[OVERLORD]

Made a little amendment regarding WWII GI Widescreen HUD.

Now it looks just nice in my opinion. I ilke it.

Here is the latest version.

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•  DN3DAE_16_9_Aspect_Ratio_WW2GI_Weapons'_Sprites_Fixes.zip (8.55K)
  Number of downloads: 16

[OVERLORD]

I also made widescreen fixes for three briefing texts which are present WWII GI Platoon Leader.

The archive also contains WWII GI Widescreen HUD and Widescreen Version of hands for TNT (taken from Duke Nukem 3D widescreen tiles).

Use the following command line to use it:

"-g DN3DAE_16_9_Aspect_Ratio_WW2GI_PL_Weapons'_Sprites_Fixes.zip"

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Attached File(s)

•  DN3DAE_16_9_Aspect_Ratio_WW2GI_PL_Weapons'_Sprites_Fixes.zip (32.6K)
  Number of downloads: 19

[Merlijn]

Lots of great stuff in here!

@ ALeks: am I correct in assuming that the speed boat is moving as well? The sloped sprites look rad already, but if the thing is moving as well.. that's impressive!

[OVERLORD]

Hey guys, check out this stuff.

When playing WWII GI in widescreen mode, there is a cropped right arm which throws a grenade.

That sucked quite considerably, so I fixed it.


Here are the final WWII GI & WWII Platoon Leader Widescreen Packs.

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WWII GI

-Added latest version of widescreen status bar which I made some time ago
-Added widescreen version of hands which hold TNT (hands taken from Duke Nukem 3D widescreen tiles)
-Added widescreen version of right arm which throws grenade (took me some time to extend it but, oh boy, that looks lovely now)

========================================================

WWII GI Platoon Leader

-Added latest version of widescreen WWII GII status bar which I made some time ago
-Added widescreen version of hands which hold TNT (hands taken from Duke Nukem 3D widescreen tiles)
-Added widescreen version of right arm which throws grenade (took me some time to extend it but, oh boy, that looks lovely now)
-Added widescreen version of three briefing texts displayed at the beginning of each map

========================================================

Take a look at some screenies.

Use the following command line parameters to launch those goodies:


For WWII GI :

-g DN3DAE_16_9_Aspect_Ratio_WW2GI_Weapons'_Sprites_Fixes.zip


For WWII GI Platoon Leader :

-g DN3DAE_16_9_Aspect_Ratio_WW2GI_PL_Weapons'_Sprites_Fixes.zip

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Attached File(s)

•  DN3DAE_16_9_Aspect_Ratio_WW2GI_Weapons'_Sprites_Fixes.zip (14.54K)
  Number of downloads: 18
•  DN3DAE_16_9_Aspect_Ratio_WW2GI_PL_Weapons'_Sprites_Fixes.zip (38.6K)
  Number of downloads: 17

[Aleks]

Merlijn, on 03 September 2020 - 08:54 AM, said:

Lots of great stuff in here!

@ ALeks: am I correct in assuming that the speed boat is moving as well? The sloped sprites look rad already, but if the thing is moving as well.. that's impressive!

Thanks, and yeah, it is moving. Eats a lot of resources (was a bit tricky since all the walls and sprites have to touch/be in the mother sector), but definitely was worth it. I'm quite happy with how the the trailing wave looks.

To be honest, I only made it move to make sure noone notices the glitches in the spritework https://forums.duke4.net/public/style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif

[11bush]

I have been working on remaking all the enemies in duke just for fun. ( I was away with work for a few weeks with nothing to do in the evenings :) ) I wanted to make a bunch of different death animations, but I couldn't do much with what was in there, so i decided to just make my own and do the death animations with that.

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[11bush]

Right after adding that picture, I realized I messed up on the tail. So I fixed it.

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[11bush]

I started on the pig cop today.

I gave the trooper red eyes as well.

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[Mister Sinister]

[ck3D]

^ This has to be my favorite shot out of all the ones you've been posting, loving the layout, reminds me of Doom (tired comparison I know) and from the looks of it it's interactive too, which is always a plus. Also the texturing is top notch. Really looking forward to playing those maps when they're out, also because it looks like you really know where you want to go concept-wise, so I'm sure that'll be a fresh experience.

[Mister Sinister]

Yeah, Doom influence grows stronger with each map.
This one is going to be a tough cookie, one of the hardest I've done.

[ck3D]

Cool, I love challenges so again, looking forward. And yeah I'm a bit of the same when it comes to Doom influence these days, not in terms of aesthetics but of 2D layout with interconnections, navigation quirks, secret doors and whatnot, in general with time I'm less and less interested in 3D mode museum maps and more and more by the actual 2D blueprint of a level - Build comes packaged with so many possibilities too, being a non-Euclidian engine and offering so many options for terrain manipulation. Honestly if I wasn't focused on my little city maps so much right now, I'd probably be releasing some really weird shit.

[ck3D]

Satisfying progress on map 3 over the last few days. Map is now nearing 1100 sectors, lots of new areas and paths drawn and the Eastern region of the level is now pretty much complete. Now I can choose to focus either on the interiors of the main triangular building shown earlier, or on another section in the South of the map but as that one is supposed to be a secondary visit whereas the main building is supposed to be the main piece I'm probably going to go spend resources there first.

Handful of WIP screens,

Random little indoor areas and shops:






One more (simple) destruction scene:



Bit of a new street for perspective and the play on the green/red, it's still simple for now but still so far it might be one of my favorite sections in the map in terms of looks (also with the side street on the back left, not displayed here but it kind of captures the same spirit as the rooftops some people liked in Poison Heart), it's pretty fascinating how just some simple angles, bright colors and strong shading can work (but I guess that's how visualization works):

[Aleks]

Insane use of textures and palettes, man. The shot from the streets is not really revealing too much, but I like the red/green combo on other shots (especially the 2nd one - red pal on whole building facade in the distance seems like a bold design choice!) and how still the "unpaletted" interiors seem to work with it. Nice detailing on the interiors (I especially like how well the "hipster" type of cafe works) and it's nice how much you can do with pretty much just the single texture in the newspaper shop. It all has a strong original episodes vibe for some reason, but I can't tell what it is.

[ck3D]

Thanks for the comment, Aleks! Yeah, that last street shot is just pure composition for the sake of it, I didn't want to reveal too much of everything at street level there before I'm done with all the detailing down below (and despite posting lots of screens I'm also not spoiling much about what I think is actually good in these levels in general), but what I can say is the red building you can see on the right is the same one you mentioned on the second screenshot out of that window (you can actually spot the other side on that window on the last screen too, on the left side building); its red facade is because the whole area is lit up with red light cast directly from one of the next buildings at an angle that doesn't affect the street below. Honestly when it comes to lighting/shading, most of the time bolder is better. Unless we're talking detailed nuances, in which case it's better to go subtle (for instance non-paletted vs. paletted sections like you mentioned only really work next to one another due to particularly considerate wall shading around the point they blend in).

Most of those areas are still low on detail, some because still WIP, others because I just don't feel like cluttering them with stuff. For a bit I've always been trying to achieve contrast between big open areas and more cramped rooms depending on whether I want to push a feeling of freedom or claustrophobia on the player during this or that section of the level, but sometimes it can be tricky to balance the latter with the practical, although it can make for some nice visual storytelling by conveying a sense of progression when properly pulled off.

[Tea Monster]

Duke Nukem Forever original Duke model, with full PBR textures.
The diffuse and most of the normals are the original textures (apart from the hands) and new roughness and metallic channels have been added to get 'dat pop' on the brass and other metal items.
The gloves are mostly new textures that I created with new diffuse and custom normal maps.

Ignore the hair in this shot as I hadn't yet implemented the transparency on the hair cards.

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[Mister Sinister]

DOOKE

[Aleks]

^ Nice stuff, with each new screenshot it's looking better as the direction you're going with this becomes more and more clear :)

Finally working some on indoors again. This is an officer's quarter in a Pig Cop's barracks. The main difficulty was to try and recreate a seemingly terrible taste in furnishing and generally bad indoor choices that the Pig Cops would make with making it actually still look quite decent detail and composition wise, and somehow fit it with the general ambience of the level.

https://imgurl.me/images/2020/09/19/duke0025b364818d2cb5739b.th.png

[Ninety-Six]

That lantern is adorable.


I mean that in a good way, of course. I don't think I've seem a non-sprite lantern before. I'm sure others exist somewhere but not in any maps I've ever played.

[ck3D]

Some news (and sightings) from the #map3 front,

Want to see some fun, mindless mess I will have a tough time articulating myself? I just started this room with a funky layout involving some SOS (all the detail is still lacking and the textures are most likely placeholders), the 'effect' is basic but looks cool and works well, albeit a tricky one to explain. I kind of see it as 'fake true ROR' for kicks. Now, the player first accesses that big room arriving from the (underground) segment in the upper left corner of screen 1 - layer one. Then once there, they have the option of climbing up more stairs to get to that red entrance on screen 2 (center right), into a hallway that loops around and overlaps the bottom floor and elevator sector - layer 2. Nothing special but now, taking a good look at screen 2 one can see that there's more to that room behind the elevator as well - again overlapping everything - and maybe even spot the big sprite structure protruding from the back of the room (far center left, continued in screen 3) that corresponds to the physical space of the red hallway, to simulate its presence across the room all the while letting you go above and below it (quite logically since it's all sprites). tl;dr it's just a combination of 3 layers of SOS and a sprite bridge, but I'm not sure I've seen many similar set-ups before. But this type of layout trickery is exactly the kind of stuff I'm into experimenting with these days. I'm going for many more layers and interconnections in that area in the final piece too.



And now some less 'tech' shots of recent areas, still in need of a lot of fine-tuning for some:

[Aleks]

Ninety-Six, on 18 September 2020 - 12:07 PM, said:

That lantern is adorable.


I mean that in a good way, of course. I don't think I've seem a non-sprite lantern before. I'm sure others exist somewhere but not in any maps I've ever played.

Thanks, now the funny thing is that you pointed to that lantern which was the last thing I did in that room, was playing aroung with where should the main source of light in the room be (the main lamp on the ceiling is destructible, so I had to make it permanently "off"), at first I did the shadows according to the windows, but then decided it would be quite inconsistent with the rest of the map and the general sunlight pattern, so I had to go for another lightsource inside the room and decided to make it a lantern... And it actually is made of sprites, as it stands on a sprite desktop (on which Duke is also crouching at this shot).

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Want to see some fun, mindless mess I will have a tough time articulating myself? I just started this room with a funky layout involving some SOS (all the detail is still lacking and the textures are most likely placeholders), the 'effect' is basic but looks cool and works well, albeit a tricky one to explain. I kind of see it as 'fake true ROR' for kicks. Now, the player first accesses that big room arriving from the (underground) segment in the upper left corner of screen 1 - layer one. Then once there, they have the option of climbing up more stairs to get to that red entrance on screen 2 (center right), into a hallway that loops around and overlaps the bottom floor and elevator sector - layer 2. Nothing special but now, taking a good look at screen 2 one can see that there's more to that room behind the elevator as well - again overlapping everything - and maybe even spot the big sprite structure protruding from the back of the room (far center left, continued in screen 3) that corresponds to the physical space of the red hallway, to simulate its presence across the room all the while letting you go above and below it (quite logically since it's all sprites). tl;dr it's just a combination of 3 layers of SOS and a sprite bridge, but I'm not sure I've seen many similar set-ups before. But this type of layout trickery is exactly the kind of stuff I'm into experimenting with these days. I'm going for many more layers and interconnections in that area in the final piece too.

Man, that took me a while to figure out what's going on in these pics, but it's great! It's indeed something rarely seen, if you managed to pull it out without visual glitches (and judging by the 2D shot you did), then that's really great! Now have you considered adding those 1-way windows in the "hanging" section to make some of the "outside" section visible from the inside? :)

As for the other shots, awesome stuff as usually. I especially like the entrance to "D-Cup" thing in screen 3 and the palettes of those locked doors on the same screen (again, at first I was wondering what are those diagonal sprites before I realised they are part of the texture), the height differences and verticality on screen 4 (that red building in the back really does the job!) and balconies and composition of the 3 buildings' facades on the last screen (although here I really don't like the floor textures on the street - are they placeholders? Especially the tiles/panels which take a really ugly look under palettes - especially pal 7 - there).

[ck3D]

Thanks for the feedback Aleks! Yeah I actually thought of the possibility of making those one-way windows since the basic set-up for those is already pretty much in place, but so far I don't think I really want them, suggestion probably works better there for the player and also that effect is too inconsistent and glitchy for me to trust - even though I like it, for this episode at least I'd rather go for a feel that's closer to the base game and mostly rely on (combinations of) tricks that were always 'officially supported' and won't ever really risk breaking. But you're right, in a different context that set-up could be really cool. Some other connections from floor to floor are somewhat made apparent in the rest of the level actually, via silent teleporters but every teleporting sector is properly stacked over its counterpart down below (or high up) in 2D mode/automap, not as cool but that I'll take.

Ha yeah explaining the trick was, well... tricky, I reckon most players will really understand it when they experience it first hand in game, otherwise yeah it's best thought as a SOS sandwich with the middle layer seeming apparent thanks to spritework and then you also have the back of the main hall overlapping the 'red' corridor, and what was satisfying was actually pulling it off first try with the right sector splits so indeed I never got any visual glitches at all even when I was expecting them. The only downside is that path alongside the elevator to the back of the main hall has to be pretty narrow which may look a bit odd, but I don't think it's problematic and I can arrange that with detailing. This is another of those times where I had E1L1 on my mind whilst designing the thing, it was a bit reminiscent of those overlapping sectors in the cinema.

Yes that floor texture bothers me too, I just haven't added any detail or put any real thought into that whole street yet (or in most of those streets at ground level to be honest), I usually fine-tune street areas last thing working on a level. Even without pal 7 too, the tone of that tile is a bit off in comparison with the surroundings so it's bound to go sometime, whenever I actually get to polish that. Right now that sidewalk is completely empty, too, which doesn't help. Also if you enjoy verticality, then I suspect the city maps in that episode will definitely hit the right note for you in general - so far they all play with heights a lot.

And yeah that red building 'in the back' is the same we've discussed just before, the coloring looks super strong and clashes against the blue of the night sky from ground level, I really like it too, red cities in general are an underdeveloped theme that could look great (maybe for a small level, not something like Siebenpolis), I remember playing with the idea way back for some sections of Suburban Hive 2 and thinking the color worked surprisingly well on most building facades. Although it's probably wiser to use just in small touches and nuances like here, for a better effect.

I meant to reply to you guys' screenshots too but I fell asleep before I could edit my post, lol. Both are really cool, Aleks I like your rendition of 'terrible taste' in an otherwise clean, well-structured and detailed environment, the clash is interesting and works well here. And I like to imagine that Mister Sinister's Dooke 3D shots subconsciously influenced me to design that one basement with the crates the way I did it, not so much in terms of looks as of mood (but I guess the aesthetic in general is pretty E1, maybe E3-ish with those texture picks).

[Aleks]

ck3D, on 18 September 2020 - 10:50 PM, said:

Thanks for the feedback Aleks! Yeah I actually thought of the possibility of making those one-way windows since the basic set-up for those is already pretty much in place, but so far I don't think I really want them, suggestion probably works better there for the player and also that effect is too inconsistent and glitchy for me to trust - even though I like it, for this episode at least I'd rather go for a feel that's closer to the base game and mostly rely on (combinations of) tricks that were always 'officially supported' and won't ever really risk breaking. But you're right, in a different context that set-up could be really cool. Some other connections from floor to floor are somewhat made apparent in the rest of the level actually, via silent teleporters but every teleporting sector is properly stacked over its counterpart down below (or high up) in 2D mode/automap, not as cool but that I'll take.

With your prehistoric version of Mapster it would be probably easy to put them, but I can understand the point of view that it might be "deleted" in some future Eduke release (hopefully not for the sake of all the cool maps using it). Now I imagine making a one-way transparent glass gallery type bridge between two buildings using that effect - actually in one of my started levels ("mission briefing" before 5th level of the episode) I did a kind of gallery corridoor and was thinking how to put it from the outside, so might just try it like this. The corridoor itself is not really complex in shape and should be easy to just cover with sprites from the outside, but it uses some slopes and moving sectors inside, so has to stay sector-based. This could however be used (with one-way windows) for some more fancy shapes, would just need a lot of splitting at correct angles in case it's concave.

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Ha yeah explaining the trick was, well... tricky, I reckon most players will really understand it when they experience it first hand in game, otherwise yeah it's best thought as a SOS sandwich with the middle layer seeming apparent thanks to spritework and then you also have the back of the main hall overlapping the 'red' corridor, and what was satisfying was actually pulling it off first try with the right sector splits so indeed I never got any visual glitches at all even when I was expecting them. The only downside is that path alongside the elevator to the back of the main hall has to be pretty narrow which may look a bit odd, but I don't think it's problematic and I can arrange that with detailing. This is another of those times where I had E1L1 on my mind whilst designing the thing, it was a bit reminiscent of those overlapping sectors in the cinema.

Reminds me more of E2 episodes (Dark Side comes to mind first), also there's those ventilation shafts (made with sectors not sprites) that "stick out" to mimick the SOS sectors (Tiberius Station most prominent ones I think). And yeah, I've just found out during my recent SOS explorations that it sometimes requires certain geometry restrictions or a lot of playing with extra splits at correct angles (I've got some places which are tight like hell, god bless the "3D mode peak" feature of Mapster!).

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Yes that floor texture bothers me too, I just haven't added any detail or put any real thought into that whole street yet (or in most of those streets at ground level to be honest), I usually fine-tune street areas last thing working on a level. Even without pal 7 too, the tone of that tile is a bit off in comparison with the surroundings so it's bound to go sometime, whenever I actually get to polish that. Right now that sidewalk is completely empty, too, which doesn't help. Also if you enjoy verticality, then I suspect the city maps in that episode will definitely hit the right note for you in general - so far they all play with heights a lot.

Some textures just don't look right with palettes because of weird pixelization and I suppose pal 7 is one of the more sensitive in this aspect, making some random yellow dots on brown/gray texture or the other way around. But I bet you could easily write a PhD thesis on this after Siebenpolis anyway :)

[ck3D]

Yeah that is true about some E2 maps featuring similar-looking constructions, for some reason I regularly tend to overlook those but in terms of layout they had some really cool stuff. I always kind of caught the vibe that having a space theme in the base game was always a barely-disguised excuse for the devs to go nuts with the new effects and SOS possibilities of Build in more abstract settings than 'realistic' cities (in addition to making canonical sense in the first place and all), to be honest.

[Mark]

I'm going for a quickie. :) I'm going to see what I can come up with for the E4L5 Pigsty level in the HHR mod with a few afternoons of work next week. I started it a couple of years ago and dropped it.

I'm not going to spend enough time to make it super fancy, just slightly different and interesting. No new assets. I'll be using existing stuff. It will be closer to original than the other HHR maps. Minor mapping changes and adding my usual amount of Polymer lighting and eye candy models. ;)

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[ck3D]

Architecture in the first shot looks really cool, definitely reminds me of Pigsty without being Pigsty, I appreciate the verticality too with that bridge on the left (spritework? TROR? I know nothing).

Second screenshot could be dubbed 'culinary arts win over geography and literature'. Cool set-up in that room too, with those walls breaking up the monotony of what would most likely be a straight, blocky hallway in most user maps.

[ck3D]

Also if those walls were already present in the original level then my bad. Honestly I'm out of the loop regarding HHR and I haven't touched The Birth in quite a few years (and I can no longer edit my previous post), but in general breaking up the monotony with structures and obstacles in the path of the player like this vs. long straight corridors (or alleyways) adds a lot of dynamism (now for something actually worth pointing out). Works especially well when paired up with some vertical action.

edit - after taking a look at the original level again I realize this is an original scene, but it's funny how said original level actually did use that approach quite a lot.

[Aleks]

It's been way too silent in here...

I've had so much fun designing this room that I went a bit crazy with sprites and ended up using around 1000 of them in here... Luckily, despite all the transparent stuff, I don't experience any glitches or framerate problems which was my main concern. It's not too cramped either as Duke can quite smoothly move around. There's also a lot of stuff to interact with in here, especially in the bar itself, so MRCK maybe won't call it a museum map :)

https://imgurl.me/images/2020/09/27/duke00263530ef8b69d1334e.th.png https://imgurl.me/images/2020/09/27/duke00280a789bcdec83db58.th.png

[ck3D]

No that's really cool, I'm no longer into building detailed micro structures myself but there is room for all styles as long as the level plays well, and you have an interesting style doing it too, those bar stools are some engineer stuff. I especially like the pool table and the classic-looking (yet quite rare in modern user maps) play on browns and greens for a gloomy look. By taking advantage of all the new techs, sloped sprites you're carving the niche of your own style, it's already quite recognizable, although thinking about it now it reminds me of Quakis': https://msdn.duke4.net/hotflaming.php

Also maybe a stupid question but is that bar texture new .art?

It's funny, I was also coming into this thread to report that as part of general progress on map 3 of my project, I just built a room with 1000+ sprites too (actually roughly 1200 so far, and that's without the detailing that I'll add later), basically imagine the cinema room in E1L1 but four times bigger with an extra floor/balcony (complete with seats) in the back. Funny anecdote is I built it piece per piece over a few hours, only to end up with a rather symmetrical room I could have very well copy-pasted fragments of, had I done things in the correct order, and saved most of that time (but it was fun to see slowly come together). In general I'm having fun working the inside of my little pyramid-shaped building right now, composing different floors, connecting them together in different ways and the like. Just need to keep an eye on the wall limit as I'm nearly at 10k already and estimate that I need to save at least 4 or 5k to really wrap things up everywhere else in the map, but so far so good.

[Mark]

Way cool Aleks.