[Jimmy]

I would bet that the first episode, being the shareware, got more cuts than it probably needed. If you want to sell units you want as many people playing your demo as possible, even if their computer isn't really cut out for it.

[Fox]

necroslut, on 19 March 2021 - 10:02 AM, said:

It looks like it was a destructible wall, so skipping ahead shouldn't be a problem if it can only be blown out from the inside.

That area is still in v0.99 along with the parking lot.

[Smikes]

necroslut, on 19 March 2021 - 07:08 AM, said:

The more I look at the mapster shot, the more confused I get. Are they really from the same version? That image of the bar shouldn't be able to exist in that map.

Also, where is the pool table in the mapster shot? And the pigcop monster closet outside the strip club door?

To add to jkas's answer, you might also find these helpful...

1. Here are Allen Blum's original blueprints from the build played by Terminx. To my knowledge, these have never been posted to the Internet until I posted them today Note that the filename is not the date of the image: https://dukenukem.fa...95-22Nov-01.jpg
2. Here's the dancefloor from Red Light District as it probably would have appeared in late October / early November 1995: https://dukenukem.fa...ki/File:TBD.png
3. And here's video footage of the bar that corresponds to the map blueprints posted by Terminx:

[NNC]

Jimmy, on 19 March 2021 - 05:13 PM, said:

I would bet that the first episode, being the shareware, got more cuts than it probably needed. If you want to sell units you want as many people playing your demo as possible, even if their computer isn't really cut out for it.

AFAIK only the first two maps suffered from major cuts, but at least Hollywood Holocaust got its character intact. It lost a bathroom, an alternative starting area (which wasn't that impressive from what I saw and heard, although I would have loved to see it in full force), and a few details outside, like some lamps and posters, ie. the Byte Nite. Red Light District clearly suffered a lot more, because its character was hurt too, particularly in the club area. There were cuts even from the v0.99 beta, like that starting garage area, and some sloped bookshelves (also a few weird messages about Allen Blum's love interests and stuff) in the bookstore, also a few sprites, like that traffic lamps, fire extinguishers whatever. The club area suffered layout and character wise by separating rooms that should have been interconnected, like the pool table and the actual bar with the red key.

Death Row had an extra prison cell before the blue key, and maybe a few decent areas here and there, but I think it has never been that bigger. Toxic Dump AFAIK didn't have major edits, and The Abyss got better and better with each revision. I think those maps don't need to be that much bigger, and would look fine even if they were released today. The same goes for the space maps, from what I know Warp Factor looked wastly different before Levelord got his hand on it, and Dark Side had an extra subway which had its remnants left in the final version. Other than that I think the shipped version of the rest were pretty much left intact (some levels were pretty late additions as well).

Episode 3 suffered cuts in some levels, in fact more than episode 1 city maps. From what we know, Raw Meat, Movie Set, Tier Drops, Fahrenheit and Stadium were never meant to be single player maps, and their layouts, their enclosed blocky look also indicate they are more suitable from deathmatch (although they did a great job with Raw Meat considering things). I don't know about Freeway's history, but as we know Bank Roll, Flood Zone, LA Rumble, Hotel Hell and especially Rabid Transit had all been castrated badly, there are even remnants in the final game of the original stuff, like unused respawn sprites (just look at Bank Roll and Hotel Hell in particular, they are full of them), unused tags (ie. Bank Roll again), also Hotel Hell's progression is absolutely nonsensical after the yellow key, almost feels like an unfinished dead end.

Some of these edits were targeted at places that are not that important for your progression. Flood Zone and LA Rumble had more similar hallways, bigger abortion clinic and stuff in them, that were cut, because these areas were just there with no relevance in them considering progression. If you look at Sewer for example, its western part (where the hydrant area and the sewage below found) are similarly just more of the same without actual relevance. I love it, it's part of the level's scale, but I'm pretty sure if they added that to the final game, the entire western part would have gone for good.

I don't know much about episode 4, I think the beta Shop-n-Bag worth a look because I want to know how it looked when Levelord dropped it, but I'm pretty sure, by TX's Discord shot, it was a weaker level than the final version (even with the weird nonsense put in it).

[The Battlelord]

jkas789, on 18 March 2021 - 03:31 PM, said:

Terminx unfortunately did not stream it, I assume because of legal reasons. He basically was playing the first episode and he was taking screenshots of parts that caught his interest.

I would love for him to make a video on it, but I don't think it's worth it if Gearbox is gonna come at him like a pile of rocks.

Yeah, better to enjoy what we got, video without good cuts may be risky.

Fox, on 19 March 2021 - 08:13 PM, said:

That area is still in v0.99 along with the parking lot.

And it is not the only one, i really like how some areas are made, plus the major amount of monsters (even if weakers like the Pig Cops) and other stuff in the v0.99.
The teleport in Red Light District's bathroom is a funny surprise, i think is meant for multiplayer only, like in DN 64? (players can open lots more areas during multiplayer on DN64, i wonder if is somehow related to Betas)


Also, Thanks a loooooooooot for sharing those exclusive screenshots.

[jkas789]

Smikes, on 19 March 2021 - 08:57 PM, said:

To add to jkas's answer, you might also find these helpful...

1. Here are Allen Blum's original blueprints from the build played by Terminx. To my knowledge, these have never been posted to the Internet until I posted them today Note that the filename is not the date of the image: https://dukenukem.fa...95-22Nov-01.jpg
2. Here's the dancefloor from Red Light District as it probably would have appeared in late October / early November 1995: https://dukenukem.fa...ki/File:TBD.png
3. And here's video footage of the bar that corresponds to the map blueprints posted by Terminx:

Very interesting.

Quote

I would bet that the first episode, being the shareware, got more cuts than it probably needed. If you want to sell units you want as many people playing your demo as possible, even if their computer isn't really cut out for it.

Makes you wonder what would happen if you gave Levellord and co carte blanche to remake the game in Build while taking advantage of modern systems. I would imagine we would get levels in a similar vein to ion fury, in terms of scope (overall length, interactivity, more real life environments.etc) . Alien World Order is kinda a glimpse at that I guess.

[necroslut]

Fox, on 19 March 2021 - 08:13 PM, said:

That area is still in v0.99 along with the parking lot.

Whoah, how did I not know about the parking lot?!

This little area, though, I don't think could have been made sense out of without this added context.

[NNC]

jkas789, on 20 March 2021 - 05:31 AM, said:

Makes you wonder what would happen if you gave Levellord and co carte blanche to remake the game in Build while taking advantage of modern systems. I would imagine we would get levels in a similar vein to ion fury, in terms of scope (overall length, interactivity, more real life environments.etc) . Alien World Order is kinda a glimpse at that I guess.

Blum and Levelord had a completely different approach in AWO when they got the green light to build whatever they truly wanted without the framerate concerns and Broussard's fearsome control. Levelord just went nuts with details without truly expanding the scale of his maps, you can even wonder if he was taking notes from the various usermaps of Duke (probably not, just went in the same direction as many did before). In Tour de Nukem for example, the city segments are full of spritework, sometimes they even block your movement in the level. Some of those areas looked really good, don't get me wrong, but Levelord's maps didn't have a true official/canonical feel to them by this reason.

Blum on the other hand used a more professional approach, and his levels (at least the ones he truly cared about) looked like a proper evolution of his original mapping style (and THE Duke style) with the same modest, somewhat low key detailing, but also with expanded scale and more spectacular areas as well with conceptual grandness in mind. With some cuts and crops I think Golden Carnage for example would have made into the Birth episode quite easily in 1997. No way however that Broussard would have let something like Bloody Hell in the final game as it's too different to the game's well recognised style. I think additional art is also responsible for this as in GC the new greenish-greyish cloudy sky with the faded Alcatraz for example looked absolutely spot on, while the colourful kitsch in the exteriors of Blum's High Times for example killed the original game's vibes, despite being a rather classic style level by its layout.

As for Ion Fury, the game looks a bit similar to Duke on the surface, but there are differences. IF is a lot flashier, its art style is a lot more cartoonish and colourful, that game needs a more "Build porn" style approach DavoX had. It's no surprise DavoX zones were the most famous, I think he was to that game what Blum was to Duke or Romero was to Doom. That kind of scope however wouldn't work well with Duke, because the game's darker, more serious colours, textures, and our pure perceptions how a Duke level should look wouldn't exactly make them work. That's why people nowadays try to go back to the roots instead of going further with Build porn. Also we shouldn't forget that modern day levels, like modern day shooters made a compulsory use of mouselook. Duke's style is actually built for auto aiming both vertically and horizontally. That also somewhat limits the possibilities.

This doesn't mean the original levels, particularly RLD doesn't need a little bit of rework, I always had a wet dream of a Blum version of the classic Lameduke L6 remake, but Ion Fury style is a no to this.

[Jimmy]

80% of the new art in AWO is truly atrocious.

[OpenMaw]

Jimmy, on 20 March 2021 - 04:19 PM, said:

80% of the new art in AWO is truly atrocious.

Always looked like someone took real pictures and tried to "Minecraft" them.

[Fox]

OpenMaw, on 21 March 2021 - 07:28 AM, said:

Always looked like someone took real pictures and tried to "Minecraft" them.

That's kinda of what they did... it's not that hard to find the source of some textures.

[OpenMaw]

Fox, on 21 March 2021 - 10:59 AM, said:

That's kinda of what they did... it's not that hard to find the source of some textures.

Right. I just mean in comparison to the original game art, whether it was photo sourced, created digitally, or a mixture of the two, it all looked stylistically consistent and those things that were sourced directly out of magazines or whatever looked good. The new textures in AWO just look like they got a hard crush.

[oasiz]

Duke's textures got actual paint over and other treatments.
This could often include a complete recolour, which would ensure that hues favoured by the palette limitations could be used.

How AWO was handled is clear..
Without proper treatment, it will always look jaggy, aliased and unnecessarily high contrast as automation just tries to find a closest match without actually applying any artistic freedom.

[Smikes]

oasiz, on 21 March 2021 - 12:27 PM, said:

Duke's textures got actual paint over and other treatments.
This could often include a complete recolour, which would ensure that hues favoured by the palette limitations could be used.

How AWO was handled is clear..
Without proper treatment, it will always look jaggy, aliased and unnecessarily high contrast as automation just tries to find a closest match without actually applying any artistic freedom.

Do you have any specific textures in mind?

Re: recoloration: Walking down the street on High Times, there are many new textures and sprite assets, but all of them look painted-over to me: the buildings, the trees, the bicycles, the bushes, the weeds, the statues, the boats, the fences, the skybox... these all look like realistic illustrations in the style of the classics - certainly not aliased photos!

Re: contrast: When I look in-game and compare the buildings on High Times to those on Hollywood Holocaust, it's not clear to me that there's any difference in the contrast or resolution (or artistic style, for that matter) of the building textures. However, there is a difference in terms of the sprite assets. One thing that immediately jumps out at me on Hollywood Holocaust is how that palm tree - one of the very first assets encountered on the level - looks like a high-contrast, poorly aliased photo. Even comparing it to the original stock image (see below), it doesn't look like they painted-over or recolored it at all, as opposed to just compressing it. Compared to the trees on High Times, the difference is pretty striking and argues strongly in AWO's favor IMO.

Re: color palette: You're aware that all of the locations in the game use these color palettes in real life, right?

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[Jimmy]

Simp.

[Smikes]

Jimmy, on 21 March 2021 - 04:21 PM, said:

Simp.

Jesus, put some ice on that. I can feel your butthurt from here It wasn't my intention to hurt your feelings by criticizing your all-time favorite game.

[Jimmy]

Projection.

[Smikes]

Jimmy, on 21 March 2021 - 06:36 PM, said:

Projection.

Well, given that you're speaking in one word at a time, you're either feeling shellshocked, or you're too dimwitted to speak in complete sentences. I was being charitable by suggesting the former, but maybe it's the latter?

I thought that meathead of an avatar was just who you wanted to be when you were 12, but now I'm getting this cringey feeling that it's who you want to be now

[Jimmy]

Cringe.

[Smikes]

We're all having fun times on Duke4. Lovely company you keep, Duke Nukem community

[ReaperAA]

Ninety-Six, on 18 March 2021 - 07:14 AM, said:

Also I know it's old hat by now but this is actually my first time seeing the old shotgun. It's amazing how insanely close it resembles its DNF incarnation. I guess they were both based on the same model?

I know this is a late response, but I believe that the old shotgun you are looking for is this

The shotgun in the November build is just the final shotgun without the sprite polishing.