[Šneček]

[font="Courier New"]Hello everyone!
The aliens are spoiling Duke's vacation again! This is my smaller episode for eduke32- there are 7 SP levels and 1 MP level (-i created that MP level according to this article, but I don't have a chance to try multiplayer, unfortunately: https://wiki.eduke32...er_Level_Making) This is a gallery of my addon, if you are interested: https://postimg.cc/gallery/mwcqb68k/ download link is here: https://www.mediafir...0h/DSH.rar/file In this episode there are some new possibilities like possibility to use a car for shorter driving or possibility to play a minigolf. There is one level where you have to solve the puzzle to reach the end of the level. There is some new music- I borrowed some soundtrack from Chex Quest 3, and soundtrack from "Chupa Chups Bungee Commercial" video. The disadvantage of this my two-month work which I regret, is the absence of the helicopter sound of a helicopter - it is an overlooked detail in spite of testing, + very simple submarine level, which was supposed to look a little different in half. The advantages includes my 2 new textures that I created for this addon. One of them is a picture of Chupa Chuck in a secret place. It is one of new easter eggs in this addon. Find it! So I hope you enjoy this. And sorry for my possible bad English, i am Czech using Google Translator :-)

[Seb Luca]

Well. You probably still have to work again: occupy the space better, vary the shapes and textures.
But the result is fairly consistent, and details like mini-golf show that there is a desire to go beyond the limitations of the original game.

Good luck for the future

[ck3D]

Welcome to this community, it's really cool to see new people making maps,

Why the two-month limit? Was it self-imposed? Two months to make an entire episode is an impossibly short time if you're going for quality. Most people spend twice as long on single user maps. How familiar are you with the game and the quality of the user content people have been making throughout the years?

Honestly, from all the screenshots and a purely technical standpoint, every map looks very basic and rushed (albeit with some interesting ideas like the boat or the mini-golf, I'm only talking about the execution - you didn't even make those windows transparent), did you make this episode to learn your way around the editor? You're probably excited to release something, but most people usually regret releasing their first levels barely a few weeks later, when they realize they could have spent more time on their craft and it would have been more polished in the long run. Remember, releases are mostly here to stay, once the files are out in the open you are going to lose some control over your ability to revise them.

I can sense your motivation though, if you're serious about making an episode for this game that would be a bit more credible and memorable, I'd advise working on the two following for now: lighting/shading (your screenshots look like everything has the default values so you lose a lot of the three-dimensional depth and potential atmosphere you can come up with in this game), and sector design and shapes - you can and actually should definitely work with the grid in the editor, but not everything has to be square and blocky. Remember you can turn grid lock off while drawing lines in 2D mode with L and change the scale of the grid with G for fine-tuning. Think of different angles for walls, then different orientations for whole rooms once you get comfortable enough (because that can be pretty disorientating to build at first). Will spice things up and add a lot more variety.

Also, learning the logic behind how to align textures properly (masked walls included) should take you a couple of minutes in a test map at best, and help you develop the most healthy habit for the rest of your mapping career. One single instance of a misaligned texture can totally wreck the immersion in an otherwise incredible level.

Pretty sure you can always go back to your maps anytime to refine them, add walls, shading, credible decoration, sounds, give them even more life. Take a look at what other authors have done in user maps using the same editor as you and get amazed at how many possibilities are in front of you. It will only make the experience more complete and fun (honestly lighting/shading is one of my favorite things to play with in Build). Or maybe you just don't care enough and that's fine but honestly I kind of don't understand why you would upload maps you even state yourself are missing sounds and whatnot.

But I hope you keep mapping and stick around!

[Šneček]

Thank you for expressing your support and views, which I fully agree with. Honestly, I really set myself a limit - I wanted to finish this episode by the end of August because of the thematic, so I could send it to a friend. This is my second better mod, which I spent a lot of time on and wanted it to be succeeded and not composed of mindless maps with tacky textures that I sometimes encountered while downloading someone-else´s maps. (-but not very often) After the upload, I thought that I should focus on the shortcomings in the future. While testing this episode, I focused primarily on if any mistake or "half-baked" element does not prevent from reaching the end of the level. Probably I´m eager enough. Surprisingly, despite repeatedly testing, I didn't notice the missing sound, until after the uploading. Only now, when reading the comments, do I see more bad things I wouldn't notice myself. Definitely I should not rush next time to upload my episodes. Of course, when creating this episode, I thought I would like to attract more players of the game. I wanted to make this mod public for a wider range of players.

[ck3D]

Ah I understand the two-month limit and context better, then. But realistically, that's just too short of a timespan for most people to make an even remotely professional-looking episode (honestly, I'm still amazed to this day that Mister Sinister managed to come up with this well-designed 5-map episode in just a week: https://msdn.duke4.net/hotddrive.php). Like you said yourself, not every user map out there is mindless with tacky textures, Duke is an old game now so people have had decades to learn the editor and most of the releases nowadays are well-refined in quality (they are more rare though, as people spend entire months or years working on single levels). What is your source for user maps? If you download them at random, you're going to get a lot of shitty maps. Here are some websites that have tons of good ones (and also some bad ones, but the reviews are always duly honest about them):

- MSDN: https://msdn.duke4.net/
- Come Get Some!: http://www.scent-88.com
- Duke Maps: https://www.dukemaps.net
- The Abandoned Workshops: https://taw.duke4.net

If ever in need for quick info or references on how to make certain effects in Build, you're probably already familiar with it but I'd recommend https://infosuite.duke4.net a thousand times over (I've been making maps since around 2000 and still check it all the time for efficiency's sake). If you've never read it I would suggest to go through it in order ("The Basics" included first - even though you already know how to lay down a basic level, there's some good pieces of insight in there to keep in mind for the future).

Creating a mod to attract more players to the game is a honorable gesture. But really, you're probably going to need a higher quality release to have such an impact (or maybe I'm wrong and in this case, great). There are thousands of levels, mods etc. of the same quality as yours (currently) out there that have been coming out since 1996, so I wouldn't expect it to stand out too much. For reference, here's a mod (made by some of the best in this community, so don't get discouraged) that had an actual impact on the community when it came out in 2013: https://msdn.duke4.net/dnf2013.php

I feel a bit rude for being 'that guy', but I remember my first levels were of a quality similar to yours and I thought they were awesome (back in 2003 or so, I was young), then I got access to the Internet and played user levels such as Red 4: https://msdn.duke4.net/hotred4.php which all basically consisted in designs I didn't even expect were possible (that I also had at hand all this time without realizing how powerful of a tool Build was), and made me reconsider everything I thought I knew, but for the better - an author needs that type of hindsight and reality check in order to constantly progress. That you're just now seeing new little mistakes in your episode is a positive: it means you have a more refined vision of what's possible to do for Duke than you had yesterday, it's growth. If you stay in this community whilst keeping making maps, you'll probably get that type of help (direct or indirect) a lot and improve every day accordingly just from learning from the interactions. If you start a new project (even just a map), I would recommend posting the occasional screenshots in the What Are You Working On For Duke? thread for direct feedback from other mappers/players, pre-release too so you can be made aware of problems you don't see as the author, and fix them as you go.

Of course not every map has to be super tech and every mapper serious, but figuring out the basics of shading, texturing etc. takes a really short time and will make mapping so much more fulfilling to you - it will enable you to design the sceneries as you picture them in your head not just for your own self, but also for the rest of the world to also see them like you imagine them, as you get more confident with detail and develop a style of your own.

I salute your mature reaction to sincere feedback (some people can't do it) and again see strengths in your motivation, it's obvious that you really like the game and feel like contributing with ideas, so I'm looking forward to seeing how your mapping develops if you choose to keep mapping and share more.