[Wolf]

Alright gents.. it's been a long time since I posted anything. I've been busy with classes, mostly, and bouncing back and fourth between places to live.. lol

I've only just begun to work on my project again. It's really just mapping (most of what is worked can't be captured in screenshots anyway atm, well, rather, they can but they'd be boring ones) but.. yeah.
The training level. I have no idea what this is going to be like. It was initially inspired by the SST training level in theory, and one of the SSTDM levels in design. It turned into something different.
I have a design in mind for my levels, a sort of vision of what I think the future's going to be like. I want the mix between utopia/dystopia to be about 30/60. The training level would give you a glimpse of the former half, a very advanced society functioning without worry. The view outside is getting a TROR makeover, and is in it's most primitve stages. In addition, it's moving from polymer-shadows to "baked" sector shadows.
This is level 0.


These next screens are the beginning of one of the ruined areas. In this level, you'll be at the exit side of a highway tunnel, and from here, the rest of the road is destroyed, as pictured. The inspiration for this level was drawn from the sunken areas of Tokyo from the Ghost in the Shell series.
This is level 2.

These next set of screens are from a frozen level, tied loosely to the previous level via a gigantic, now-defunct sewage exit. In the previous stage, as you trudge on through the sunken city, the water will have begun, at certain areas, to freeze. This level's sole inspiration, albeit very loosely, is from the Spetsnaz mission from CS: Condition Zero "Secret War", a facility buried in the snow. The last two screenshots here showcase a small cave, in which I have no idea what to make of it yet. It looks nice though.
This is level 3.

And two extras that were lying around, testing an AI follower code that just.. does not want to be made. Not the monster one.
AI1
AI2

As for the coding side of everything, my coding is a lot like my mapping. I can't concentrate on one map long enough, its always short, focused attempts on one map one day, and another the next. So with my code, I currently have a bunch of small, broken things. The AI pictured being one of them. I have the weapons somewhat done, but not in the way I want them, so an overhaul is imminent. The UI is non-existant and the whole game still "feels" like Duke. That's something I aim to change. I'm honestly going for something that captures the puzzles (even if in a simpler form for easier coding) of HL2, combined with the exploration, mystery and combat of Mirror's Edge. And when I say mystery, I don't mean storyline-based. That's a whole 'nother can of worms. I mean that eeriness that came from the fact that nobody was ever around, offices where people seemed to work without anyone coming or going, where they normally should, as if they up and vanished. All the while you toil away with how to climb to a vent on the ceiling.. or something. Which will be actually combated in the city-hub type levels (though, considering my limited knowledge of coding might end up more linear than hub) where people-NPCs will be rampant.

Though, sorry if that sounds confusing or abstract.

Also let me know if imageshack starts popping up with ads. I'll edit them all to be direct links if that's the case, but right now.. typed too much.
AAAAND for older screenshots, my old post.

[Mark]

Continuing work on a dark horror themed map.

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[Mblackwell]

Oh what could it be.

[Mark]

Its Mister Roger's Neighborhood.

A joke for those of us old enough to know who that is.

[Jblade]

Wolf, that stuff looks great - I've seen GitS and played that CS:DS mission so I can feel the homages straight away Getting rid of the Duke 'feel' isn't terribly easy, but it can be done (I felt that I did that with some of my stuff)

EDIT: it might be a good idea to make a dev topic even though you're a long while away from release; the last time you released shots it got drowned out by Jhect and an argument about him. It's a bit disheartening to post a bunch of shots and than have nobody see them.

Nice stuff as well marked - that little band-area especially looks really convincing

[zykov eddy]

Marked, on 15 February 2012 - 06:31 PM, said:

Continuing work on a dark horror themed map.

Looks great, especially the first shot

[Mark]

Thanks. I though it might be too boring of a screenshot, but it just looks good so I included it.

[Micky C]

I've started converting an old map of mine to TROR. It's kind of ironic that I spent a lot of time trying to fake the impression of ROR, only to now be spending time to remove that and implement the real thing. I've made at least two attempts in the past at this but gave up (converting is feels about 3 times harder than building) but I feel I finally have a good enough grasp on the feature to do it. I might add a few extra things like a roof (I wanted to add one originally but it was impossible), and if I'm still motivated by the end of it I might add some trim work to make it a little less bland, and some stuff to fill up the outdoor areas. Also, looking back at my polymer lighting job, it mainly consists of multiple huge lights; no wonder it ran so slow! I'll see if I can do something about that and improve the framerate.

I've only been at it an hour, but here's a screenshot to show what it involves. It's my second map, released over a year ago, and was designed for the HRP.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

Looks deliciously old-school. We don't get enough maps like this nowadays.

[RichardStorm]

I was just learning (and finished) to use TROR feature, for when i'll start to map; it's only tricky while creating floating platforms...

[Mikko]

I kinda fail to see the point in making unnecessary cosmetic changes to a mediocre map, changes that only help render the map more unplayable

[Micky C]

What is it about the map that's mediocre? Yes the detail is below average, but I still like the gameplay. I plan to improve the performance by overhauling the excessively large polymer lights, remove the hacky teleports and black walls used to achieve the illusion of ROR, and depending on how I feel, add some more details. I'll probably remove that giant section from the start which is a huge waste of space and is most likely dragging down the performance.

Will it still be an average/below average map? Arguably yes, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun to play (especially for its shortish length) and if nothing else it's an interesting exercise for me to convert a map in this way.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

I agree with Micky. I think this forum, and this thread in particular, has become so used to seeing maps with extraordinary graphic detail that we neglect maps that don't look so great even if they have good gameplay. Bit of a shame.

[Mark]

Hey MickyC. I recently went back to my first map, the Ancient Rome one, to possibly re-work some areas with TROR. But after a few minutes I realised that a lot of hours went into creating those areas with a ton of sprites. I decided to leave them alone after all.

[Hank]

After looking for con errors, and sort of lost it; I made a simple highlighter file for conText Editor to highlight basic Duke 3d con keywords. (They have it for Doom with the same program.) I still have not found the errors, but I can follow all those if... and state... and whatnot, there is hope. [added] I found the error, as usual for me - a typo. wooooot

[Mikko]

Micky C, on 17 February 2012 - 07:40 AM, said:

What is it about the map that's mediocre? Yes the detail is below average, but I still like the gameplay.

Below average design = mediocre map at the most. Good gameplay is not hard to implement so that alone can't get you far.

[Micky C]

The layout is modelled very closely on my school library (minus the underground sections), if you're talking about blockiness than that's just how the building is, so that's a big tick in the realism department. So if you're not talking about detail, framerate, blockiness or gameplay I'm genuinely interested in what you are talking about.

[LeoD]

Hehe, Mikko really doesn't like your map. I do. (And I'd rate it higher.)
I think you should boost up the somewhat bland outside of the library while you're at it to make it more like an open area.
Some enemies made it through the force field windows. I didn't encounter that back then. Could it be introduced be a newer executable version?

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[Danukem]

Micky, as you said it was one of your old maps. Just based on that screenshot, I know you have gotten better since then so I wouldn't worry about the criticism. My advice would be to move forward and work on something newer. And by the way, no one cares what the map is based on, especially when they have never seen your school. If your school really looked like that then congratulations for the accuracy, but no one will rate your map higher for it because the map has to stand or fall on its own merits.

[Micky C]

LeoD, on 17 February 2012 - 06:46 PM, said:

Some enemies made it through the force field windows. I didn't encounter that back then. Could it be introduced be a newer executable version?

The enforcers have always been able to jump through the forcefield windows. It's a pretty annoying bug actually.

DeeperThought, on 17 February 2012 - 07:34 PM, said:

My advice would be to move forward and work on something newer.

Technically I'm still part of the 1 week CBP, as I need to add gameplay and do some polishing later on when everybody's done their part. Besides that, I'm starting university in 2 days and I'm not sure how much time I have, probably not enough to start a new full map, and this is a good in-between project. If I'm only doing a conversion, I could get it finished today. The ROR is done, but most of what's left is SOS.

Edit: Ha! I finished the conversion! Of course now I can't be bothered going out and fixing all the things that got misplaced like misalligned textures. And in polymer, with 8 bit textures and no lights, the performance wasn't as good as I hoped. It's starting to feel like the TROR CBP all over again where the performance was bad despite not having many lights.

[Tea Monster]

Could we organize some kind of code sprint for Polymer?

[Plagman]

Better idea: put together a kickstarter or something to raise enough so that I can take one month of unpaid leave to work fulltime on it and still pay rent; and convince my boss somehow.

[Wolf]

Plagman, on 18 February 2012 - 10:33 AM, said:

Better idea: put together a kickstarter or something to raise enough so that I can take one month of unpaid leave to work fulltime on it and still pay rent; and convince my boss somehow.

I wonder if it would gain any additional support if we posted it somewhere like Reddit's /r/gaming?

[Danukem]

Plagman, on 18 February 2012 - 10:33 AM, said:

Better idea: put together a kickstarter or something to raise enough so that I can take one month of unpaid leave to work fulltime on it and still pay rent; and convince my boss somehow.

If it's really going to take a month of dedicated work to do it, then it's never going to happen. I always assumed it was something you could work on a little bit at a time.

[KareBear]

DeeperThought I just started to use using Duke Plus and I only want to use the Gore and other Damage effects but sometimes the assault troopers/captians drop a lazer pistol that I keep automatically picking up(while the extra weapons are cool I just want to use the standard ones atm).Is there any way to prevent then from doing so?I have done some configuring with the in game menu but dont see an option for that.Thanks in advance for any help.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

Working on something I mentioned much, much earlier in this thread, inspired by the Area 51 levels from Tomb Raider 3. Mostly relies on old-school textures and design. A bit underdeveloped at the moment, but hopefully I'll be able to add more detail as I continue working on this.




I've always been a fan of 3D Realms-style mapping. I will generally eschew hi-res or next-gen design in favor of it, though I have one TROR section in the level so far.

This is a long way from being complete.

[Plagman]

DeeperThought, on 18 February 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

If it's really going to take a month of dedicated work to do it, then it's never going to happen. I always assumed it was something you could work on a little bit at a time.

Not a month to be fast, but all kinds of cool stuff could happen in that timeframe; but I think you've touched the biggest issue: making the whole thing go faster requires deep modifications to all the core parts of the rendering code, which means it's not really something you can work on 30 minutes at a time. You need to break everything and a big burst of hard work so that it even sorta works again, then work from there.

[Mia Max]

Have been working on a door with face.
Not finished yet.

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[Mblackwell]

Plagman, on 19 February 2012 - 04:23 AM, said:

Not a month to be fast, but all kinds of cool stuff could happen in that timeframe; but I think you've touched the biggest issue: making the whole thing go faster requires deep modifications to all the core parts of the rendering code, which means it's not really something you can work on 30 minutes at a time. You need to break everything and a big burst of hard work so that it even sorta works again, then work from there.

Too bad it's not over on git. You could just maintain a separate tree and merge it back to main when you are done. There's ways of doing it with SVN as well but not as nicely and not as easily repaired if you screw up.

[LeoD]

Mblackwell, on 20 February 2012 - 09:07 AM, said:

Too bad it's not over on git. You could just maintain a separate tree and merge it back to main when you are done. There's ways of doing it with SVN as well but not as nicely and not as easily repaired if you screw up.

There's a private branch already, but without activity since last March.