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DNF #1
Duke 3D #1
The Supreme Topic of Miscellaneous Knowledge "Trivia, Research, etc."
- Ancient Blood God
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#1249 Posted 06 October 2017 - 06:28 AM
We have a cropped version of the moon pic from the XBLA assets.
#1250 Posted 06 October 2017 - 08:17 AM
Commando Nukem, on 23 September 2017 - 10:30 PM, said:
I swear, that reminds me of something I thought I read at one point about the whole thing being a police state and having Escape from New York influences, at one stage.
There is some of that sorta in the urban map designs, with giant walls and barriers blocking streets, as if they were closed in by military/police.
There is some of that sorta in the urban map designs, with giant walls and barriers blocking streets, as if they were closed in by military/police.
Is there any source beside LameDuke backing this? Makes a lot of sense for the first LA Meltdown episode, just by replacing aliens with soldiers and policemen. Especially the electric chair execution. Maybe it was too ambitious given the dumb AI.
- Ancient Blood God
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#1251 Posted 16 October 2017 - 01:40 PM
Update on the girl in the Blood alpha, someone asked about it on discord and I remembered TinEye (uses different methods from Google Image search) still exists, so:
(NSFW) https://tineye.com/s...9077c2e4a20de3/
Apparently it's someone called Donna D'Errico who was a Playboy Playmate at least when the photo was taken (also from where the photo is, the same background can be seen in September 1995 centerfold).
(NSFW) https://tineye.com/s...9077c2e4a20de3/
Apparently it's someone called Donna D'Errico who was a Playboy Playmate at least when the photo was taken (also from where the photo is, the same background can be seen in September 1995 centerfold).
#1252 Posted 16 October 2017 - 03:44 PM
Obscure logo from old 3DR site. I don't remember seeing it before.
#1253 Posted 15 November 2017 - 03:14 AM
Why some gaming magazines and distributors used screenshots from not the registered version of Duke, well after the game's release? I remember seeing a couple of reviews of DN3D that used screenshots from beta-versions of the game.
#1254 Posted 15 November 2017 - 05:07 AM
They had only those screenshots around, most probably. I remember even seeing a review of Saturn version with mix of screenshots from beta and Atomic Edition. Annoying, but oh well...
#1255 Posted 18 November 2017 - 02:31 AM
Sanek, on 15 November 2017 - 03:14 AM, said:
Why some gaming magazines and distributors used screenshots from not the registered version of Duke, well after the game's release? I remember seeing a couple of reviews of DN3D that used screenshots from beta-versions of the game.
Different publications had different standards regarding custom screenshots. Many of them received official screenshot right from the developer/publisher, and preferred them to images that the editorial staff could produce (especially considering that software for taking screenshots was not as advanced as it is today). Quite often a magazine would preview a game using official screenshots available at the time, and once the full version became available they would "recycle" some of the screenshots they already had in the review as well.
Also don't forget that many differences between some pre-release screenshots and images from the final release only become obvious after a careful study and comparison, which is something magazine reviewers and/or distributors might have not have time for.
- Ancient Blood God
-
#1256 Posted 18 November 2017 - 11:31 PM
Duke Nukem 3D ad insert from US Gold's 1995 release of Chronomaster.
#1257 Posted 19 November 2017 - 03:20 AM
They really tried to advert the tripbomb back in those days. Even in the 1.0 demo, the weapon they advertised the most was the tripbomb. I thought it will be something special back then, only to realize it's totally useless.
#1258 Posted 23 November 2017 - 09:30 AM
They're not useless, they prevent fall damage.
Anyway, putting this here for people not on Discord, I think I've discovered an unused prototype boss in V0.99 of Duke Nukem 3D;
It was hiding right at the end of the GAME.CON file as DUMMYDUKE and BIGDUMMYDUKE. It is the only thing in there to have any reference to BOSS2. Incidentally, what would be called BOSS2 in the final game is the Cycloid Emperor, yeah, Overlord would become BOSS3. In this proto, BOSS3 is actually within the Cycloid's tile numbers, but at times and when he is killed, his picnum will move up into the Overlord's range.
DUMMYDUKE and his bigger brother appear green, the big one uses the sizeto command as opposed to sizeat, so he grows or shrinks to size, he dies in a single hit whereas the regular sized one does not. They walk around slowly, trying to find Duke and they also fall much more slowly than other actors. They both fire a chaingun hitscan. One has to wonder if the giant fembot in LameDuke's E1L6 wasn't just a gimmick for magazine shots and was, perhaps, once an idea, only with a giant Duke Nukem.
DUMMYDUKE and BIGDUMMYDUKE in the GAME.CON file;
It does not appear to be a DukeBot as those are present to an extent, they do not move and really do nothing beyond simply exist. Also, enemies attack DukeBots whereas they do not attack DUMMYDUKEs at all, the non-big DUMMYDUKE also adds one kill whereas the BIGDUMMYDUKE does not. Here is a DukeBot with an enemy attacking it;
As for the noted "BOSS3" there's no way to know what tiles were meant to be there, only that the Cycloid did end up here. It mostly works but he shoots a hitscan like DUMMYDUKE does instead of his barrage from the final game.
He will, however, turn into the Overlord at times and appears as one permanently when killed. Here he's alive but moving his picnum up to the Overlord's area;
Upon death;
Remember we don't know what these tiles were supposed to look like, it is likely coincidence that they happen to share numbers with the final versions of these bosses. It seems likely to me that they bosses were having their tile numbers moved, especially with the swap in the final game.
Anyway, putting this here for people not on Discord, I think I've discovered an unused prototype boss in V0.99 of Duke Nukem 3D;
It was hiding right at the end of the GAME.CON file as DUMMYDUKE and BIGDUMMYDUKE. It is the only thing in there to have any reference to BOSS2. Incidentally, what would be called BOSS2 in the final game is the Cycloid Emperor, yeah, Overlord would become BOSS3. In this proto, BOSS3 is actually within the Cycloid's tile numbers, but at times and when he is killed, his picnum will move up into the Overlord's range.
DUMMYDUKE and his bigger brother appear green, the big one uses the sizeto command as opposed to sizeat, so he grows or shrinks to size, he dies in a single hit whereas the regular sized one does not. They walk around slowly, trying to find Duke and they also fall much more slowly than other actors. They both fire a chaingun hitscan. One has to wonder if the giant fembot in LameDuke's E1L6 wasn't just a gimmick for magazine shots and was, perhaps, once an idea, only with a giant Duke Nukem.
DUMMYDUKE and BIGDUMMYDUKE in the GAME.CON file;
It does not appear to be a DukeBot as those are present to an extent, they do not move and really do nothing beyond simply exist. Also, enemies attack DukeBots whereas they do not attack DUMMYDUKEs at all, the non-big DUMMYDUKE also adds one kill whereas the BIGDUMMYDUKE does not. Here is a DukeBot with an enemy attacking it;
As for the noted "BOSS3" there's no way to know what tiles were meant to be there, only that the Cycloid did end up here. It mostly works but he shoots a hitscan like DUMMYDUKE does instead of his barrage from the final game.
He will, however, turn into the Overlord at times and appears as one permanently when killed. Here he's alive but moving his picnum up to the Overlord's area;
Upon death;
Remember we don't know what these tiles were supposed to look like, it is likely coincidence that they happen to share numbers with the final versions of these bosses. It seems likely to me that they bosses were having their tile numbers moved, especially with the swap in the final game.
- Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!
-
#1259 Posted 23 November 2017 - 12:54 PM
I presume the dummies would be clones, akin to the Nuclear Winter bosses.
define APLAYER 1405 define PLAYERONWATER 1420 define DUMMYDUKE 1425 define BIGDUMMYDUKE 1430
define BOSS1 2630 define BOSS1STAYPUT 2631 define BOSS1SHOOT 2660 define BOSS1LOB 2670 define BOSS1MISSLES 2680 define BOSS3 2710
define BOSS1STRENGTH 2000 define BOSS2SMALLDUKESTRENGTH 1000 define BOSS2LARGEDUKESTRENGTH 2000 define BOSS3STRENGTH 2000
- Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!
-
#1260 Posted 23 November 2017 - 12:57 PM
Perro Seco, on 06 October 2017 - 06:17 AM, said:
The protector drones over the truck are wall-aligned. 
Good catch. Also all sprites are are too big.
- Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!
-
#1262 Posted 01 December 2017 - 10:26 AM
Hendricks266, on 01 May 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:
A note to everyone:
If you have magazines with beta screenshots, scan them. (Please.)
If you have magazines with beta screenshots, scan them. (Please.)
I have collected these from the Internet:
https://imgur.com/a/5V2Cu
#1263 Posted 02 December 2017 - 02:32 AM
On a side note, with good, high-quality scans it should be possible to get pixel-accurate versions of screenshots (but of course with colour inaccuracies due to the specifics of the printing process) if the source images are large enough. Sadly much of the stuff available online are scans that are a) not in the highest resolution available, b) often mangled by high levels of JPEG compression and c) may be not perfectly aligned vertically, distorting the images.
To give you some idea of what I'm talking about, here's my attempt at restoring a screenshot on this page:
Compare it to another screenshot in original quality:
It's not 100% perfect but you can see that the ARMOR and HEALTH text, the compass, ammo counter and the SAFE indicator are pixel-accurate in the restored image compared to the original screenshot. The left side is somehow mangled a bit, perhaps due to some inaccuracies during scanning (?). I got this by cropping the screenshot from the scan, resizing it via Nearest Neighbour to 1280x800 (4x the original size), applying Gaussian blur at 1 pixel radius, then downsizing everything to 320x200 with the Bicubic interpolation method (all done in GIMP).
Note that the quality of the scan is far from excellent; I'm hoping that with better source images, even more accurate results may be achieved.
To give you some idea of what I'm talking about, here's my attempt at restoring a screenshot on this page:
Compare it to another screenshot in original quality:
It's not 100% perfect but you can see that the ARMOR and HEALTH text, the compass, ammo counter and the SAFE indicator are pixel-accurate in the restored image compared to the original screenshot. The left side is somehow mangled a bit, perhaps due to some inaccuracies during scanning (?). I got this by cropping the screenshot from the scan, resizing it via Nearest Neighbour to 1280x800 (4x the original size), applying Gaussian blur at 1 pixel radius, then downsizing everything to 320x200 with the Bicubic interpolation method (all done in GIMP).
Note that the quality of the scan is far from excellent; I'm hoping that with better source images, even more accurate results may be achieved.
#1264 Posted 02 December 2017 - 07:32 AM
Extracted from Fox's archive...it sure looks cool! 
Attached thumbnail(s)
#1265 Posted 04 December 2017 - 04:31 AM
Fox, on 01 December 2017 - 10:26 AM, said:
Hi Fox,
add them to your collection
https://imgur.com/a/bLmz4
- Ancient Blood God
-
#1270 Posted 21 December 2017 - 01:00 PM
Page 2 of the Hickston Hog (Redneck Rampage manual) has text for the full page that you can't even see due to another page being shown on top of it, but if you view it with a PDF viewer, you can copy the text from underneath.
#1271 Posted 21 December 2017 - 02:21 PM
Babe Land is the biggest miss of the entire game. There are some worse levels, but Babe Land is the map that should have been truly magic and legendary. Instead, we got some depressive leveldesign and something doesn't even remotely remind us as a theme park.
#1272 Posted 15 January 2018 - 03:03 AM
Hmmm... imagine if Mr. Splashys from Life's a Beach was given a Babe Land makeover...
That said I don't dislike the level, and the designers of DN64 apparently thought the pirate ship was cool enough to use for a dukematch map
That said I don't dislike the level, and the designers of DN64 apparently thought the pirate ship was cool enough to use for a dukematch map
This post has been edited by Phredreeke: 15 January 2018 - 03:07 AM
#1273 Posted 16 January 2018 - 06:31 PM
As some of you might know, Levelord had a weird habit of adding lotags to the keycards in his maps of the first 3 episodes (also in Sewer and Sweeney, and one clearly Levelord/Shrapnel City style area - the water part - has a similarly tagged key in XXX Stacy). These tags refer to the keyslots, despite being meaningless as Blum and others never tagged keys and you can use and colored key on any keyslots of the actual level.
However, in Bank Roll the red key has a lotag number 4744, while the keyslot number is 7667. Since there are no tags with number 4744 anywhere on the map, this clearly indicates it had an extra part scrapped for the final release. The many unused pigcop and enforcer respawns in the safe entry might belong to that place as well.
It's a common thing in Shrapnel City I guess. As TX said on Discord, 4 of the episode's levels (Raw Meat, Movie Set, Tier Drops and Fahrenheit) were planned as multiplayer maps and rushed at the end to them being a single player compatible for the final product. The other 5 Levelord levels (Bank Roll, Flood Zone, LA Rumble, Rabid Transit, Hotel Hell) however were intended to be single player levels from the start, but all of them had scrapped areas in the end to match the expected fps of that time. The unreleased maps, Sewer and Sweeney (especially Sewer) might look different a bit because they were left in their original state (albeit with some unfinished errors and higher enemy count), and they need more time to finish (ie 10-11 minutes instead of the par time of 5-6 minutes of the retail maps).
However, in Bank Roll the red key has a lotag number 4744, while the keyslot number is 7667. Since there are no tags with number 4744 anywhere on the map, this clearly indicates it had an extra part scrapped for the final release. The many unused pigcop and enforcer respawns in the safe entry might belong to that place as well.
It's a common thing in Shrapnel City I guess. As TX said on Discord, 4 of the episode's levels (Raw Meat, Movie Set, Tier Drops and Fahrenheit) were planned as multiplayer maps and rushed at the end to them being a single player compatible for the final product. The other 5 Levelord levels (Bank Roll, Flood Zone, LA Rumble, Rabid Transit, Hotel Hell) however were intended to be single player levels from the start, but all of them had scrapped areas in the end to match the expected fps of that time. The unreleased maps, Sewer and Sweeney (especially Sewer) might look different a bit because they were left in their original state (albeit with some unfinished errors and higher enemy count), and they need more time to finish (ie 10-11 minutes instead of the par time of 5-6 minutes of the retail maps).
This post has been edited by Nancsi: 16 January 2018 - 06:34 PM
- Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!
-
#1274 Posted 06 February 2018 - 02:17 PM
This post has been edited by Fox: 06 February 2018 - 02:47 PM
#1278 Posted 12 February 2018 - 11:11 AM
I've found a nice old pre-release podcast with Randy, Allen and others who added some insightful information about DNFs history.
http://www.dukenukem...y/podcasts.html
But what I found really interesting is this comment by Randy on part 7:
Are these builds available somewhere? What kind of maps Allen did back then? Randy later said they were cool stuff with ROR and voxels. I know some leftover voxels by Chuck Jones, but I'm not sure any kind of mapping survived from this era.
http://www.dukenukem...y/podcasts.html
But what I found really interesting is this comment by Randy on part 7:
Quote
RANDY: I remember back when we were working together, like when we shipped the Atomic edition? I don’t even remember there being a debate. It was just like of course there’s going to be a sequel and we just kept doing stuff. And Al was tinkering with the build engine and there were some things that were going on that Ken Silverman did to the engine to allow voxels; to add voxels to the engine and some things some guys had done to allow us to fake 3D with room over room and stuff. And everybody just kept doing stuff. Like Allen started building maps in a kind of upgraded Build engine, I remember Brian just started making weapons and crap with voxels. And then I remember one day George just showed up and “Oh I licensed Quake” and we were like, alright, and handed us the disk.
Are these builds available somewhere? What kind of maps Allen did back then? Randy later said they were cool stuff with ROR and voxels. I know some leftover voxels by Chuck Jones, but I'm not sure any kind of mapping survived from this era.
