[ToiletDuck64]

I've just started working on lighting levels; I've made some basic adjustments to shade/visibility/etc. but still have a long way to go.
Here are some screenshots of camera views that are accessible in various places in the map.
(By the way, the camera view in screen #3 was inspired by the little cutscene you get in Super Mario 64 when you see a close-up of the cannon door opening. That hole exists in the map and Duke has to go there eventually, but instead of a cannon it contains something else entirely.
I've put in some additional viewscreen messages as well; this map has a lot more viewscreen message text than Chillin' did.

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[jimbob]

Graphics, on 09 September 2021 - 11:53 AM, said:

To Jimbob. I like the texturing to your map. Your mod is coming along nicely.

To Ck3D. After doing the math and thinking it over. I'm turning that terrain into a big island. I'm going to add a boat that goes around the map.

thanks man, im really digging that open world duke style reminds me of early GTA
[edit] seems like i hve one major hurdle to tackle and i can release episode 1. so im aiming for october. just a few small cosmetic things ( the quick kick seems to be rendered over the weapon instead of under, didnt do this in earlier versions so i have to look into that ) some voice recordings and final polishing.

[Graphics]

Thank you Jimbob. I'm working hard this map. I might even add a sky train. But it depends on how I feel about it. I should start working on basic houses next.

ToiletDuck64. Your map is coming along nicely. I'm starting to see it very well and your use of TROR to remake this level is very impressive. Keep it up.

Here's an update on this now island I'm working on. I made the waterfront bigger, edited the infrastructure, added some turrets and a boat... A raft to be exact.



There is a download link on this website's Discord page under Level Design. If anyone wants to look at the map first hand and check out it's development.

[ck3D]

Sloped sectors for the ocean edges is smart and makes sense too, no idea why I never saw that before. Singlehandedly makes 25 years of Duke 3D mapping looks like it was made by flat earthers in comparison.

[Aleks]

ToiletDuck64, on 06 September 2021 - 01:42 AM, said:

Screens #3 and #4 show a building interior that I'm still working on; this particular building has a kindasorta art-gallery-type area on the "ground" floor. (I was going to have more complicated "sculptures", but I decided not to because (1) I initially wasn't sure what map resources (sectors/walls/sprites) I'd have left, and (2) I was already finding out the hard way that tight, awkward geometry (especially when underwater) can cause the game to eat shit in different ways, depending on whether it's made of sectorwork and/or spritework. (For example, while testing the map, I was already experiencing situations where the game would yeet Duke into a different part of the map and/or crush him to death.) I'm classifying these issues as engine bugs because they can happen even when the geometry is technically correct.

These screens look really cool and exotic, I've just remembered it was you showing some wicked ideas for a "Duke Bingo" thing few months ago - I do hope some of these would be implemented in this map, I suppose they would fit the gallery (well there's already the tile #0) and judging by the screens you posted back then, there's been lots of great ideas which would be a shame to go to waste. Good luck on this map!

[Graphics]

Dear Ck3D. I know you're just kidding. But there are many good maps over the years that I've learned off of. So the reality is without them I wouldn't be here. Their work is not like the flat Earth design. Because 25 years of maps have lead up too this work. Though I stopped working on it until now. I've been at this design since roughly 2008 and there are post about it in my old account. The email is gone but the posts live on. I'm sure some people might remember the posts. So it's not like it's a new idea and honestly, a well programed bot could make terrain better then me. It's just not been done yet... Though if anyone wanted to work on one with my designs, that would be cool with me. Because it would save me a lot of time.

PS : Thank you to all the mapper's maps I've learned off of over the years.

[ck3D]

^ I mean yes people have always come up with creative designs in user maps, but I don't really recall seeing that particular trick used as extensively (by someone else at least) before and so it's still pretty neat. But I do commend your humility. Also I probably missed the screenshots or posts that you used to share with your old account, to be honest. But I do see people come up with great ideas and designs on here all the time.

Here's an update on the Project: A.W.O.L. map. Big changes in aesthetics from the previous screenshots and yet a lot is still bound to differ in the final version and so again, posterity. Been loving those textures though.

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[Truck Stop Santa Claus]

Yeah there's a lot going on in there!

[ck3D]

Truck Stop Santa Claus, on 13 September 2021 - 10:24 AM, said:

Yeah there's a lot going on in there!

[Graphics]

Quick update. Because of an excess of extra walls and sectors. I made the houses a little more dynamic and easy to look at.


I've also added more infrastructure. The roads and buildings now cover almost half the map. Here's the view from the watch tower.


Next I'm going to work on a pentagon style army base for one of the corners of the island. A reason why there is a watch tower.

[dandouglas]

After not touching Build for some 25 years I've been working on an episode for a couple of months which was initially intended to simply be a recreation of (scandal-embroiled former UK health secretary) Matt Hancock's office with a working CCTV camera for a laugh, and quickly sprawled into something else - a few work-in-progress shots below, i'm documenting the whole process in a mammoth Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/...225386861502469

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[Jblade]

those screenshots look incredible, looking forward to checking it out!

[jimbob]

dandouglas, on 14 September 2021 - 06:53 AM, said:

After not touching Build for some 25 years I've been working on an episode for a couple of months which was initially intended to simply be a recreation of (scandal-embroiled former UK health secretary) Matt Hancock's office with a working CCTV camera for a laugh, and quickly sprawled into something else - a few work-in-progress shots below, i'm documenting the whole process in a mammoth Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/...225386861502469

that looks pretty sweet

[Graphics]

To Dandougles. Welcome back after 25 years. Liking the maps you're making. The edited textures look great and I recognized Stonehenge right away. Keep up the good work.

[Aleks]

dandouglas, on 14 September 2021 - 06:53 AM, said:

After not touching Build for some 25 years I've been working on an episode for a couple of months which was initially intended to simply be a recreation of (scandal-embroiled former UK health secretary) Matt Hancock's office with a working CCTV camera for a laugh, and quickly sprawled into something else - a few work-in-progress shots below, i'm documenting the whole process in a mammoth Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/...225386861502469

Ah, I remember bumping on your project on Twitter few weeks ago and browsing through the mammoth thread thinking "shit, that escalated quickly!" It's looking really good, cool to see people employing new textures in Duke to such a great degree that basically changes the whole look of the game - still, besides being quite hi-res, they don't seem too off or clashing with the regular Duke art.

[Graphics]

As a side note. I might take a break from my open world map to work on the maps for my mod. I've been ignoring it lately. Here's some pictures.



I feel like the potential of the build engine to handle graphics and games like this is highly underrated. An official game of this nature would be amazing.

PS : I might even mix my 8bit deathmatch mod with my open world map and add the 8bit levels to arcades you'll find around the map. Because that map is a mod in on itself. I can use the other map spaces for my 8bit deathmatch levels. Just go up to an arcade and press the action button. That activate an invisible end-map button set to change to the 8bit maps. Like a game within a game.

[Mike Norvak]

This is wonderful!

[Graphics]

So here's the update as of now. I put roads, buildings and houses all across the map. Only the artic area has nothing. But I plan on making a big pentagon style base there. All the infrastructure is TROR ready. But I won't be doing that until the final stage of development. I want to install a subway.


Also, just to make a note of this. I might have found the limits to Polymost. During development I came across a glitch. Software mode was fine through. I resolved this glitch well sector hunting. So it might be the limitations of Polymost or a problematic wall/sector I deleted during the sector hunt. We'll see as I keep an eye on things.

[Merlijn]

So much awesome stuff in the last few pages of this topic, great to see!

I'm close to being done with my episode, I had less spare time for mapping than I expected the last few months (RL stuff getting in the way, some music projects etc)
And of course even the boss map is getting bigger than planned. But almost there..

[Aleks]

[ck3D]

Great to hear and lovely lighting/shading, Aleks! Loving the contrast in between the straight line on the left side and the curves on the right side.

Project: A.W.O.L. map keeps evolving and changing looks, but getting closer to completion. Peep placeholder sky texture game.

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[Graphics]

To Aleks. Your lighting looks awesome. Love the fact it's not polymer.

To Ck3D. Your map is looking great. How close are you to completion?

As for me, quick update. It might not look like much since the last picture. But I got the basic infrastructure for the sky train done.

Yes, you will be able to go inside it and catch a train across the map. Also if limits allow it, I will be making a underground road with TROR.

[ck3D]

Sky train infrastructure looks superb and just from this screenshot, I can already tell how the train system will add even greater depth to the map - you're exploiting one more dimension of it now. Really cool stuff.

Thanks for your interest about that map I'm making. I'd say structurally I'm just wrapping it up right now, but the process behind this one has been an oddity since it's in fact been around that state for a while now, just using a completely different texture set I had been supplied with but really was outdated. So for the past two weeks, I've been mostly retexturing everything with the right, new .art all the while adding the remain touches bit by bit. May sound like a chore but no, actually it was a very interesting experience, directly manipulating and drastically altering the looks and thus the tone of one same existing level. And technically it wasn't a problem either as Mapster32 has tons of shortcuts to make the task a lot more trivial than it would have been back in the OG Build days. Right now I'm fine-tuning the last effects and about to throw in the gameplay, and that too is going to be interesting since Project A.W.O.L. has tons of new features and possibilities compared to Duke 3D, mostly related to enhanced AI and involving new effectors. But as far as Duke 3D goes, I'm sitting on ten similar maps for my work-in-progress episode right now that I've been making for the past two, three years. In general, those are quite comparable in style and size. As soon as I'm done with this map for A.W.O.L., I'm diving back into that and hopefully wrapping it up too.

On a side note, I'm getting quite a few of those engine glitches we were bringing up earlier in this map, but thanks to your advice I will be able to address that easily and more importantly I understand the reasons for the whole phenomenon a lot better now. Particularly the reason why those glitches only happen from certain angles - the trigger seems to be as soon as one of the next walls in the player's FOV is one of the excessively long ones, then the rendering of stuff in far distance starts acting up. I always sort of figured that was the case before your post but never really the exact inner workings or numeric specificities.

[Graphics]

To Ck3D. I did make one mistake in my map through. I should have build the roads and building along side the terrain. Then all the roads would be level with the terrain. Making a much more realistic landscape. The current map doesn't look bad. But I feel like I could do a bigger and better map.

For example, Terrain uses a lot more sectors then walls. As I delete terrain to build roads, houses and building. The results is, my wall count goes up and sector count goes down. If I was to design my map with roads along side the terrain. I'd be able to use all the sectors and walls. Creating something even bigger and more dynamic. Plus I wouldn't copy and paste one corner of the terrain to save time.

But at the start of this project. I didn't have any infrastructure ready. This whole project was just a proof of concept really. My next map will feature bigger and better terrain. Plus it wouldn't be some kind of concept test. Because we know it works.

As for any issue you come across. Here's what I've learned. Classic mode is more stable then Ploymost. As Ploymost seems to have an on screen wall limit. Also remember, the longer the distance the shorter the wall is. Probably something to do with prospective... I hope that helps you with your work.

[Seb Luca]

In my next map is slipped a tribute to a talented member of the community. Who will guess?

[Graphics]

To Seb Luca. Not sure who the tribute is for. But your map is looking nice.

[Seb Luca]

@Graphics : thanks a lot

Here is the answer ...

Spoiler

Mark's "Graveyard", look at 1'06

[Graphics]

You're welcome Seb Luca.

If anyone is wondering what I'm up to. I'm expanding my landscape terrain mapping parts.

The next update will include.
1: Higher elevations. (from 4x higher to 6x higher)
2: New angle equations. (more options to lago with)
3: Infrastructure parts. (buildings, houses and roads)
4: Better organization. (makes it easier to find parts)
5: Shading and bug fixes. (the shading looks better)

[Mark]

Thanks for the tribute. Way cool. I really hope I can find the time to go back to that project and tweak a few things here and there that I know I can do better.
...and Seb, thanks also for making me feel old. I looked at the release thread for GraveyardTC and its from Jan of 2015. Time is flying by.

[Seb Luca]

My pleasure !
Whoops ! Not old enough, I hope, to already have one foot in the grave ?

PS : the classics never get old