were saying, E4 textures (to me too, at least) feel like they were made as a (welcome, convenient) addition to an existing corpus instead of 'more source material' if that makes sense (which is exactly what happened, technically, so it probably does somewhere), in order to complement an already strong basis established with the original package of three episodes, in a way that's an interesting mark of baby steps in the general progression towards modern gaming - over the span of just one year, the devs already reevaluated the players' expectations and changed directions when they could have chosen not to 'progress' and deliver something completely different as E4 had their mindset been something else entirely. It's probably quite futile, but I love pondering and imagining this type of alternative historical scenari. In a way, practically, that makes the original three episodes' artwork a more naive body of work than the later additions, after the game had been exposed to criticism and appreciated by a fan base for specific traits. Naive works tend to feel more sincere and authentic in general, when extra layers are a sign of sophistication which is just as interesting to study as a process but can also cover some positive technical weaknesses.

I think every mapper should try and make a 1.3d only type of map once if they haven't. It's quite the different experience from making a general user map, both in terms of limitations you can actually get creative with in different ways if you're into that and - most importantly - in terms of feeling and general output. Just now I'm thinking, a community episode of nothing but 1.3d maps could be a lot of fun.

Also I've said it before but again I really like your way of using adjectives to describe mappers' styles - it's usually on point under many regards and as such, useful for mappers to identify the right keys to insert into their own creations depending on the type of feel they would like them to convey. It's actually really fun to retain some of your articulations, try to apply them to user maps and see the resulting changes in style.

The "locate, recognize, infiltrate then nuke one location with a specific theme" dynamic was usually the main concept in Blum's maps (and to a lesser extent, others' as well, Pitchford or Bob Travis in particular). In most of those levels you are dropped into a large scale open area with a rather spectacular building nearby. You have to figure out the way inside, and nuke it out as a conclusion at one point. This was the concept in High Times, Mirage Barrage and Golden Carnage as well, 20 years after the original maps. The keycard placements were also important, they separated the indoors and the outdoors, or the different segments of said levels. Keycards (and most switches) weren't used like sometimes in modern maps (or in Levelord's maps that were retooled from multiplayer to single player), when they were just a device to extend the map's length with dead end rooms. They felt like the autosave points in more modern games. The funny thing is Blum sometimes used the reverse concept, so you are trapped inside, and have to find the way out to the open outdoors (Death Row, Lunar Reactor, Dark Side as examples). These rather simple ideas are sometimes missing in more modern and more crowded levels. When you have just one job to do: infiltrate or escape.

I would love to see some competent mapping with 1.3D textures only. As you said, the base corpus is more coherent artistically, they express their creator's will more than the v1.5 additions (although some, like Derelict's additions looked like they were there from the get-go), and even more importantly their more abstract/implicit nature might inspire for more creative design. Too bad 1.3D mapping is nonexistent since forever, I can't even think of any relevant work since like 2000(?), except maybe some early levels in Metropolitan Mayhem and in Fernando Marquez episodes which were made for rehashing the original ones instead of creating something brand new (I haven't played Fernando's latest episode yet, it was acclaimed on MSDN). But maybe I have missed a few more here and there. I loved some of those classic, well crafted maps from the "naughties", for example Olivier Boucher's Traffic Jam is still one of my favourite maps ever for this game, or should I mention pipeline's levels which had the same "noble simplicity, quiet grandeur" as we saw in Blum's levels.

[ck3D]

I was going to say you should totally write a book on Duke 3D mapping philosophy (if that had to ever be a viable thing in 2020) with all those sharp instances of analysis, but then I consider myself lucky you're sharing those on here and I can read them just like that, ha!

That's funny how you're mentioning High Times as an example of a map using the 'locate, infiltrate, nuke' progression pattern because in my other post I was just trying to use the same map as an example of something that actually doesn't feel like that at all, to me. The open city streets make it convey a Roch/Kevin Cools type of vibe to me, and I have a hard time (Hard Times?) regarding the coffeeshop as an integral part to 'locate and infiltrate' as it's so small in scale, to me it feels like visiting the gun shop in E1L2 as opposed to entering the later strip club, except there's no strip club, just a twist on an earlier area instead then a pretty abrupt ending, as much as I do get the same vibe as you on the other two AWO levels you mentioned, I really don't for this one, maybe even because of the presentation actually (when we were just discussing to which extent layouts and textures/visual styles were actually intertwined before, too), that's funny.

Bits on the 'reverse concept', and keycards marking actual level sections/themes were something I somehow hadn't intellectualized (or verbalized to myself) before and those aren't just very valid observations but also some I'll definitely be keeping in mind for future maps (not that I never subconsciously thought in those terms or recognized them, but their articulation will definitely help me consciously have fun experimenting with those logics and their consequential impact on clarity of gameplay).

[Scrabbs]

Yes it's dead, they'll never invest big money after Forever. It's honestly better this way

[gemeaux333]

Is there a topic or something that resume/describe precisely the different attemps at making a Duke Nukem movie ?

[gemeaux333]

https://pbs.twimg.co...=jpg&name=large

[stumppy84]

Man, that’s such a cool advert!

[hismasterplan]

Kind of like the idea of mini-Duke but maybe only for a DLC.

[Radar]

[gemeaux333]

Mini-Duke idea seems to have found its way to Borderlands 2 with the Midget Goliath (wish I knew how to re-size a picture in a forum post) :

[gemeaux333]

Duke Nukem : "Duke is not getting burned, fire Nukem itself !"

[gemeaux333]

Qu'est-ce qu'il ne faut pas entendre ? :

https://www.thegamer...ll-doom-reboot/