[Jimmy]

Back when EDuke32 didn't exist, I was learning how to code by reading the code from guys like Replogle, The Fly, James Tan, Cyborg, Reaper_Man (now MSleeper), and James Ferry, and also reading a lot on Reaper_Man's Con Code website.

[ReaperMan]

 Captain Awesome, on 04 October 2011 - 03:49 PM, said:

....Reaper_Man's Con Code website.

.....And then he changed his name to MSleeper and i took his old name. Muhahaha

[Kyanos]

I recently made my first skybox and came up with this method, thanks to Norvak and his few choice words. Anyone with photoshop can use this. It is a skybox layout of 6 layers, each one a 512 by 512 square positioned over each part of a skybox. The idea being that you paste this over your skybox (easiest to copy your skybox image and paste it on this, then move the image to the bottom layer) pick the layer over the section you want (each one named north, south, etc,) when you have just that one square selected (I use the magic wand) change to your bottom layer (the skybox image) and copy that section, quick and simple. New file, paste and save. Do it six times and done a perfectly cut skybox.

 skybox cutout grid.zip (8.4K)
Number of downloads: 373

[Merlijn]

 DanM, on 04 October 2011 - 05:13 AM, said:

just a shot of somthin iam workin on for WGR2, click on it and smash a 16 year old engine up and this EPIC mod upto #1

http://www.moddb.com...t-danmed-church

That looks awesome!

[Mark]

A flat but well shaded 2D texture with a normal map applied sure does look 3D sometimes.

[ReaperMan]

 Marked, on 08 October 2011 - 04:00 PM, said:

A flat but well shaded 2D texture with a normal map applied sure does look 3D sometimes.

Is that seriously in game? It looks almost real.

[Mark]

Yes, its a screenshot from my current project. I'm busy doing a few more that will look just as good.

[Mark]

Added a few more tomb entrances in my Graveyard TC and slowly but surely creating normal maps for many of my custom textures.

[DN4ever]

Just did this for recreation. Bit sloppy with mastering but sounds ok to me. I took some influences from the 2001 DNF trailer and came up with the rest myself. Nothing special really, just some orchestral version of the legendary grabbag theme.

Tell me what you think of it

Attached File(s)

•  GrabbagOpus.mp3 (4.27MB)
  Number of downloads: 398

[Mark]

The first 25 seconds or so seem a little lacking. Maybe an instrument with a faster attack. Otherwise its ok.

[Stabs]

certainly has come along way since the first inception of your mod

[CruX]

Marked, on 09 October 2011 - 08:01 AM, said:

Added a few more tomb entrances in my Graveyard TC and slowly but surely creating normal maps for many of my custom textures.

The hill that that building's sitting on could use a few extra slopes to make it look a bit more natural, but other than that it looks awesome!

Here's some stuff I've been working on since uploading the last version of CrackDown...









Discovering CyClones was like opening up a treasure chest of awesome (at least, in terms of resources. The game itself is kind of a bore...). It's looking like this might be stand-alone as the number of enemies and other changes would definitely warrant it, but it still makes me kind of iffy. Do I seriously have to do away with ALL of DN3D's stock textures? As you might be able to tell from the screens, I'm having a helluva time reconciling myself with that.

[zykov eddy]

Marked, on 09 October 2011 - 08:01 AM, said:

Added a few more tomb entrances in my Graveyard TC and slowly but surely creating normal maps for many of my custom textures.

Looks great, love the style.

[Micky C]

WGRealms 2 still has several of the original Duke tiles in the art files. Having some tiles from Duke is no worse than having a set of tiles ripped from another game IMO. But that's a good question (how much of the game you need to get rid of for a standalone.) Starship Troopers also used several original tiles too. Maybe one of the eduke developers could help, they seem to be pretty copyright savvy, although if I had to guess, I'd say replacing the enemies, guns, and half the textures might be enough. Don't forget the duke shareware is distributed for free along with all its content.

[Jblade]

If I remember right you're not even supposed to distribute the original art tiles if they still had Duke stuff in them, but like rips from other games it's a very 'grey' territory. You're not supposed to do it, but many people do it anyways and just don't draw attention to it. I doubt you'll get in any hot water for releasing the mod as stand-alone with some duke textures and sounds (at least no other mod that's been released standalone has, or mods that have ripped content)

[Jimmy]

To be honest, I've never seen the point in releasing mods like these as standalone in the first place. I'd say there is a very small minority of players who don't own the game but would be interested in playing it, and it's not like the game is expensive. Besides that, it looks cool!

[CruX]

Micky C, on 13 October 2011 - 01:24 PM, said:

Having some tiles from Duke is no worse than having a set of tiles ripped from another game IMO.

These are my thoughts exactly. There's nothing in this project that's 100% original, it's pretty much all ripped stuff that I'm doing my best to put to some kind of tasteful use. That being said, if I'm already in that 'grey' area James mentioned, it seems kind of silly to worry about the use of a few of DN3D's textures. To clarify on why this is even an issue in the first place, DN3D is the only game I know how to mod/map for (and apart from Doom and Daggerfall, it's the only game I even have any interest in these days). Even with most of the game's content being changed, there's a number of textures that I usually have at my disposal, like that lift tile on the floor in the second screen, and I can't really imagine being able to work without them. Mapping is challenging enough when you consider the time, finesse and attention to detail that goes into producing something worth playing, but it's that much harder when you don't have the stuff you're used to working with.

Captain Awesome, on 13 October 2011 - 06:07 PM, said:

To be honest, I've never seen the point in releasing mods like these as standalone in the first place. I'd say there is a very small minority of players who don't own the game but would be interested in playing it, and it's not like the game is expensive. Besides that, it looks cool!

This was pretty much the idea I had with CrackDown, and I don't regret having gone through with that, but this next project is looking like it's going to be a completely different animal. Even if I don't make it stand-alone, by the time I'm done with all of the changes I plan on making, there's going to be barely anything relating it to DN3D to begin with. Even if I keep a few textures, the vast majority of them are being taken out, I don't plan on keeping any of the sounds (not even the more generic stuff like the wind and fan ambiance, explosions, thuds, etc.), the enemies are all being replaced and the original code for them in the CON files has already been blanked out (and most of the rest of it is going to go as well), I don't even plan on hanging on to any of the fonts. When the change from the original game is that stark, I think it's best to just make it to where anybody can pick it up and play it, and it feels sort of pointless/counterproductive to exclude even that minority of people that don't own the game.

[Micky C]

Another TROR example.

Behold simple 20 minute office with placeholder textures.



Using only 1 extension, objects such as table surfaces and barriers can be made to float for decor, meaning details which previously required sprites can now be made without a sprite in sight, and tables can now have extra details such as computers and other sector based decor.
I touched upon this in the bathroom in my Let's Rork demo, but this is more widescale. It could open up the possibility to peak underneath to see what enemies are around you and so on.

[Mark]

Micky, you'll put us model makers out of business.

Here is the beginning of an idea I recently had. Make the building insides with regulars sectors but have fancy outsides to them using models. The pic shows a very simple example. All sorts of cool looking details can be added. Windows, doors, signs, pillars,suspended porches etc... But then the pressure is on to make the insides look as good as the outside.

I'm guessing a talented mapper using TROR could accomplish a lot of same thing, but that's not me. But my main reason for trying this is because its very tough for me to map broken down and crumbling "urban decay" buildings in Mapster which is where I eventually want to go with this.

[chicken]

Looks good Marked, but i hope a big model like that won't flicker.

[Mark]

More screenshots of my textures with normal and specular maps applied.

OOPS. Sorry about the large file sizes. I forgot to compress them a little more.

[Frost Nukem]

Waouhhh, amazing rock texture !! Excellent job !

[rasmus thorup]

@ Maked
Those textures looks very good, and fit very good with the polymer lights on. Aside from that, they also fit in very good with the atmosphere of the level. The only thing that looks a little bit odd to me, is the floor texture in the last picture. Too bad i can't play with polymer, and especially all those 3d models :S

[Mark]

I agree about the floor on the last pic. I will probably use a brick or block texture like this one.

I hope I'm not boring a lot of people with all these pics, but I'm still so impressed with Polymer's rendering of normal and specular maps I just had to share them.

[Daedolon]

That does look pretty amazing.

[Plagman]

You might want to tone the specular material down a little on some of these, they look shinier than it seems they should be. Maybe you're aiming for a damp/wet rock kind of thing on purpose?

[Mark]

I did tone it down a bit from where it originally was. Maybe it could use a little more. It had a real shine to it at first in anticipation of adding rain to the level. I'm still deciding and tweaking. Thanks.

Even if I leave out the rain, I will still have the thunder and lightning in the backround so I could get away with a damp look.

[Plagman]

If you're going for rain, you should totally go for an animated normal map. I'd do it by taking the base normal map as generated from the rock, then adding random noise a dozen of times or so and cycling through them.

[Zaxtor]

Working on network of underground cave including cool special effects etc (surprise only will be seen when play).

[Simon_Croes]

Nice screens! It's funny, the third screen looks almost exacly the same as a map I am creating. Keep up the good work!