[Sanek]

@Aleks, ck3D thank you for the kind words, guys!

Aleks, on 24 October 2020 - 11:28 AM, said:

Anyway, just finished shading these damn cliffs, so it's a good time to post some more revealing screens:

The foam behind the motorboat looks fantastic! It reminds me of the user maps for a 2D RTS's for some reason, when you make a new tile from the existing tiles. I dunno why I'm telling you that but If you ever build smth for a strategy game, you'll know what I mean.

Like the bridge, too!It's not as cool as the bridge that I made though, but it's good enough. :D

[Aleks]

Thanks, Sanek! That bridge of yours indeed looks really cool (from the design point of view - I would be a bit concerned for performance/flickering sprites issues for it, and as a civil engineer I find the pillars a bit too slender :P ), I like the general design on the screens, so hopefully I'll give the map a try soon.

[MetHy]

A quick little experiment I made after the SW AROR tutorial, to put the theory in practice. The layout and architecture should ring a bell.



I do intend to finish it at some point but it may not be soon.

[ck3D]

Aleks, on 26 October 2020 - 02:39 AM, said:

Thanks, Sanek! That bridge of yours indeed looks really cool (from the design point of view - I would be a bit concerned for performance/flickering sprites issues for it, and as a civil engineer I find the pillars a bit too slender :P ), I like the general design on the screens, so hopefully I'll give the map a try soon.

The flickering sprite thing is annoying, I'm starting to get it in map 3 of BR (only from specific angles outside the playable area, but it's still a warning that I should stop adding sprites right now), IIRC Sanek never shied away from it though, for instance Winterfall was a great map in general but it also constantly had that problem like he gave no shits and kept adding decoration. eDuke32 addresses this situation decently (you only get it in rather extreme cases) but World Tour handles it terribly (IIRC it still has the old limits of 1024 sprites on screen max at the same time), so when you start getting the glitches in eDuke32 you know your map is going to look fucked in other ports; then how acceptable that is is up to the author but it's something to keep in mind. In a way I can understand saying 'fuck it' and trusting an imaginary future update that would kill the problem altogether (although if it hasn't been done already, then I guess it's on the same level of impossibility as raising the sector/wall/sprite limits higher than they currently are), blaming it on the engine to justify going nuts with detail but nah, it's still a problem that should be avoided as I find it really kills the immersion. Over the weekend I've added tons of cool sprite-based stuff to my map but if it ever starts resulting in this I won't think twice about deleting some of it.

[ck3D]

Finally, the basic design of 'map 3' is complete. I still have some quick spritework to add here and there in a few rooms, most effects to implement and maybe a handful of extra secret places to add, but the general structure is done. Finished everything at street level the other day, only to end up with only about 200 walls left for the couple of floors I had left to add to the inside of the main building, which was stressing me out a little; today I finally moved the inside of said main building over to its intended place on the grid, spent a while fixing every single floor and ceiling texture in there because of course I fucked that up, then added what I needed to add; eventually the 200 walls flew by really quickly but I managed to just barely make it, as predicted and without making any major compromises too, in general I'm quite satisfied with the last few areas I built (some experimentation that happened to go well), hopefully people will dig them too.

Just like I did for map 1 and 2, I'll celebrate with 2D screenshots, first one is of the whole map, second one spoils a wee bit more being zoomed in on the main building to get a closer look at the SOS. If you look at the building on the right (the one with the red light in front) you can maybe see it also features a dose of it, just with fewer floors, I kind of used it as practice for the whole concept. Automap doesn't look particularly special but in general this map is interconnected like crazy with ways to drop (or fly) from floor to floor via holes in the ground/ceiling and whatnot most everywhere, in addition to the usual several entrances and exits per building on the flat axis, so yeah it's big but I hope it'll be a lot of fun in Dukematch (if ever), and just to explore, too, which was a big part of my aim.



With the big work on this one out of the way, I'm probably going to chill for a week or two (I've been mapping a lot this month, and I have some other projects to go through with) before I polish a few things in map 1, 2 and 3 and then resume work on the rest. Thing is I could literally start at least four maps right now that are already completely laid out in my head and as I prefer to work on the levels one by one I need to choose the right one to tackle first; maybe I'll pick one of the least ambitious ones to start, as this last one was the biggest level I've ever done (2200 sectors/16310 walls/11200 sprites without the remaining detail, effects and last-minute secret places) and I could do with something more casual.

Good ol' gunfire visibility trick to say bye to this one in this thread for now:

[DukeNukemGold]

Looks awesome :D.

[MetHy]

ck3D, on 28 October 2020 - 05:48 PM, said:

Finally, the basic design of 'map 3' is complete. I still have some quick spritework to add here and there in a few rooms, most effects to implement and maybe a handful of extra secret places to add, but the general structure is done. Finished everything at street level the other day, only to end up with only about 200 walls left for the couple of floors I had left to add to the inside of the main building, which was stressing me out a little; today I finally moved the inside of said main building over to its intended place on the grid, spent a while fixing every single floor and ceiling texture in there because of course I fucked that up, then added what I needed to add; eventually the 200 walls flew by really quickly but I managed to just barely make it, as predicted and without making any major compromises too, in general I'm quite satisfied with the last few areas I built (some experimentation that happened to go well), hopefully people will dig them too.

Just like I did for map 1 and 2, I'll celebrate with 2D screenshots, first one is of the whole map, second one spoils a wee bit more being zoomed in on the main building to get a closer look at the SOS. If you look at the building on the right (the one with the red light in front) you can maybe see it also features a dose of it, just with fewer floors, I kind of used it as practice for the whole concept. Automap doesn't look particularly special but in general this map is interconnected like crazy with ways to drop (or fly) from floor to floor via holes in the ground/ceiling and whatnot most everywhere, in addition to the usual several entrances and exits per building on the flat axis, so yeah it's big but I hope it'll be a lot of fun in Dukematch (if ever), and just to explore, too, which was a big part of my aim.

With the big work on this one out of the way, I'm probably going to chill for a week or two (I've been mapping a lot this month, and I have some other projects to go through with) before I polish a few things in map 1, 2 and 3 and then resume work on the rest. Thing is I could literally start at least four maps right now that are already completely laid out in my head and as I prefer to work on the levels one by one I need to choose the right one to tackle first; maybe I'll pick one of the least ambitious ones to start, as this last one was the biggest level I've ever done (2200 sectors/16310 walls/11200 sprites without the remaining detail, effects and last-minute secret places) and I could do with something more casual.

Good ol' gunfire visibility trick to say bye to this one in this thread for now:

These look cool, I especially like the sloped rooftop. Speaking of diagonals, I think you should consider using them more for the base layout/architecture. Look at Hollywood Holocaust for instance, the building/street is straight on one side, and a slight diagonal on the other, that design barely makes sense, no buildings are like that especially not in the US where all the cities look like they could have been built using the squares of Build grid size 1 as a base, but nobody's ever questionned it and it's instantly more pleasant to the eye than say, Red Light District and its rectangle based design.

I know building using diagonals is not a natural act in Build and kind of a pain at times, it took me years to start doing it and it still never comes naturally, but on the bright side you'll be able to tell all your nieces, nephews, and other kids you know who still go to school, that yes, you do use Pythagoras' theorem in your every day life and the math teacher wasn't bullshitting them.

[Aleks]

Always great to see some 2D view screens! So many cars there, it's crazy, almost looks like GTA 1 from that perspective. Also I see some creative ways of texturing on them. It doesn't seem so big from the 2D shot, but then the one where you're firing the gun makes it look huge. All these cars, details on the street and buildings in distant make for crazily alive feel to the map.

Also good to hear about the map being pretty much completed now. The sectors, walls and sprite count is crazy. Wonder how many monsters will populate this one (as I guess you haven't added them yet).

[ck3D]

@DukeNukemGold thank you! Project won't be out too soon as I still have a lot of maps for it on my mind, I could easily see it being a 2022 affair, so I hope you're still around to experience it firsthand when it drops and get to enjoy it eventually (final product should have a lot of playable content).

_

MetHy, on 29 October 2020 - 01:17 AM, said:

These look cool, I especially like the sloped rooftop. Speaking of diagonals, I think you should consider using them more for the base layout/architecture. Look at Hollywood Holocaust for instance, the building/street is straight on one side, and a slight diagonal on the other, that design barely makes sense, no buildings are like that especially not in the US where all the cities look like they could have been built using the squares of Build grid size 1 as a base, but nobody's ever questionned it and it's instantly more pleasant to the eye than say, Red Light District and its rectangle based design.

I know building using diagonals is not a natural act in Build and kind of a pain at times, it took me years to start doing it and it still never comes naturally, but on the bright side you'll be able to tell all your nieces, nephews, and other kids you know who still go to school, that yes, you do use Pythagoras' theorem in your every day life and the math teacher wasn't bullshitting them.

Thanks, and yeah I know about diagonals, I love them too and I've actually been trying to 'recreate' (or reinterpret) that Hollywood Holocaust feature a few times. I think the most obvious instance in the episode so far is map 1 where a good quarter of the layout is diagonal (https://i.imgur.com/fW7ByLS.png on the right - left is Poison Heart for comparison - counting the whole Northeastern segment, as well as some smaller parts in the Southwest such as this: https://forums.duke4...attach_id=14909). That being said you're totally right about map 2 and map 3 having a more blocky-ish look at street level as they're centered around plazas; it actually bothers me a tiny bit in map 2, both those levels play with slopes a lot though (map 2 has a handful of extremely sloped streets in particular) which I think contributes to help break the 'flat' feel when you're exploring the level, as then the architecture might not be diagonal but a lot of the action is. Not that both concepts should be mutually exclusive, though.

It's still a golden tip in general and I also wish more people picked up on it, breaking free from the grid (or its straightforward axis at least) is fun and surprisingly not that hard when you know what you're doing with dimensions, wall shapes etc.

Where I tend to apply that logic the most so far is to indoor locations, I feel like for the past year or two every other room I've been designing has been at an angle, never boxy, and allowing the player to traverse successions of hallways and rooms built like that always feels a lot more fresh than leading them through rectangle after rectangle; all original shapes make sure that the action never gets redundant and the player never knows what to expect next, behind every door is a surprise with a different set-up for firefights and it just makes for some positive disorientation altogether. Here you can kind of see (or guess) it on the zoomed-in 2D shot, looking at the lines inside the main building (or the others really). Plus by working with layouts that don't just go four ways, one gets a lot more possibilities when it comes to interconnections - that's actually where a lot of the fun was making that main building here with all the overlapping floors and seeing where I could link them all together (had I had more resources I don't think I would have ever stopped adding to that building, that process was really addicting, I'm glad I had to leave it there though as right now that segment is on a scale that's quite reminiscent of a map from the original game by itself, no more no less - it doesn't overstay its welcome with 12 floors connected together in 48 ways that would feel more like some kind of tech demo or proof of concept). Also something I thought was cool while designing that area is the building being diagonal (on the vertical axis) itself, the floor plan had to be thought of accordingly with the most amount of floors being around the center and the ascension of it all from the inside hopefully feeling like you're actually progressing through the structure you saw from the outside (but if not obvious in the process then it's made completely clear in the end of the level anyway, you'll see).

Nonetheless I'll still make sure I keep your point mind as I have maybe two more maps on my mind that will be plaza-based too, I like how those can bear a strong sense of location and be developed into their own singular theme vs. just random bouts of streets and buildings here and there but then the consequence is you end up with a level that's literally built around something, which can only be mitigated so much before you run out of resources (which is kind of what happened to me with map 2: https://forums.duke4...attach_id=15202 both East and West sections would have been side streets instead of blocked off, had that been possible). But then that'll be it for the 'traditional' city maps and all the other ones I have in mind for the episode will be something else entirely where I'll be able to go really wild with the terrain and lines. If I can pull it off the way I envision it then in general I don't think redundancy will be a problem in this project.

If there ever are other classic elements you're seeing might be lacking, or you have other similar points to make then I'm all ears, even if I'm taking artistic liberties in the aesthetics I really want to capture the essential Duke 3D feel, gameplay and layout logic at the core (just on a bigger scale), there are many things I think I'm considering already but every observation is obviously welcome.

_

@Aleks thanks, I love your constant GTA comparisons, I actually really liked the first GTA when it came out so to me that's great. Scale of the map doesn't translate for shit over screenshots yes (this new one is the first one I'm showing with some visibility, which barely matters in the end as no matter where you stand on the map, there's always more stuff going on in your back) which is also why I didn't care about spoiling specific areas as much as I did for map 1 and 2, in general regardless of how many screenshots I've been sharing I've always made sure to save (what I think is) the real cool stuff anyway.

About the monster count, I'd say don't expect a slaughterfest in this one, I want an experience that's more measured with fewer enemies attacking with a purpose or following in-universe events and patterns, filling the whole place with hundreds of aliens (before the end of the map at least) I think would be a waste. What I especially appreciate about large spaces is once you've built them (usually with a fight scenario in mind already) you really have a lot of options and leeway to come up with interesting encounters that are tied to the geometry of the place, so subsequently just cramming a shit ton of monsters in them would actually waste that space and make everything feel more anonymous.

Also map 1 had more sectors and map 2 more walls, but yeah this one kills both in terms of file size (1.1Mb without the effects and monsters indeed). The monsters is what I'll add last, technically, but I already know how I want the scenario in every room or location to play out and designed all the terrain accordingly, never at random.

Can't wait for your stuff to drop!

[MetHy]

I didn't mean to imply you didn't know about diagonals if that's the feeling you got. I just had to joke about Pythagoras.

[ck3D]

Haha no that's not what I got (and in fact I probably still do have a lot to learn about diagonals), I'm just super passionate about them too is all, they've been a personal obsession for a bit. You made a very valid point regarding outside areas, which I only tried to complement by saying the same logic also really works in indoor places, as then it becomes disorientating in a cool manner, constantly forcing the player to think outside the expected patterns and allowing for more unique fight set-ups; it probably boosts the feeling of exploration and progression too by making the experience feel more evolutive. And I'll repeat myself there, but taking liberties from the grid also opens a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to interconnections, in the end potential new ones pop up just about everywhere since you're drawing the map literally all over the place.

I've said it before but I always thought it'd be super interesting to see a map built 100% with grid lock off (although not exactly practical to make), I wonder how much more human it would end up feeling with all the mathematical imperfections.

[ck3D]

I suck at keeping my word on here - said I'd catch a break but they just announced another national lockdown here so I already started map 4 today and logged quite a few hours on it. Thought I'd announce it as I probably won't be posting as many screenshots as I did of map 3 at all, code name is map 4 but I actually intend it to be the introduction level so as the first impression of the whole thing I want to keep it somewhat low-key with less WIP shots. But I'm quite happy with the results so far already, having made a fun little building out of roughly 600 sprites that you can explore (otherwise I'm at 90 sectors and 600 walls). It's a city map but should be smaller than the other three; I'm constantly working with Hollywood Holocaust in mind (only spiritually though) and it actually feels funny having to stay away from all the neon tiles for the first time in months.

[Merlijn]

Great final shots of your map, CK3D! Sucks about the lockdown but at least mapster provides some distraction..
In The Netherlands it's still a "partial lockdown", so shops are still open etc. But we don't know if it will stay that way.

I always take a bit of a break from mapping after finishing and releasing a map, but the break was shorter than usual this time. Started working on SG4 and it's going to be fun to create this one!
If you played the series thus far, you'll know that this map starts inside a venue called The Kompleks, and here's a first little glimpse of it. This is the café area.

[ck3D]

Thank you Merlijn, honestly I was going to get a bit sad if your post didn't include at least some news from your end of the mapping front and we're even getting a screenshot, hurrah! Use of the teleporter as a lamp always trips me out, it works but I have a hard time feeling comfortable doing it myself because the strength of the association of that tile with the teleporter as a feature in the game is so strong. It's a good animated texture in general to stretch and pan for visual effects though (like all animated textures honestly). Good luck with SG4, I'm already looking forward to it!

And yeah partial lockdown was what we had been having since the end of summer, but then people messed around too much and now we're back to the full thing. Work has been low too so at least progress on Blast Radius might skyrocket, to the point where one day it might even come out looking like what it's supposed to.

[Merlijn]

Thanks for the feedback, I may change those lights to a more conventional texture later down the line. This is all WIP. :)

[Aleks]

@Merlijn, that's cool you already started working on the final part! Very nice texture composition on the screen (especially nice touch with wooden door texture on the bottom side of the walls. I don't mind "teleporter" lights. But if we want to be super-picky, my only suggestion would go for that bedsheet/wallpaper texture that's below the yellow beach lady poster. Palette 21 looks (and shades) a bit aggressive on it and the red/orange bits stand out too much I think. Maybe some more "pastel" look would work better there, like pal 15 or pal 12 (or even pal 10 to keep it red)? Was also recently experimenting with this one to see how to make it look just right.

@ck3D, don't mind you not keeping your word in this case! Good to hear you still have inspiration to start another map right after this one (BTW, did you already add gameplay (monsters/items) and all effects to map 3? Or gonna wait with that until all maps are finished in case there's some tweaking left?). Also, adding 600 sprites and 600 walls in one go sounds quite fast to me - you really had it all planned in your head I suppose.

As for the diagonal discussion above, diagonal lines in general are great touch for breaking the monotony of the map, don't necessarily need to be whole diagonal streets, but also strong shadows or furniture/decorations scattered in more random fashion. As for the streets, I love for example (or for Eixample...) how Barcelona is planned with diagonal avenues crossing what is otherwise a super-blocky and square grid of housings:

Spoiler

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Eixample_aire.jpg

Anyway, while we were discussing cars and diagonals, I made a diagonal car:


To keep the proportions right, the technique used was like this: I first draw it square on grid, then put placeholder horizontal sprites on top of each sectors and scaled them so their vertices match the sector vertices, copied the sprites and rotated them 45 degree, rearranged them so it matches the "square" relative locations of sprites, drew the sectors once again to match the new coordinates of rotated sprites' vertices, then made sure corresponding line lengths are the same. Sounds pretty complex, but TBH it took me less time than I expected. Mapster showing borders of horizontal sprites is generally a bliss and super speed-up for making diagonal stuff, it's almost like rotating the grid itself.


Anyway, these are probably some of the last screens from me for this map, as it's slowly getting ready. I'm at 1849 sectors/15 912 walls/11 270 sprites right now and what really needs to be done is interiors of 2 medium-sized rooms, one-way windows trickery and some additional terrain details on the outside, which should be just enough for the wall limit without getting weird things. I was experimenting some with adding more sprite-heavy vegetation, but it (fortunately!) didn't look right, so I will keep this to minimum, also lowering the possibility of any potential sprite glitches.


If it wasn't for my current workload, I'd probably finish it till the end of next week, but with things as they are, probably 2 more weeks is what I need.

[ck3D]

No yeah the teleporter tile isn't a problem at all, it's just that it happens to be one of those random little things I have a hard time bringing myself to do in Build personally, haha, I'm sure we all have those kind of quirks in our respective styles and that's part of what makes them what they are too.

Aleks, on 01 November 2020 - 05:09 AM, said:

@ck3D, don't mind you not keeping your word in this case! Good to hear you still have inspiration to start another map right after this one (BTW, did you already add gameplay (monsters/items) and all effects to map 3? Or gonna wait with that until all maps are finished in case there's some tweaking left?). Also, adding 600 sprites and 600 walls in one go sounds quite fast to me - you really had it all planned in your head I suppose.

Map 3 is still lacking half of the effects, mostly simple stuff like doors or cracks because for some reason I was so focused on the design aspect while making that one it absorbed me and I built everything without tagging half the stuff, but all the construction is there, I just need to add a bunch of C9's and numbers. Everything in map 1 is functional and I believe in map 2 too except the ambient sounds in that one (again a quick late fix). All the maps are still lacking monsters and every item that's not a key item needed for basic progression because I want some new code in there eventually (for alternative versions of some monsters) which I haven't tackled yet, but I've been designing everything around those gameplay ideas I will implement in the future.

Yeah map 4 is all established in my head, and partly based on a real-world place so putting it down is easy. I feel like I've come to a point where I can look at a photo of a real-world place and instantly read how I could reinterpret it in Duke both in terms of design and gameplay features, usually be satisfied with the results I get, and keep getting better at that with every new map I tackle so the process is addicting and makes me map real quick. Work being low and me being stuck at home with lockdown and the occasional wi-fi meltdown also factor in the equation, not going to lie.

If you allow me to vent, just the other day I ran into a video of a Super Mario 64 mod where the author had just compiled every level in the game into one massive one, it honestly looked horrible and unpractical as hell with plenty of areas no longer being as functional etc. but somehow several commenters were intrigued and seemed to agree on how 'this felt like the Mario 64 of dreams', as in the version they'd imagine playing in their dreams as a kid whenever they dreamed of Mario 64. It really resonated with me as with this project I'm also trying to build the 'Duke 3D of my dreams' (but functional and hopefully enjoyable); I've actually said it on here before that my current style is exactly what I used to wish I could make already 10+ years ago in my occasional Duke 3D dreams but just couldn't because my vision wasn't developed enough and I really have the skills and sufficient understanding of the tools.

Using sprites to measure diagonal stuff is actually really smart, I'm a big fan of this kind of practical tricks, that would be a good idea of stuff to exchange about in a thread sometime to help everybody get their stuff done faster/more efficiently (along with tricks as simple as using the drawing tool for measuring distances in 2D mode, etc.).

Also car looks cool, I really like the structure and that texturing combination (and those cells in the back also look dope). I'm a bit bothered by the junction of that car door texture with the other walls on either side though (mostly on the second screenshot, it doesn't seem to stand out that much at all on the darker side). I think maybe you could add a wall-aligned sprite or two on each side for bonus fine trimming to 'close' (or mask?) that metal bar that suddenly stops. Myself, spontaneously I'd be tempted to try and use some kind of C-shaped sprite (either the old firetruck mirror that doesn't look like one, or one of the actual letter C's) to join the grey line with the brown line that runs parallel on the same texture, below.

[Aleks]

ck3D, on 01 November 2020 - 12:35 PM, said:

If you allow me to vent, just the other day I ran into a video of a Super Mario 64 mod where the author had just compiled every level in the game into one massive one, it honestly looked horrible and unpractical as hell with plenty of areas no longer being as functional etc. but somehow several commenters were intrigued and seemed to agree on how 'this felt like the Mario 64 of dreams', as in the version they'd imagine playing in their dreams as a kid whenever they dreamed of Mario 64. It really resonated with me as with this project I'm also trying to build the 'Duke 3D of my dreams' (but functional and hopefully enjoyable); I've actually said it on here before that my current style is exactly what I used to wish I could make already 10+ years ago in my occasional Duke 3D dreams but just couldn't because my vision wasn't developed enough and I really have the skills and sufficient understanding of the tools.

Haha, funny thing is, this map I'm currently building is pretty much all based on a concept I literally had in a Duke-dream like 15+ years ago. Don't wanna spoil too much and talk more about it now, but that's one of the things that's definitely gonna be put into the trivia section whenever I release it :)

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Using sprites to measure diagonal stuff is actually really smart, I'm a big fan of this kind of practical tricks, that would be a good idea of stuff to exchange about in a thread sometime to help everybody get their stuff done faster/more efficiently (along with tricks as simple as using the drawing tool for measuring distances in 2D mode, etc.).

Yeah, that would be a useful topic indeed. I'm developing a lot of such practical things for myself on the go, but it would be even better to share them with other people. And glad to know I'm not the only one using drawing tool for measuring (or finding symmetry/halves) in 2D mode.

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Also car looks cool, I really like the structure and that texturing combination (and those cells in the back also look dope). I'm a bit bothered by the junction of that car door texture with the other walls on either side though (mostly on the second screenshot, it doesn't seem to stand out that much at all on the darker side). I think maybe you could add a wall-aligned sprite or two on each side for bonus fine trimming to 'close' (or mask?) that metal bar that suddenly stops. Myself, spontaneously I'd be tempted to try and use some kind of C-shaped sprite (either the old firetruck mirror that doesn't look like one, or one of the actual letter C's) to join the grey line with the brown line that runs parallel on the same texture, below.

Thanks, that's a nice idea, I'll experiment a bit with it and see if I can make it look better. I was more concerned about the connection of side window with rooftop on the more "rear" side, but with this geometry I went for, couldn't do much more about it, tried a couple different arrangements and decided this one looks the best.

[ck3D]

Looking at it again, I think what bothers me is that the front texture (where the front wheel is) on the bright side of the car isn't flipped and thus the black line in the lower corner clashes with the car door texture instead of closing the front of the car, so all you might need to do is press F on it. Super specific I know but something as simple hurts my reading of it as an ensemble a bit (on the darker side it doesn't because the black bar is on the correct side). Structure of the car itself is really fine, nothing else shocks me about it, it's got a funny look but that's pure style, I dig it.

Funny how visions seem to tend to be rather timeless and then just take years for the author to materialize them, haha. That's all of art and style in a nutshell right there.

Ah and map 4 is now at least twice the size as I was saying just earlier. Next building I want to make is going to be tricky though.

[ck3D]

Sorry for the double post but I was just looking at that second screen again from closer and now I don't think that black bar that bothers me is part of the texture, I think it's just that you used sprites to mask the bottom of the car door texture but for some reason they don't seem attached to the bright side of the car to me, there's a gap of a few units? Which doesn't seem to appear on the other, darker side. It's hard to tell from the angles, either way I've been looking at that second screenshot like it's a puzzle quite a few times now, haha.

And about the practical tricks I've the same, keep figuring out new ones on the go, including diagonals/geometry, more efficient and 'correct' orders in the ways of doing things, smart copy-pasting, organized SOS editing etc. and I'm always thinking 'oh, I should totally write this one down for a compilation thread' like the one I was talking about. But then I don't think of writing it down, incorporate the tricks in my workflow and in the end I have to take a few steps back to realize what other people might commonly do and not do. Plus there's no real way of keeping track of that as everybody keeps mapping and developing their own quirks. Still I think it would be a constructive thread to run, like the Build Porn threads but regarding techniques and not effects.

[Aleks]

ck3D, on 02 November 2020 - 07:40 AM, said:

Sorry for the double post but I was just looking at that second screen again from closer and now I don't think that black bar that bothers me is part of the texture, I think it's just that you used sprites to mask the bottom of the car door texture but for some reason they don't seem attached to the bright side of the car to me, there's a gap of a few units? Which doesn't seem to appear on the other, darker side. It's hard to tell from the angles, either way I've been looking at that second screenshot like it's a puzzle quite a few times now, haha.

You'll get to betatest this one soon, so I expect more such comments ;) Yeah, that was the case here - the bottom of the brown car texture is masked with a blatant bus front sprite, but from some angles the black pixels did reveal themselves due to diagonality - simple solution was to stretch the masking sprite a bit. I did also add something to break the silver linings' abrupt endings on the car.

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And about the practical tricks I've the same, keep figuring out new ones on the go, including diagonals/geometry, more efficient and 'correct' orders in the ways of doing things, smart copy-pasting, organized SOS editing etc. and I'm always thinking 'oh, I should totally write this one down for a compilation thread' like the one I was talking about. But then I don't think of writing it down, incorporate the tricks in my workflow and in the end I have to take a few steps back to realize what other people might commonly do and not do. Plus there's no real way of keeping track of that as everybody keeps mapping and developing their own quirks. Still I think it would be a constructive thread to run, like the Build Porn threads but regarding techniques and not effects.

I'll gather some more ideas and try posting something like this in a week or so, hopefully you'll join with your tips&tricks too! Judging by some of our conversations, we could probably write a book nerdy Mapster stuff.

[Sangman]

Should there be separate threads for discussions and screenshots?

[Mike Norvak]

ck3D, on 28 October 2020 - 05:48 PM, said:

Finally, the basic design of 'map 3' is complete. I still have some quick spritework to add here and there in a few rooms, most effects to implement and maybe a handful of extra secret places to add, but the general structure is done. Finished everything at street level the other day, only to end up with only about 200 walls left for the couple of floors I had left to add to the inside of the main building, which was stressing me out a little; today I finally moved the inside of said main building over to its intended place on the grid, spent a while fixing every single floor and ceiling texture in there because of course I fucked that up, then added what I needed to add; eventually the 200 walls flew by really quickly but I managed to just barely make it, as predicted and without making any major compromises too, in general I'm quite satisfied with the last few areas I built (some experimentation that happened to go well), hopefully people will dig them too.

Just like I did for map 1 and 2, I'll celebrate with 2D screenshots, first one is of the whole map, second one spoils a wee bit more being zoomed in on the main building to get a closer look at the SOS. If you look at the building on the right (the one with the red light in front) you can maybe see it also features a dose of it, just with fewer floors, I kind of used it as practice for the whole concept. Automap doesn't look particularly special but in general this map is interconnected like crazy with ways to drop (or fly) from floor to floor via holes in the ground/ceiling and whatnot most everywhere, in addition to the usual several entrances and exits per building on the flat axis, so yeah it's big but I hope it'll be a lot of fun in Dukematch (if ever), and just to explore, too, which was a big part of my aim.

ok-1.png ok-2.png

With the big work on this one out of the way, I'm probably going to chill for a week or two (I've been mapping a lot this month, and I have some other projects to go through with) before I polish a few things in map 1, 2 and 3 and then resume work on the rest. Thing is I could literally start at least four maps right now that are already completely laid out in my head and as I prefer to work on the levels one by one I need to choose the right one to tackle first; maybe I'll pick one of the least ambitious ones to start, as this last one was the biggest level I've ever done (2200 sectors/16310 walls/11200 sprites without the remaining detail, effects and last-minute secret places) and I could do with something more casual.

Good ol' gunfire visibility trick to say bye to this one in this thread for now:

msdn.png

I don’t know if that’s the case, but I can see a lot of influence of Ion Fury in this map, I really like the open spaces!

[ck3D]

Mike Norvak, on 03 November 2020 - 01:28 PM, said:

I don’t know if that’s the case, but I can see a lot of influence of Ion Fury in this map, I really like the open spaces!

Thank you! I was just thinking of Nightshade Army the other day by the way, that was a great map. I actually have yet to play Ion Fury, I've watched quite the amount of videos though and am indeed a big fan of what I've seen of the level design in there. It's a good tribute to the possibilities and potential of the Build Engine since day one just maxed out thanks to the new tech, and with this specific project of mine those fundamentals are also what I want to try and honor, maybe that's where the influence can be felt (or maybe it's just the neons). Open spaces I believe are important in a game like Duke that's based on fast and ample movement, I honestly don't know how I made cramped and narrow maps for this long, and I've developed new habits such as using the x and y repeat values of sprites from the original maps as more or less exact references to then scale everything around that in the levels as a way to make sure navigating the environment will really feel like the original Duke 3D regardless of the occasional derivation in aesthetics. Anyhow I just took some more (and proper) full visibility screenshots of that map for Mikko to use to revive the Upcoming Projects section on MSDN, in a way they can be considered the first 'official' screenshots (as the first ones I deem somewhat representative of the eventual product), I think I will post them soon, maybe it's time to start a dedicated thread.

Also update on map 4, current status is 300 sectors/2600 walls/1600 sprites and steadily growing. Quite happy with some of the architecture in there. If map 3 looked more like some Ion Fury piece with blue tints, this one will ideally convey more Lameduke/E1 vibes with red tints (I'm also playing the fun game of trying to mostly use 1.3d textures for it, bare the occasional creative liberty or obvious necessity). Would be cool to get it done in less than a month.

[Micky C]

Aleks, on 01 November 2020 - 05:09 AM, said:

Anyway, while we were discussing cars and diagonals, I made a diagonal car:

To keep the proportions right, the technique used was like this: [size=2]I first draw it square on grid, then put placeholder horizontal sprites on top of each sectors and scaled them so their vertices match the sector vertices, copied the sprites and rotated them 45 degree, rearranged them so it matches the "square" relative locations of sprites, drew the sectors once again to match the new coordinates of rotated sprites' vertices, then made sure corresponding line lengths are the same. Sounds pretty complex, but TBH it took me less time than I expected. Mapster showing borders of horizontal sprites is generally a bliss and super speed-up for making diagonal stuff, it's almost like rotating the grid itself.

You know you can just build the car on the grid and rotate it right? I don’t see the need for this elaborate sprite technique.

Also, I agree with Sang, in that it’s nice that mappers are able to discuss things like this, however some of us enjoy a nice, casual thread where it’s basically just pretty pictures of maps without long essays in between. This hasn’t been such a thread for a while now.

[Mark]

I agree with Micky C who agrees with Sang. I read most of the long posts but would prefer things go back to screenshots and small descriptions of stuff with only an occasional long post.

[Danukem]

I don't see the problem. If you don't like the long posts, then don't read them. You can scroll past a 1000 word essay in less time than it takes to scroll past a post that has multiple screenshots.

[Mister Sinister]

Here you go, fellas!
I'm 2/3 into making one of two remaining maps and 1/4 into the other one. One map is ready to go.
The work has slowed down to a crawl, but i've been spending more time in mapster as of recent.
Get psyched!

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[Aleks]

Micky C, on 04 November 2020 - 01:22 PM, said:

You know you can just build the car on the grid and rotate it right? I don’t see the need for this elaborate sprite technique.

I know about it, but unless there's something more precise than selecting a sector and rotating it with Shift+, or . then that's useless in this case. Rotating with angles different than multiples of 90 seems to be not accurate enough for anything more complex/tiny than a simpler, blocky structure - in case of this car when I tried sector rotation, some of the walls just get deplanned up to the point where thinner sectors like the side windows of the car get distorted on the "left side". And as complex as it sounds, the sprite technique wasn't that time consuming as it sounds in this case.


And I admit that it's been mostly ck3D and me "spamming" this thread with long essays as of late, but as Dan said, you can just skip the longer posts. Personally I prefer to give and receive the feedback in the same thread the screen/progress is posted.

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Here you go, fellas!
I'm 2/3 into making one of two remaining maps and 1/4 into the other one. One map is ready to go.
The work has slowed down to a crawl, but i've been spending more time in mapster as of recent.
Get psyched!

Always nice to see some 2D shots, and tweaked with 3D side-view mode, this almost looks like shots taken from Autocad! And it's good to see more people posting stuff in here too :)

[bullerbullerseven]

Aleks, on 04 November 2020 - 02:55 PM, said:

I know about it, but unless there's something more precise than selecting a sector and rotating it with Shift+, or . then that's useless in this case. Rotating with angles different than multiples of 90 seems to be not accurate enough for anything more complex/tiny than a simpler, blocky structure - in case of this car when I tried sector rotation, some of the walls just get deplanned up to the point where thinner sectors like the side windows of the car get distorted on the "left side". And as complex as it sounds, the sprite technique wasn't that time consuming as it sounds in this case.


And I admit that it's been mostly ck3D and me "spamming" this thread with long essays as of late, but as Dan said, you can just skip the longer posts. Personally I prefer to give and receive the feedback in the same thread the screen/progress is posted.




Always nice to see some 2D shots, and tweaked with 3D side-view mode, this almost looks like shots taken from Autocad! And it's good to see more people posting stuff in here too :)

I'm not sure i understand. Are you placing sprites on the sector structure so they match the sector, then rotate and place the sprites so you can draw new sectors with the sprites as a base?

I've been using sprites a lot and it's pretty fun to use them to make it easier to map.