[Merlijn]

I concur with the others, it's really cool to see you move out of your comfort zone and create such a massive nature/city map.
Those gigantic trees are also intriguing - I assume you made them that big on purpose so now I wonder what's the story behind that.

[ck3D]

Thank you Merlijn, in actuality the trees are both a practical and design feature, first off the general size really helps convey the feel that you're deep in a massive forest if not jungle and not just some tiny little park or hallway, all the while covering a lot of ground (also with high-contrast shadows) and so I'm not wasting resources on individual detail for the large spaces to look good. Then quite early on, I realized they were fantastic tools for structuring the surrounding environment vertically and splitting it into directions to guide the player's sights along, be it from a distance cutting up the landscape into rectangles, or up close where in the end each set corresponds to its own little island of an area. So I started playing around with occlusion in general a lot (also with some of the cliffs), and then because of the extravagant size of the map (it's nearly as big as what maximum editorgridextent can allow in just one sandbox) I was getting some ugly sector rendering glitches here and there due to I'm pretty sure drawing distance, but building trees masking the view from the right angle would always completely solve the problem. They help structure the place even player height-wise too, providing lower ceilings under a sky that's otherwise in the negative million when it comes to Z value, which really helps with the pacing and variety. Finally, all the trunks down below and whatnot are really fun opportunities to individually design more and more different basic set-ups for cover and ambushes. Thinking gameplay-wise a lot of them will usually signify minor item cache, but you'll still have to go there and locally earn it, even if that's fodder for 2x10 HP or a trooper for shotgun shells.

[Merlijn]

Thanks for the elaborate answer - it looks and sounds like a fun place to explore!

[ck3D]

Haha yeah that's for sure, I want to say perhaps a bit too much, this is shaping up to be one more one-hour map on a first playthrough easily and then completionists would probably require half an afternoon. But at least there will be sequencing in the gameplay and in fact a lot of the maps so far are like this, so full of nooks and crannies and yet so wide open and free you could choose to either speed run it in various ways or move there. So many both official and unofficial secret places as well. I feel like leaving as much freedom as possible to the player in their interpretation of the eventual experience, one thing I've been doing quite a bit is presenting them with not just two options for pseudo-non-linear progression but always three (because it's supposed to be '3'D) if not more whenever possible, in the case of this map for instance there will be whole segments the player could choose to skip for speed but then they would miss out on a weapon. In theory, even for Dukematch, the combination of the layouts and size should be interesting.

[Ninety-Six]

Those massive trees are the kind of thing that could really only exist in an engine like Build, like the reality-bending secret levels in the vanilla game. Sure, if you tried really hard enough you could make create a massive sculpted model in unreal or something, but it would take a lot of manpower and engine-twisting to get a whole forest out of them (or a lot of portal trickery for the aforementioned secret levels). But in Build, or any sector-based engine, it's nothing but walls, ceilings, and textures. No real twisting of the engine. Like with the secret levels, just using the engine like you would normally and sometimes it just has really neat effects.

It's one of the reasons I love these old engines so much. As technology has moved forward, it's ironically left behind some things that would take far more effort to replicate nowadays than it would with them.


also two years already what

[ck3D]

^ One thing I like about Build in particular is the potential for abstract representations, really here implementing all the trees completely feels like I'm painting a landscape just within an explorable and even playable unpopular medium that will eventually be experienceable via more than just sight but also all kinds of interaction. It's really akin to shaping a scenery. In the end, because of the limitations of the engine your product is bound to look more or less abstract anyway but since the program actually lets you go quite nuts then the creative possibilities really are endless, whenever simulation works in that game (in base Duke 3D even) when you think about it it all comes down to Jedi mind tricks, without all the suggestive city art E1L1 wouldn't have been that different from say something out of Doom II (sector-over-sector aside). I really like how you put it though.

And yeah two years is pretty insane, I hate being stuck on projects for a while too (although quality takes time, otherwise you're downright wasting your time creating at all) but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel here and that's really satisfying, of course I still have a lot of work on a few more maps and the coding and possible enemy art (still wouldn't be against some help there by the way, part of me would like to figure it out by myself but someone willing to hear my ideas for a few enemy variants in the style of the original game to help out would save lots of time, for the most part it's relatively basic edits, but I'm also not that tempted to delegate like I was just saying, I might actually enjoy getting to it myself later) but the global picture is starting to form. It's funny how the first year was basically map 1 and 2 and then the start of map 3 and then year two the pace just took off and now I'm basically wrapping up map 8, with the last two maps having been done in just over one month and most every map always topping the former as my largest. Can't say I'm certain exactly what's going on but I'll take it. Two years is the time I used to spend working on just one map, in an era that wasn't so long ago.

I'm sure that out of people, you won't regret the wait though, especially from reading about your completionist tendencies. I'm also including this type of player at the core of my demographic, in addition to classic FPS/Duke 3D enthusiasts who can take the shift in scale, Dukematch players and speedrunners.

[Ninety-Six]

ck3D, on 28 May 2021 - 09:10 AM, said:

I'm sure that out of people, you won't regret the wait though, especially from reading about your completionist tendencies. I'm also including this type of player at the core of my demographic, in addition to classic FPS/Duke 3D enthusiasts who can take the shift in scale, Dukematch players and speedrunners.

I was sold the moment you said you were going for a vanilla-like gameplay style, but I just got more and more sold as the project progressed.

I'd be really curious to see how this works in a speedrunning session. Maybe it'll be the push I need to give it a try, myself.

[ck3D]

Oh that's nice to hear and you'd be welcome. Approach for the speedrunning so far is basically everything I'm designing also doubles up as a strat. Not engine-based strats where the player would need to know clipping abuse and whatnot (those have been mostly fixed in eDuke32 anyway, I'm sure people will find some in the maps nonetheless though and that will be very welcome), but level design strats based on most always presenting the player to choices (the very first moment in the episode actually reflects that pretty well from the get-go, you'll see), what's cool about sandbox-styled levels is every step can potentially be a strat and so the more you steps you introduce into the equation the most exponentially possibilities arise. I was just saying to the Watchtower in a DM (and given that I ramble a lot in general I've probably said it on here too) but one thing that always struck me deep in Duke 3D was the freedom in, say E1L2 where if you've saved up jetpack fuel from the previous level you can just fly straight to the blue key, or skip whole chunks of Lunar Apocalypse altogether, here I'm designing the levels so that they have an intended progression but if the player wants to play a certain way then they're really encouraged to because why not. Map 8, the player will be able to jump off the cliffs and into the river as soon as the start of the level if so they wish but then they'd miss out on resources only available to those who choose to explore the forest and take in the health and ammo from 20 more minutes worth of gameplay if they explore everything in that first section of the level, or 3 if they (can afford to) rush through it. Speedrunning will also be a major consideration when it comes to the implementation of the gameplay, for instance the largest maps with long grounds to cover will have steroids placed in strategic locations and if anyone ever seriously wants to speedrun this, then just that is going to result in strats for optimal ways of getting there (and then years later if they're still at it, someone will find an even quicker way to finish the map without them, we all know the pattern by now).

[ck3D]

More significant progress on map 8, now starting to resemble an actual map. Now sitting at 1828 sectors/13480 walls/4970 sprites which might not sound like much of a change since the last update, but really comprises getting 1500 walls back (and then spending them again) from deleting redundant sectors and walls, and finalizing the general shaping of the map (which is actually quite intense). Not to complain again, but the hard limits really are going to be tight and at this point I can afford zero luxury, there isn't much waste left I should be able to scavenge, but that's going to be a good challenge. Really happy with most every cliff bordering the level being accessible on foot and everything, jetpack only lasts so long in this map because of the scale too so any legit one should feel precious. Really thinking because of the scale of the level, this most definitely will be the steroids level (just like map 5 will be the jetpack level), I was already planning on using them for certain jumps but the more the map develops the more its concept just writes itself.

Showing off a bit more skin and player perspective from both ground level and accessible rooftops and cliffs. Technically there isn't that much work left for me on this map, basically I just need more forest as well as at least one, maybe two areas but those plans happen to be bound to be quite wall-heavy and so I hope I'll be able to keep up without needing to adjust too much, that's where most of the brainpower will need to be going I can already tell.

[ck3D]

Map 8 is growing with 1997 sectors/15296 walls/5794 sprites. Been adding lots to it throughout the week to get progress done before I'm busier with work this weekend (makes sense, I know). All I have left to do now is complete about half of the region of the map surrounding the mountain (which in itself should be quick) and then there is a last area I really want to make, but 1000 walls is going to be super tight, I'm really going to have to scavenge through whatever is left of redundantly spent resources, and those should be a rarity by now, but I'm actually looking forward to the challenge and the results should be worth it. Dropping three shots of the general updated look and also three from a rather large underwater area I started last night and finished this morning (will require you to find the scuba gear inside the level if you have none left from the previous maps and thus introduce a - very fairly loose - time trial element to complete that section, I tried to build it so that even to a casual player or someone willing to explore it should be rather stress-free). By the way I only just now compared and in terms of scale, this is by far the largest map of the pack, if you thought map 6 was large (I know I did), you could easily fit two map 6's in there (so that's about five Woudrichem Wars). But I think I'm succeeding at making it feel like a legit adventure, all dimensions considered I'm very satisfied with it so far (and with the pacing of the progress too, I only started it two weeks ago). I feel like I'm only a few sessions away from wrapping the map up, too, so I might find some extra motivation to get even further ahead on it tonight.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

[Ninety-Six]

I dunno why but the introduction of the alien elements makes this look a lot more...complete? It's strange, but appreciated.

[ck3D]

Ninety-Six, on 04 June 2021 - 09:12 AM, said:

I dunno why but the introduction of the alien elements makes this look a lot more...complete? It's strange, but appreciated.

You really know how to pick your words, I'd say complete is right and makes sense since the purple lava tone (if that's what you're referring to by alien elements!) is the exact opposite to the tint of the sky on the color wheel, fully tying together the spectrum:



And that's also why green slime doesn't look as good here, it's redundant with the rest of the tones and thus blends into the landscape instead of sticking out to help structure it. Now some sections of the map do have green slime, but it fits the purpose and thematics there - the player is going to want to do everything but explore that part anyway (not that they're going to want to explore the purple lava for too long either).

Perhaps the purple lava also stands out due to the rest of the tile set being mostly 1.3d art.

[Ninety-Six]

ck3D, on 04 June 2021 - 09:26 AM, said:

makes sense since the purple lava tone (if that's what you're referring to by alien elements!)

That's certainly part of it.

Actually that might be the whole of it; looking at those underwater screens again, the tint turns some other stuff into purple as well, mixing with the green.

[ck3D]

True, I actually like the effect of the tint, to be exact the underwater uses a lot of greens on reds play, which is another opposite and one of my personal favorites (and I recently noticed William Gee using it a lot in WG The Abyss too!), in this case it also fits the thematic of underwater rust and alien presence. You can't really replicate that with blue/yellow that easily since the yellow in Duke 3D kind of sucks (turns into literally shitty brown/green as soon as given even just 1 of shade value, yes I made Siebenpolis), and there is no orange palette for lighting. Here for the underwater area I'm mostly using 'softer' palettes than straight up full red too (pal 19 and 24 only turn certain layers of the tile red), pure palettes I like to reserve for particularly important scenes and progression indicators.

For the record I progressed even further on the map tonight and added perhaps 100 sectors. I'm totally not doing what I was saying I'd do by tackling the last area I really want first, makes more sense, it's definitely more exciting to make than more sector trees and I think with this approach I might actually be able to get some precious resources back by enclosing the gameplay area just a few 'grid squares' tighter around the mountain if needs be, eliminating some dead zone as to get a few cliffs worth of investment back. Anyway, would be cool to wrap this map up sometime next week and then move onto the next. At this point I don't have *that* many more levels planned, fueling my hopes for a release before (or around) 2022 unless work happens to pick up (not going to lie now, would also be kind of cool if it did).

[ck3D]

For those who like to keep up with each map's journal despite no screenshots. I've reached 16300+ walls a few times while working on that last area, but seem to manage to recoup 300 walls or so every time I delete a chunk of redundant cliffs or trees, and so I have no problem keeping going with the map so far to the point where I don't think the wall limit will be that much of a bitch in the end here (although I don't really want to get to a point where I'd straight up be deleting areas; I like the current layout). I don't think I'll be posting as many screens of map 8 as I've been doing from now on, because it's this close to being a complete wrap (I'd say two or three more mapping sessions should suffice) and so really representative of the final look of the level in its current state, complete with some surprises I wouldn't want to spoil. Perhaps I will go for one last round of timid shots once I consider the thing done just to honor what's now become a tradition, but for the most part from now on you guys will have to directly play this map to experience it any further. I'm actually quite happy with the feel of the basic progression in this level in particular and I'm looking forward to hearing if people will dig it too!

[Maarten]

Love the shots & unique feel of them! These rocks, city & purple "water" works damn well Keep it up!!

[NNC]

Map 8 has a really great distinct look, love the purple pools especially, but that elevator texture has to go.

[ck3D]

Maarten: thanks, I'm very glad you like it! Really excited about your own current work these days too.

The Watchtower: thanks, elevator thing is an actual elevator platform though, just in its top position on every screenshot here, not directly the side of the building that would be textured like that (I realize that might not be obvious from the angles I've shown). I like marking operable elevators with actual elevator textures, be it this one or one of the alternative ones - I find that it makes the purpose of the sector more obvious and less out of place once activated than if it were textured differently (see the hidden elevator to that secret place in the E1L1 cinema lobby next to the registers). Also here I think it's important for the progression that the player actually realizes the function of that platform, solving the little puzzle linked to bringing it down is a central theme to that segment and so the idea is to actually make the player want the eyesore to disappear, subconsciously (and they are rewarded in all kinds of way once they do). I'm curious, in such a context what would you suggest?

[ck3D]

Just finished designing the ending of map 8 - my time sweating it over the wall limit on that one is over. In the end I had to scavenge for about 1500 walls recouped from redundant cliffs and very slightly reducing the size of the explorable area by cutting the most dead zone, but by doing it all bit by bit in slices of 200/300 walls constantly getting reinvested I managed to make it all work. Now all I have left is one puzzle to fine-tune (really just switch placement), a few big explosion sequences to throw in and some last-minute cosmetics such as a few tree trunks, cliffs to redesign and some minor wall-shading, basically half a day's work. Will post a few last screenshots when that's done (but don't expect too much, I don't want to show that much more from this one).

What's cool is the episode is really starting to come together now, as this map makes for the last missing link in between all the other ones designed so far, basically meaning that technically (even if I haven't implemented most of gameplay yet, most monsters, items etc.) the first eight levels of the episode are just about ready to be played in what their eventual succession will be (although not the order I designed them in). I know for sure that I only want three more or maybe four. Seeing as the past few maps all only took three weeks per map on average (although I wouldn't count on my ability to keep up with that pace), end of the mapping frenzy might come even sooner than anticipated, and that's when I'll be more seriously looking into gameplay/enemy art/coding.

[Ninety-Six]

EDIT: Please delete i read wrong and did a dumb

[William Gee]

your latest screenshots look unique and quite fantastic in design and size! How many levels will the episode be?

[ck3D]

Thanks a lot Will, that means a lot coming from you since you're one of the masters of that style! I think eventually the episode will be 11 or 12 maps including a secret one, honestly I have inspiration for many more and could keep going after that but most of the levels so far are pretty long already and so I feel like any more content than that would be overdoing it, ideally I wouldn't want the experience to ever start feeling redundant. The 8 completed maps so far already make for a good 10+ hours of gameplay I would say (at least on a first/blind playthrough, because I'm also designing them in a way that once you know how the levels are laid out, you can also choose to run through them a lot quicker than that).

@Ninety-Six if you have any doubts or questions you would like me to answer, feel free to shoot anytime! I really appreciate your constant interest (and the one of the few people who keep following and checking this thread), it really fuels me up as part of the experience in addition to contributing to the eventual shape of this project.

[ck3D]

And it's a wrap for map 8. Still have some tiny little things to refine (a few explosions and conveyors to finish setting up and some wall shading here and there) but nothing that can't wait until the final pass where I'll be polishing every map. This one got me stressed out towards the end as weirder and weirder stuff kept happening to it with the closest I'd get to the wall limit (not even hitting it), not going to lie - weird stuff in between saves, instant crashes after adding one too many walls (took a bit of trial and error to detect the exact viable number), or the editor handling the map just fine but the game insisting on crashing upon map load. Used a more recent Mapster32 build and corruptcheck tryfix to clean things up, which worked with the only side effect of 'uprooting' about a hundred of vegetation sprites I had carefully inserted into the ground all over the map back to default ground level all at once (when it didn't straight up delete them), and so later I'll have to bury them back in manually one by one, fun times. Hence why some may or may not look out of place or too big in the following shots, but the general look should be representative enough.

Again all screens are taken from ground level (no jetpack) and accessible areas, just high places sometimes. Area on screen 5 & 6 as well as its general surroundings and the section of the level that follows it, I had a lot of fun trying to build somewhat classic style (cliffs in the upper left corner of screen 5 still need wall shading). Screen 7 shows a patchwork of fully zoomed-out automap (way too big to fit the screen at all) and screen 8 is the usual in-editor shot as the map stands now.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

[Ninety-Six]

So I'm curious. With this rather fantastical landscape, I can't help but wonder what the setting is. Where in the world such a place might exist.

Overthinking something unimportant? Absolutely. Curious anyway? Of course!

[Mike Norvak]

This is rad, something you would expect from someone like William G, but it doesn't look like a rip off but something completely different, I wonder how the gameplay feels. I'm sure a total experience.

[Aleks]

Damn, that final 2 shots with map (especially the one from Mapster) look almost like some form of actual cartography... Seems like you've taken the meaning of "map" quite too literally on this one Great stuff. And indeed, the 6th screenshot especially has a very strong classic vibe to it somehow.

[ck3D]

Ninety-Six, on 08 June 2021 - 08:39 PM, said:

So I'm curious. With this rather fantastical landscape, I can't help but wonder what the setting is. Where in the world such a place might exist.

Overthinking something unimportant? Absolutely. Curious anyway? Of course!

You're absolutely not overthinking something unimportant in the context of this project and I'd encourage you to keep trying and guess, either publicly or for yourself depending on your preference. I'd address your question directly, but in reality your answer lies within the map itself and so perhaps I shouldn't spoil that to you or anyone just yet, as it should be a lot cooler when the realization directly hits you when playing. Arguably a lot about this map in particular has to do with realizing where exactly you are (so thematically, but also geographically within the level's structure). But it actually makes a lot of sense that you'd ask yourself the question and as that's one of the desired effects here, I'm very happy to see it!

Mike Norvak, on 08 June 2021 - 09:27 PM, said:

This is rad, something you would expect from someone like William G, but it doesn't look like a rip off but something completely different, I wonder how the gameplay feels. I'm sure a total experience.

Thank you, working on this map definitely felt like I was doing something close to as larger-than-life in terms of scale as what authors like William or Numan have done (a few times that was actually rather disorientating to work on), here and there I was also taking some clues from Robert Travis with Anslem/Aztec and also Billy Boy (just without all the crazy Build tricks). In fact hilariously enough, just after I completed the map and posted those screens I looked up playthrough videos of Imperium again (I wanted to refresh my memories of the level design in there) and Numan's map (level 3) hit super close to home to the point where I legitimately pondered if what I had just spent the last three weeks on wasn't too similar - so I'd say in terms of feel, Numan's Imperium map may be the closest thing out there there is. How did that guy drop the community eventually anyway? Just left without a word? I wish he had kept mapping, he was actually getting really good, always better with every new piece of his. But his departure happened during one of my hiatuses.

Gameplay - I reckon this will be the map where the player will have to explore and think about ways to progress the most. The level is divided into three main zones (start, core, ending) and traversing those will be completely straightforward in theory but also require covering distances and thinking of ways to outdo your natural surroundings. Item stashes will reward secondary exploration, and while I intend on being meticulous on monster selection and placement on every level this one will require particular care with as few hitscan enemies as possible, which might add to the feeling of wilderness.

Aleks, on 09 June 2021 - 01:51 AM, said:

Damn, that final 2 shots with map (especially the one from Mapster) look almost like some form of actual cartography... Seems like you've taken the meaning of "map" quite too literally on this one Great stuff. And indeed, the 6th screenshot especially has a very strong classic vibe to it somehow.

Maps will be maps! Interesting observation though, I'd say there's something to think about there. Thank you Aleks!

[Merlijn]

Great final screens! I agree with the others about the purple lava, really compliments the overall feel of the map.
I also love how the big trees become the 'skyscrapers' here, dwarving the actual human buildings and dominating the landscape.

Interesting comparison with Numans Imperium map, I hadn't thought of it yet but I can see the resemblance now. Numan actually left the community during the development of Imperium.
Me and Maarten had to step in to finish the map, but that doesn't take away from his great work (the alien tower and the surrounding landscape are of course all him).
I don't know why exactly he left, just ran out of inspiration for mapping I guess. He moved on to other games,
I think he was into skyrim at some point. Maarten and I have some occasional contact with him, but that's more about music and not about Duke.

[ck3D]

Thanks for the feedback and also for dropping some news regarding Numan! I'm glad to hear he's just doing good at all, regardless of his current interests. Perhaps we should be looking up to him as The Man Who Broke Free.

[ck3D]

Started a quick ModDB page for this: https://www.moddb.co...3d-blast-radius