[MusicallyInspired]

Very nice!

[ck3D]

Maarten, on 03 February 2020 - 01:32 PM, said:

Hey there! First of all: thanks!! Second: your previous name was MRCK?

In that case: woah! Nice to see you're still active!
I'm on holiday now, but after that I will check out what you've been working on etc.

Yo yeah that's me - every time I've 'decided' to be inactive I've spontaneously become active again and vice versa. I've since given up and just go with the flow. Trying to find some spare time to continue working on an episode these days, wish I had more to actually play the maps people put out.

Again, looking forward to your map, I'm curious. Best of luck widdit!

[DevoNukem]

Here's another screenshot of Blood And Ice,

A 'Reception' Room or something, i don't know. with the corpse of Commander Shluan, The commander of ice army's beta team. brutally murdered by the blood army's leader (Who is yet to be revealed.)



If anyone's really interested in this project, i'll (probably) make a separate thread.

[Tea Monster]

Zeroing in on forms.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[ck3D]

def13391, on 13 February 2020 - 08:22 PM, said:

Here's another screenshot of Blood And Ice,

A 'Reception' Room or something, i don't know. with the corpse of Commander Shluan, The commander of ice army's beta team. brutally murdered by the blood army's leader (Who is yet to be revealed.)

duke0000.png

If anyone's really interested in this project, i'll (probably) make a separate thread.

Honestly, I think this room doesn't look as polished as the previous ones you posted, I think it would work better with proper texture alignment (bottom of the console) and lighting/shading (everything looks like it has the default value). In comparison, your other screenshots shared a 'minimalistic' style that worked in their favor and made them look appealing; here it looks like you'd have to spend just a bit more time on that room to make it consistent with the rest. That's just my impression and something I'm trying to bring to your attention if you're unaware. To me it really doesn't matter how 'basic' the design of a map is, but misaligned textures and default lighting are beginner mistakes that take little time, and are fun, to learn to do away with, and from experience a lot of players (who will give your mod a try eventually) also feel that way.

[DevoNukem]

ck3D, on 15 February 2020 - 11:47 PM, said:

Honestly, I think this room doesn't look as polished as the previous ones you posted, I think it would work better with proper texture alignment (bottom of the console) and lighting/shading (everything looks like it has the default value). In comparison, your other screenshots shared a 'minimalistic' style that worked in their favor and made them look appealing; here it looks like you'd have to spend just a bit more time on that room to make it consistent with the rest. That's just my impression and something I'm trying to bring to your attention if you're unaware. To me it really doesn't matter how 'basic' the design of a map is, but misaligned textures and default lighting are beginner mistakes that take little time, and are fun, to learn to do away with, and from experience a lot of players (who will give your mod a try eventually) also feel that way.

"Minimalistic"
You sure about that?


And about the console's 'misaligned' textures, i made it like that on purpose. i just thought it looked kinda cool.
the default lighting was a design choice for the room as well. the map the picture was taken in is just a modification of lameduke's L1.

[ck3D]

Well yeah that's minimalistic, LameDuke is minimalistic, and there's no harm in that. People (myself included) appreciate and enjoy that style in user maps, you might want to reconsider the negative stigma you project over the word 'minimalistic'.

Random examples of maps that are not minimalistic: https://msdn.duke4.n...apocollapse.php / https://msdn.duke4.n...tpissedtime.php / https://msdn.duke4.net/hotadg06.php

Random examples of more minimalistic maps (kind of vulgarizing the word here; more comparable to the original game style as far as aesthetics) that play amazing regardless: https://msdn.duke4.net/hotdukemeal.php / https://msdn.duke4.net/hotplaza.php

I get the uniform lighting being a design choice, but since by posting you ask for feedback I'm telling you I don't think it's a very good one, unless you're going for a deliberate retro / bland look on purpose that's the go-to design choice for everybody who won't think of an actual design choice, as thousands of poor quality user maps from 1996 can attest. If you want your room to look like that, fine, the choice is on you, but if you don't, I'm sure you could get some finer results.

By misaligned textures on the console I'm just bothered by those walls where the squares don't meet, yeah. Technically speaking, it's misaligned, but of course you're free to experiment with misaligning stuff on purpose (most mappers actually do it a lot and get interesting results from that).

Are you new to mapping? You sound insecure for some reason, like I was saying I think the first two shots were interesting, I'm only trying to help here by giving feedback like you should expect from people when you show them stuff.

[High Treason]

Indeed. You do always have the option to ignore feedback, in extremely rare cases this might even be the best thing to do, but it is risky if you care about reviews. Of course, if you just do it for your own amusement, it's whatever you want at the end of the day.

[Maarten]

Well...I like both minimalistic/detailed design. Also, it's good to have so much activity in here - especially when you realise the game is 24 years old already And I like what I see in here!

-------

My map has almost reached the 800 sectors & 6400 walls. Twice as big since my first screenie here This place is based on Woudrichem, a Dutch town. Still heavily WIP!!

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[Fantinaikos]

def13391, on 13 February 2020 - 08:22 PM, said:

Here's another screenshot of Blood And Ice,

A 'Reception' Room or something, i don't know. with the corpse of Commander Shluan, The commander of ice army's beta team. brutally murdered by the blood army's leader (Who is yet to be revealed.)

duke0000.png

If anyone's really interested in this project, i'll (probably) make a separate thread.

That's INDEEED the Alpha/Beta Commander.

You own the full sheet or it's just taken from a very hard to find unpublished screenshot?

[jet_nick]

def13391, on 16 February 2020 - 08:45 AM, said:

"Minimalistic"
You sure about that?
duke0004.png

And about the console's 'misaligned' textures, i made it like that on purpose. i just thought it looked kinda cool.
the default lighting was a design choice for the room as well. the map the picture was taken in is just a modification of lameduke's L1.

can you release a complete picture of that LA skybox?

[LeoD]

Fantinaikos, on 17 February 2020 - 09:05 AM, said:

That's INDEEED the Alpha/Beta Commander.

Hm, that guy would fit into Fury...

[DevoNukem]

Fantinaikos, on 17 February 2020 - 09:05 AM, said:

That's INDEEED the Alpha/Beta Commander.

You own the full sheet or it's just taken from a very hard to find unpublished screenshot?

got em from here https://duke3dmaps.t...otype%20content

[DevoNukem]

jet_nick, on 17 February 2020 - 09:59 AM, said:

can you release a complete picture of that LA skybox?

Yeah, here you go.






Source photo if anyone's interested.


update:move all discussion of blood and ice to here https://forums.duke4...dblood-and-ice/

[Jimmy]

High Treason, on 16 February 2020 - 09:14 PM, said:

Indeed. You do always have the option to ignore feedback, in extremely rare cases this might even be the best thing to do, but it is risky if you care about reviews. Of course, if you just do it for your own amusement, it's whatever you want at the end of the day.

Ignoring ck3d aka MRCK on level design would be a big mistake in my opinion.

[DevoNukem]

Jimmy, on 17 February 2020 - 05:52 PM, said:

Ignoring ck3d aka MRCK on level design would be a big mistake in my opinion.

It was only today when i realized he was talking about the squares on the console. i thought he was talking about the blue line at the bottom of the texture. now i understand.

[Forge]

Maarten, on 17 February 2020 - 06:29 AM, said:

My map has almost reached the 800 sectors & 6400 walls. Twice as big since my first screenie here This place is based on Woudrichem, a Dutch town. Still heavily WIP!!

that's pretty sick

[Jimmy]

No problem dude. When you're starting out in any kind of artistic endeavor, including mapping or modding in general, sometimes things can be staring you right in the face and you don't even realize it. Hell, even when you've been at it for decades this can happen. You're doing the right thing seeking comments. Not all of it will be good. Sometimes none of it will be! It's part of doing art. Don't forget that most people here are trying to help you and everyone else be their best. I see you're trying to emulate a pre-release style of the game. What I would do if I was you is look at the body of work by Blum and Levelord. Figure out what it is you like about it. The simple yet distinctive and recognizable architecture. The sharp contrast lighting. The grandiose themes presented in a fun streamlined way. Whatever it is. Then you have to realize what was intended, and what was not. Especially in the pre-release phase it's pretty safe to assume that misaligned textures were not intended, but rather a side effect of it being unfinished. Just as the Firefly Trooper artwork is rough in comparison to the Assault Trooper, it was never finished. If it had been in the completed game, I'd expect more polish. Just look at the Assault Commander. You can see the polish applied to the original idea. So take that inspiration and fly with it, don't be afraid to do your own thing with the foundation provided by others.

[Maarten]

Forge, on 17 February 2020 - 08:12 PM, said:

that's pretty sick

Thanks, Forge! Woudrichem is a Dutch town surrounded by water & dikes.
There also will be a huge tower which you can reach.

That's enough info for now haha. I`ll surely keep you all up to date! The inspiration is quite crazy for my standards.

[ck3D]

def13391, on 17 February 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:

It was only today when i realized he was talking about the squares on the console. i thought he was talking about the blue line at the bottom of the texture. now i understand.

Yeah no that looks good, and in general you're on the right track with the sector/construction work on the ceiling as well (a lot of people's 'first maps' - sometimes for years - have flat ceilings despite the amount of detail present everywhere else and that can look off, in general the aspect of vertical space in this game is easy to overlook and underutilize).

I didn't mean to be 'that guy' slapping you with the reality of what other people have done / are doing for this game and whatnot, for some reason (go figure) I assumed you weren't new to mapping or posting work and were used to the kind of honest feedback given around these parts. Like Jimmy said though, literally every mapper/modder does go through that reality check at least once, and that's essentially how one grows and breaks out of the shell of their sole perspective. I think it's just good to accept new possibilities and different takes, it's more options to consider and doesn't mean you have to change what you're doing. The beauty of the community isn't to display how hard one might or might not be a hard worker, it's accepting that there's always more people working harder on completely different stuff anyway so styles shouldn't be judged (although obvious practical 'mistakes' should be at the very least pointed out in case the author wouldn't be aware), just compared and discussed in order to better fine-tune one's understanding of what makes a level/mod good and what results in the opposite. I do understand that detaching yourself from your art enough that you're confident openly discussing and criticizing it yourself can be one tough step for the unprepared, though.

If you ever feel like experimenting with the lighting in that room still, assuming you want a very bright room but don't want to sacrifice a potentially more exacerbated 3D look (which you don't have to push either, but always helps make levels look less 'flat' and is generally fun to play around with), you should try giving adjacent walls that follow different angles a slightly lower (or higher, depending on the proximity of the light source) shade value, if you try bumping the walls you want brighter past a certain positive value it will look like it's no longer being affected anymore in 3D mode at first glance but with the game's default visibility settings, they will still stand out a bit more than the rest of the room from a distance. Basic idea is that seeing the image of, say, a cube with every of its face being a slightly different brightness would be more recognizable/easier to read by the human brain than the same shape filled in with the exact same color. That's if you're going for an ounce of pseudo-realism though as I could totally see and get doing something a bit more retro and abstract (especially if you're incorporating LameDuke elements). I'm aware that your entire ceiling looks like it's the light source, but technically you can still fine-tune the look of that room without sacrificing that impression all the while increasing its 'depth' if you ever feel so inclined.

Also those responses shouldn't feel overwhelming either, they're only so long and detailed because people on here are as passionate about the game's intricacies and curious to exchange about them as you are.

Maarten, love both that shot and the comparison thing - I have a thing for real-life inspired environments that still retain the grandness of their scale upon being 'in-game'd' which is actually tough to achieve and it looks like you've broken that personal limiter there (although you're no stranger to grand maps, European city-styled will be interesting), I'm looking forward to your map even more now!

[jet_nick]

def13391, on 17 February 2020 - 12:23 PM, said:

Yeah, here you go.
citysky_89.png
citysky_90.png
citysky_91.png
citysky_92.png
citysky_93.png

Source photo if anyone's interested.
la skyline.jpg

update:move all discussion of blood and ice to here https://forums.duke4...dblood-and-ice/

Thank you

[Perro Seco]

Fantinaikos, on 17 February 2020 - 09:05 AM, said:

That's INDEEED the Alpha/Beta Commander.

And that's the beginning of the first level from this demo. Where did you got it? Can I have it too?

[jet_nick]

Perro Seco, on 21 February 2020 - 01:55 PM, said:

And that's the beginning of the first level from this demo. Where did you got it? Can I have it too?

me too please

[Fantinaikos]

The only traces are these three gifs on the duke3dmaps.tumblr that def13391 has linked.

Crawling


Floating


Suicide?


It is totatally possible separate every frame to create a sprite sheet, in the end i did the same for the discarded crawling animation of the final version Commander.

[Perro Seco]

Well, I was talking about the map from your screenshot.

I'm trying to recreate it based on the beta videos.

[Sangman]

A few WIP screenshots of maps I'm making for AMC TC Episode 4. It's been about 10 years since I mapped this regularly, I do have more patience for it now at least :')

[Maarten]

@Sangman: nice work! Reminds me a bit of William Gee's style. Maybe because of the textures - I really it!

@Fantinaikos: nice work!!

----

Have been mapping since 5-1-20 (10 days OFF b/c of holiday) en just reached 900 sectors & 7400 walls.
This has to be my most quick start of mapping yet...
So...here is screen 3! Same location taken from the otherside. Keep in mind there is some WIP stuff in here!

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[Tea Monster]

[Tea Monster]

Fantinaikos, on 17 February 2020 - 09:05 AM, said:

That's INDEEED the Alpha/Beta Commander.

That must have been so much fun to make - and all in glorious 90's CG!!

Is he wearing spandex shoulder pads or are those dyed aluminium robo-joint shoulders? Edit: I see in the animated gifs that he's wearing plastic shoulder armour. What a hoot!

[OpenMaw]

Tea Monster, on 22 February 2020 - 05:22 PM, said:

Awesome brain sculpt.

Loving it. I wish Polymer was not broken to Hell because getting a set of classic recreations that don't look like lumpy cartoons, or next-gen interpretations would be awesome. Proper remakes with full materials support.

Tea Monster, on 23 February 2020 - 06:23 AM, said:

That must have been so much fun to make - and all in glorious 90's CG!!

Is he wearing spandex shoulder pads or are those dyed aluminium robo-joint shoulders? Edit: I see in the animated gifs that he's wearing plastic shoulder armour. What a hoot!

I'm a sucker for old CGI. Like, I know the old Blood cinematics are looked down upon, but those and the Duke 3D ones just have such a... A stop-motion esque charm to them. That low res gritty look... It's like watching Classic Doctor Who and seeing the sets wobble, or that the tank they're obviously using is a toy from the store. I don't care, it looks great!

Interesting thing about the fat commander to me is that prototype version looks rather human in the face. He reminds me of the Chaingunners from Doom with that bald head adn those jowels.