[ck3D]

Burnt out for a few weeks, now back at it:

[Merlijn]

I'm getting a Zaxtor vibe from some of those jungle shots, especially the last one. Good stuff! And cool use of TROR, so we finally see the tree tops as well

[ck3D]

See and get on top of and fight on and drop through etc. The idea was inspired by TLOD/Nacho's first impression playing Blast Radius and assuming everything was TROR (nothing was TROR) including the sector trees in Peru. Duke Nukem V plot line suggested a canopee/jungle and so I thought ah, there it is time. It's not groundbreaking use but is representative of what I mean when I say I want a practical TROR-oriented episode, instead of using for secondary platforms or punching in as an afterthought, deliberately use for structural purposes in the level design sense to unlock fresh forms of layout traversal and combat scenarios, and as much as possible articulate it around the classic Build-specific technical possibilities (with moving stuff, etc.). Close to WG's take on it but different.

You can take Zaxtor out of the jungle, but the jungle never leaves Zaxtor. But this map has been weird. Hit 3000+ sectors/max walls very fast but then the remaining two third of the process had to be cuts to heavily reflect over. Am just barely seeing the end of it now.

[Puke Fukem]

Still work in progress...

Polymer fog coming right up! (very early sewer section)

[ck3D]

Your first screen is a remarkable improvement over your approach to organizing space from your first release already. Shows some cool verticality, architecture and shading too. My first impression seeing it (I want to say obviously) is curiosity to be able to go around and explore and all of the places, so maybe that is preemptive advice that you probably should consider leaving as much of the space accessible to the player as possible, even if it's just e.g.. secrets. I am of the school of thinking that if a structure is positively built (and especially if it's cool and will draw attention), then just as much as any structure it always has the potential of being functional (interactable in some way, used as a supporting platform for enemy respawns, demolished, etc.), which isn't mutually exclusive with working as decorum. It is something even an experienced mapper can overlook sometime because of tunnel vision, if they get carried away making too much background scenery (base D3D cities had little to none at all, DN64 introduced it) then from player POV will just look like there is a whole level worth of structure that was obviously made, just not for them to explore because there is a tiny fence (if that) which naturally is questionable.

But from your posts it does sound like you are going for the open city style and so I would figure the player can get around most everywhere. If not then remember you can still 'officially' block areas the annoying/artificial way but have them contain (hidden) spaces nonetheless that are just accessible through say underground vents or something.

[Puke Fukem]

ck3D, on 18 March 2026 - 11:36 PM, said:

Your first screen is a remarkable improvement over your approach to organizing space from your first release already. Shows some cool verticality, architecture and shading too. My first impression seeing it (I want to say obviously) is curiosity to be able to go around and explore and all of the places, so maybe that is preemptive advice that you probably should consider leaving as much of the space accessible to the player as possible, even if it's just e.g.. secrets. I am of the school of thinking that if a structure is positively built (and especially if it's cool and will draw attention), then just as much as any structure it always has the potential of being functional (interactable in some way, used as a supporting platform for enemy respawns, demolished, etc.), which isn't mutually exclusive with working as decorum. It is something even an experienced mapper can overlook sometime because of tunnel vision, if they get carried away making too much background scenery (base D3D cities had little to none at all, DN64 introduced it) then from player POV will just look like there is a whole level worth of structure that was obviously made, just not for them to explore because there is a tiny fence (if that) which naturally is questionable.

But from your posts it does sound like you are going for the open city style and so I would figure the player can get around most everywhere. If not then remember you can still 'officially' block areas the annoying/artificial way but have them contain (hidden) spaces nonetheless that are just accessible through say underground vents or something.

Thanks. Map 7G HUB wasn't intended to have any much verticality and the new one is definitely different, lots of areas can be visited at all kinds of heights but I cannot spoil yet how the city layout looks like. I hate spoilers so much that I never watch movie trailers or similar. And yes, there's also quite more interactivity available all around, even if it's just a door sound telling you this door is locked. But then there are also elevators, jetpacks, puzzles and other interactivity to expect. The only downside is I cannot do TROR, I always messed up so there's no (T)ROR section anywhere. I'm running out of walls now, less than 2000...

[ck3D]

Cool. I think it's best to learn TROR late (if ever), after you're done figuring out normal SOS which is what I did. That allows you not just to look at it from perspective but even technically, TROR is merely an extension of SOS just with some more factors coming into play. So it's nothing worth lamenting, TROR doesn't equate good at all (or Duke 3D would have sucked for a long time). If anything it's one more possible distraction that can sabotage work if one doesn't know what they are doing with it. For instance, requires doubling up the sectors/walls and so in the context of exercises like your current one (I like looking at maps as exercises) wouldn't work since you're already short on resources. SOS is important in Build though and not hard to figure out, not every map needs it but I would recommend learning it early, it is quite ingrained within the general logic of the engine and as a mapping tool simplifies things more than it complexifies them (for instance to connect bits of 2D layout).

[zykov eddy]

Puke Fukem, on 18 March 2026 - 12:32 PM, said:

When you've had too much baked beans

[Puke Fukem]

ck3D, on 19 March 2026 - 02:56 AM, said:

Cool. I think it's best to learn TROR late (if ever), after you're done figuring out normal SOS which is what I did. That allows you not just to look at it from perspective but even technically, TROR is merely an extension of SOS just with some more factors coming into play. So it's nothing worth lamenting, TROR doesn't equate good at all (or Duke 3D would have sucked for a long time). If anything it's one more possible distraction that can sabotage work if one doesn't know what they are doing with it. For instance, requires doubling up the sectors/walls and so in the context of exercises like your current one (I like looking at maps as exercises) wouldn't work since you're already short on resources. SOS is important in Build though and not hard to figure out, not every map needs it but I would recommend learning it early, it is quite ingrained within the general logic of the engine and as a mapping tool simplifies things more than it complexifies them (for instance to connect bits of 2D layout).

Yeah well, my city map doesn't need any room-over-room stuff, but it would have been cool to have. Not a fan of SOS, still never used although this would provide some new opportunities but meh! Maybe later...

zykov eddy, on 19 March 2026 - 03:23 AM, said:

When you've had too much baked beans

[void22790]

Quake water effect in Eduke32 Polymost render:

[ck3D]

Woah that looks crazy. How compatible would this be with semi-transparent TROR water floors? Would be so trippy to see sectors rendering through such an atypical effect, but to me this is black magic in that I have no idea what technically is at play.

I always thought the original D3D lava texture sucked, but when made dynamic like this its true style actually kind of gets to shine. Now the D3D water texture always will suck no matter what (it just doesn't look like water at all), but at least this fluidifies it.

Still trying to wrap this one up, by now I have accepted it isn't burnout but just the natural pace this map wants to work, mostly thought about and then subjected to all of the edits in a flash every other week. Just for my own convenience I've started organizing the episode's user.con too and set up a test build (but it is still missing the final couple of levels I need).

[void22790]

There's no black magic, Polymost is an OpenGL renderer, so I basically did a dirty hack in the existing fragment shader that draws everything on screen. It works very well with TROR.

[Mark]

What happened to the screenshots? I didn't get to see them.

[Perro Seco]

Mark, on 21 March 2026 - 08:28 AM, said:

What happened to the screenshots? I didn't get to see them.

Discord happened. I saw the screenshots yesterday, hopefully he can reupload them somewhere else.

void22790, on 20 March 2026 - 05:44 AM, said:

Quake water effect in Eduke32 Polymost render

Quake also applies that effect to the entire screen when the player is underwater. Is that possible too?

[Jblade]

I'll repost one of the pictures here for him, it looks fantastic - is this something you're planning on sharing? Stuff like this would be really useful for us!

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[void22790]

I apologise for using unreliable sources. Unfortunately, in the country where I am currently located, most image hosting services aren’t working, so I’m unable to view many images shared online. I plan to re-host them on my own webpage later as a more robust solution. For now, I will attach some here.

Perro Seco, on 21 March 2026 - 10:37 AM, said:

Quake also applies that effect to the entire screen when the player is underwater. Is that possible too?

Of course, there are no limitations when editing source files, you can even write your own renderer, as Plagman did.

Jblade, on 21 March 2026 - 07:16 PM, said:

I'll repost one of the pictures here for him, it looks fantastic - is this something you're planning on sharing? Stuff like this would be really useful for us!

Thanks, JBlade! I don’t mind sharing it later, but as I mentioned, I didn’t do anything particularly complicated or new. I edited polymost.cpp to register and pass additional uniforms, check for sector lotags, and apply a well-known Quake water warp algorithm in the Polymost fragment shader.

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[Mark]

I remember seeing that effect in the Kingpin discord a couple of months ago. Great work.

[Tea Monster]

Sexy!

[ck3D]

Actually wrapping this one up now, started adding gameplay etc.

[Puke Fukem]

784 walls left and instead of 5 million it's only 4 million things left to do lol *zzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ*

3D RealmS demolition inc. still a bit WIP, needs more spritework lol

[ck3D]

13 secrets sounds cool!