[ck3D]

It's coming together quite fast and is addicting to work on. I won't be posting many updates since the progress is so quick but I guess it will materialize into something eventually.

[Merlijn]

I've been working on a map for quite some time now, it's finally nearing completion (release somewhere in early 2026).
Just a couple of sneak peeks (not giving away too much yet):

[ck3D]

Super Shaky Groundesque second shot! Love the perspective and choices in the first one too, I can totally see what you mean now about rotated textures, it's as though we're developing similar habits working out how to best use them.

I know I said I wouldn't post updates but whilst I'm at it posting in this thread, I just hit 12222 walls on my map from above.

[Merlijn]

Thanks! I just love to use the red pal, it works so well to create dramatic lightning/shadows. The map has several other pals as well, including fog pals. But you'll see, I don't want to show too much yet.
And yeah it's fun to see the similarities in our usage of rotated textures

[ck3D]

Throwing my promise of no updates out of the window, progress is too fluid. This one should only take a few more days to be done but I might not release it as soon as it's ready, I'm curious to try something. I'm already having to watch walls. My last time posting an isometric view of this one though, but I guess some people might have enjoyed seeing the progressive growth over the week. (It's also super helpful for inspiration to have an image of the current layout at hand outside of the editor to just look at and read possibilities in during off time, which is something I'd recommend more people should do, although we don't have to share it.)

[Maarten]

20-12-2025

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[ck3D]

Maarten, on 16 December 2025 - 12:39 PM, said:

20-12-2025

Map of the year on the come up!

[ck3D]

Last isometric view my ass.

[eniojr]

Interesting map design. I particularly liked the screenshot of the nightclub with the woman dancing. Lots of detail. I liked the light sprites, like an improvised light show. I've explored something similar on streetlights in an experimental map. I think the trend now is for more and more maps to emerge that use TROR and lots of sprites as decoration. This really breathes new life into the game, seriously.

[ck3D]

Thanks. The point you make is correct minus two corrections/addendums I would make. TROR isn't as important in and of itself as verticality in general is, and you can (and people have) achieved amazing vertical maps before relying on nothing but classic SOS and spritework. But of course, TROR is a great option to have for not just visuals but also practicality, it's a huge improvement over the wonky collision of the base game and having to rely on silent teleporters and whatnot. So I think one should learn and eventually combine all three techniques. TROR itself isn't the true game changer, but a convenient tool to work towards it. About sprites, it isn't 'lots of sprites' that tends to work, but the correct sprites in the correct spots. Especially in the case of Duke 3D levels this matters because Duke is so fast, and the original game language is explicit. So you don't want a lot of sprite clutter that just gets in the way or loses too much of the information the level is supposed to be vehicling. Past mapping trends of the 2000's (which had very busy maps) have served to pick up on exactly that as a lesson learned.

About the SPOTLITE sprite I am pretty sure it was designed to fit the sprite of the triple street lamp top (the ratios exactly match; also with the breakable ceiling lamp), and always assumed it just wasn't used like that in the base game because of the minor clipping in the classic renderer (and/or to save on framerate); just like the sprite of the post for the lamp itself is designed to match it. But in user maps, its use and the one of light coronas (...anything that resembles one really) has been common practice for a very long time. You may see great instances of that in Suppressor's Betacity or ILoveFoxes' SkyCity 1.

[Maarten]

ck3D, on 17 December 2025 - 03:39 AM, said:

Map of the year on the come up!

Thanks man! That means alot for me to read that

BTW Awesome work here, it's good to see making levels is alive and kicking. Keep it up!!

AAP3 IS OUT: https://forums.duke4...043#entry386043

[ck3D]

Chopped the whole top half to regain walls, and boxed the player area in, so now all I have to do on this one is make the last room/exit then a gameplay and sound pass. But it won't be out quite yet. Thank you for attending this performance that so far has been the Week Long .GIF. At least you get to see process.

[FRVIND]

Maarten, on 20 December 2025 - 05:18 AM, said:

Thanks man! That means alot for me to read that

BTW Awesome work here, it's good to see making levels is alive and kicking. Keep it up!!

AAP3 IS OUT: https://forums.duke4...043#entry386043

Thanks very much

[ck3D]

I am basically done with that map I was posting isometric views of, and finalizing/testing. But then I'll move onto more. Here are the only 3D screenshots I will post of it in a while, but even those parts will keep evolving. Merry holidays.

[Aleks]

ck3D, on 25 December 2025 - 03:00 PM, said:

I am basically done with that map I was posting isometric views of, and finalizing/testing. But then I'll move onto more. Here are the only 3D screenshots I will post of it in a while, but even those parts will keep evolving. Merry holidays.

That recon patrol vehicle in the current sprite cache spot on both screenshots kinda reminds me of MS Word's paperclip assistant, but looking in a way that fits Mapster more

[taivo30]

Very early WIP screens (Haven't mapped for like 10 years so can't remember half of it)

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[ck3D]

So happy to see you back. Building facade looks stunning, I can see you've wasted no time figuring out the recent Mapster features (in this case the rotated textures - and I can foresee your style using them in neat ways).

[Merlijn]

Woah, a wild Taivo appears! Looks great, great use of the rotated texture feature (seriously I love that they added this, it opens up a lot of new combinations and possibilities)

[taivo30]

 ck3D, on 01 January 2026 - 12:52 PM, said:

So happy to see you back. Building facade looks stunning, I can see you've wasted no time figuring out the recent Mapster features (in this case the rotated textures - and I can foresee your style using them in neat ways).

Mapster32 has taken a big leap forward. More convenient functions which were not available in 2013 or whenever I last mapped.

[ck3D]

 taivo30, on 02 January 2026 - 07:21 AM, said:

Mapster32 has taken a big leap forward. More convenient functions which were not available in 2013 or whenever I last mapped.

Yeah it is quite mindblowing how practical and flexible (and a lot less buggy) the level editor is now. Some other features of the era I am looking forward to seeing you explore (if you ever do) would be sloped sprites and (maybe) more importantly TROR I could imagine becoming a great tool for your style, visually and practically.

Very early WIP time too:

[Ninety-Six]

ck3D, on 02 January 2026 - 08:18 AM, said:

Very early WIP time too:

The exterior shots reminds me of the alien planet portion of the CBP Halloween mega-map, for some reason.

[ck3D]

Ninety-Six, on 03 January 2026 - 12:29 AM, said:

The exterior shots reminds me of the alien planet portion of the CBP Halloween mega-map, for some reason.

Must be the combination of rough terrain, basic interactable sprite props, and altered colors. But this one should have a better ship.

[taivo30]

Quote

Yeah it is quite mindblowing how practical and flexible (and a lot less buggy) the level editor is now. Some other features of the era I am looking forward to seeing you explore (if you ever do) would be sloped sprites and (maybe) more importantly TROR I could imagine becoming a great tool for your style, visually and practically.

Wait wait Sloped Sprites? I don't know about this function yet! I have done a little bit of TROR but it needs a different approach.

[ck3D]

You can slope floor-aligned sprites using the usual sloping keys that you know for sectors, that has been possible for a couple of years. That means those sprites will break (and show face-aligned) in earlier EDuke builds than that, but realistically there is no reason for players not to update seeing as right now the port and editor are better than ever at what they do.

They are a bit strange to work with at first (have to be more precise than usual with heights, placements, angles), but one common technique elandy has shared before is you can make sloped terrain out of sectors and then just lay the sprites on top like the floor is a cast, slope/place everything and then just delete the sloped sectors once you no longer need the assist.

One good, short modern map you can play that uses sloped sprites (and TROR) quite well is Aleks/Ledsbourne's Der Zorn Gottes: https://msdn.duke4.n...rzorngottes.php

[ck3D]

Making rocket with TROR interior you can get in:

[ck3D]

Update on rocket, I got carried away a little:

[Perro Seco]

ck3D, on 04 January 2026 - 05:26 AM, said:

Making rocket with TROR interior you can get in

I want to know what's your secret to make new maps almost everyday. Ghostmappers on your basement? Drugs?

Over the past few months, the rocket from Launch Facility has started to catch my attention too, and just like you mentioned in another thread, I also came to the conclusion it's based on a Saturn V. I'll see if I can recreate it too..., somewhere in the future..., unless I discover your secret for lightspeed mapping.

[taivo30]

Was wondering how is this Red mist glow achieved? Looks like Duke is in Hell!



Plan for my map is to have it Christmas/Wintery themed city with some Caves and Water mixed in

[ck3D]

They are palettes in the pal 26-29 range known as fogpals. They have been around for maybe 15+ years now but used to work a little differently, it used to be all you had to do was give the sector floor the pal IIRC, now it has to be applied to most every surface and object you want the tint on (but that is cool because it is more flexible). What they do is recolor Duke 3D's default visibility fog from black to white/red/green/blue respectively, and so of course that means it works in tandem with shading and visibility that have to be somewhat low otherwise there is nothing that will look colored. The stronger the shade/visibility, the more faded and closer to just a fullbright color (screen starts losing all detail around the shade 30 point, on that screenshot I am using shade 12, but in the screenshot with the intense blue fog corridor is like 27 and shows barely anything in the applied textures popping when the sector is in its dark state, since I'm using dynamic lights there, which all are awesome to combine with fogpals by the way).

Perro Seco, on 05 January 2026 - 09:13 AM, said:

I want to know what's your secret to make new maps almost everyday. Ghostmappers on your basement? Drugs?

Over the past few months, the rocket from Launch Facility has started to catch my attention too, and just like you mentioned in another thread, I also came to the conclusion it's based on a Saturn V. I'll see if I can recreate it too..., somewhere in the future..., unless I discover your secret for lightspeed mapping.

There is no secret but perservering and eventually all of the things just come together and shape into working blocks that stack, it is funny I was considering the witty comment that once you've made all of the possible mistakes to make in the editor then you've run out of them but it is such an endless well that getting to the bottom of it seems difficult, I'm still figuring out what optimal workflow is myself and a good example would be that very rocket in fact since I just had to rescale the entire thing after posting those screenshots, as upon playing I realized some of the sector work was just narrow scaled enough to kill Duke (in a way that is pretty niche and I couldn't foresee: angled stairs). Easy but now I have to recalculate absolutely all of the texturing and sloping of the structure, and so maybe a thousand sectors; I am halfway there now and using the chance for a detail/lighting/sound pass, but that is still maybe two hours I've wasted on a mistake and I'm still not done cleaning it up. But now I will keep it in mind as a possible problem in those specific conditions and remember to test similar areas first thing so it can't happen again, and those two hours I will gain back as many times as I will dodge every potential repeat in the future. If you really want to make what you're making then you will power through anything and experience is the sum of hard lessons - also about focus which is important to make time count - you want any moment in the editor spent towards a set task, even if that means time away until it is mentally clear and the exact method organized. Sometimes that seems out of control, for instance halfway through making Computer War 2024 I got stuck on the right idea to continue it at a precise moment for like two months until it matured. But you've been around, so you must know and I don't think I need to tell you. Also I very much am looking forward to seeing your version of the rocket.

[Ninety-Six]

ck3D, on 06 January 2026 - 01:43 AM, said:

as upon playing I realized some of the sector work was just narrow scaled enough to kill Duke (in a way that is pretty niche and I couldn't foresee: angled stairs)

Okay I'm curious. How does this work?