[Paul B]

This map is at the final stages of polishing. Just waiting for feedback from a select few before I publically release it. Until then... below are some screenshots to hold you over.

The story:

After checking his bags in at the Brooklyn Hotel Duke leaves the foyer with the intentions of heading down to the
local arcade to play some video games. At the time it seemed like a good way to spend a quiet Friday evening.
However, Duke’s plans are quickly spoiled when a fireball illuminates the sky followed by an explosion taking out
part of the Brooklyn Bridge.

For security measures the city has immediately entered into lock down and getting around could be tricky. There is
a strange fighter jet patrolling the bridge and Duke’s instincts tell him it’s not friendly. Unfortunately, there
wont’ be any time for R & R. The aliens quickly have taken over the bridge and surrounding area while defacing the
digital billboard sign making their presence known. Their message to the community reads: “Duke Nukem Must Die”!

There is no way in Hell Duke’s going to sit quietly over these words and only Duke can blow things up
and get away with it. Who the Hell do these Aliens think they are?

Attached thumbnail(s)

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Attached File(s)

•  BrooklynBridge.zip (182.29K)
  Number of downloads: 150

[Lunick]

Well... I'm excited for the release of this map!

[MetHy]

Looks really good!

[underTaker]

The screens are looking really great. It seems as the map will be different, it reminds me of Deus Ex 1 which i just love. Can't wait for it!

[Micky C]

I've played a beta version of this map and a had a few sentences of praise written up for it, but I accidentally deleted that so suffice it to say everyone should look forward to this release; it's polished, original and refreshing. Paul's best map yet, including Parkade. I hope it comes out soon.

Oh, and I should point out that in the third screenshot, the road on the bridge looks waaayyy too bright compared to everything else. Either transition the shade over incremented sectors to smooth it out or darken that/change the visibility.

[NNC]

Really love the dark and menacing urban atmosphere of these screenshots.

[rasmus thorup]

wauw that looks really sexy

Micky C, on 07 October 2012 - 04:59 AM, said:

Paul's best map yet, including Parkade.

This looks far more impressive

[LeoD]

I'm sure I'm gonna like it.
"Long live non linear maps!"

[Paul B]

I know the screenshots don't really reveal a lot and are mainly focused on the Bridge. I didn't want to spoil too much of the map.

Thanks for all the positive feedback. I'm slowly digging myself out of the hole. =)

[underTaker]

The screenshot shows the atmosphere of the map, which is really great! It just made me wanting to play it so hard

[ck3D]

looking nice and immersive, looks like a pretty damn good job so far. love the clean texturing and trimming as well. i take it that this bridge is true room over room ? it looks pretty squarish as if it was a sprite construction, but i can spot a few bits that do not look like they would be possible without true room over room.

[MetHy]

the building on the left of the last screenshot is definitly TROR

[ck3D]

to be fair a similar building look would be possible to achieve without the true room over room effect by building it the same way as most people (including myself) would do it a couple of years ago back when heavily detailed, more realistic environments were more popular amongst builders, which is using several layers of very thin walls to achieve a more complicated-looking single wall, and 3d spritework for that grey ledge, but yes you are right this map probably uses true room over room, i don't think many mappers would go out of their way nowadays to build complicated structures in a way that is not remotely close to academic style if you know what i mean

[MetHy]

TROR seems like trouble to learn, and I heard on forums (by Mikko, which I trust to me reliable), that it you need to have it planned beforehand ot build it successfully, which kills on the spot inspiration. That's why I don't think I'll ever use TROR unless I have everything planned beforehand which is rare. Plus, call me old fashioned, but I kinda like to build things that are compatible with vanilla or at older eduke32 versions...

[ck3D]

yeah i do not feel like learning that effect either, and would rather be working with the original restrictions for one, i find them rather fun to have to deal with actually and i think that they make for some of the charm of the game (probably because we all grew up with them and we are used to seeing them influence the average map layout), but that is just me. i also prefer to work on maps compatible with vanilla duke. but if someone likes it, finds it fun and wants to use it in their own map, i am not going to get into arguments over it, it is a great technical step forward and many younger mappers seem more prone to learn that effect as a basic feature than to spend hours on three dimensional sprite constructions to achieve similar-looking constructions, like everyone was doing it a few years back. if this can give the community a creative boost i am all for it, if all the old, original duke3d and build.exe limits were still around i am not sure that a new generation of mappers would be picking up the basics of making maps for this game.

[Gambini]

Those screenshots look badass. This is one of those rare times when I feel an awesome map coming. I may be pre-judging it, let´s hope I´m not wrong . Too bad it surely requires Polymer.


Oh and stop looting stuff my waiting room because it´s not funny

[Paul B]

Gambini, on 07 October 2012 - 11:44 AM, said:

Oh and stop looting stuff my waiting room because it´s not funny

I can only imagine that you are referring to those sprite benches on the pier? Infact, i'm not looting anything, those are default tiles found in duke. They are some of the few that can actually go together to make a 3D sprite bench. You want stuff to be your own stop using built in art tiles because we are limited with what we can use out of the box. The tiles in this game are fair game for anyone to use in anyway they choose... therefore I am not stealing. I have used a number of sprite benches through out my map to make use of the space and to add atmosphere so I don't just have empty straight hallways. You can expect to find vending machines \ ashtrays \ and phone booths also in this map and I'm certainly not the first person to build a map with these tiles using these sprites.

Don't worry Gambini... while this map is ok.... it doesn't even come close to the detail you've done in IT Lives. No one can compete with your attention to detail.

You're one of those mappers that has an eye for unique design and creativity and I certainly can say without a doubt my skills will never reach the level you're at. But i'll always try to perform the best I can having been inspired by those who pave the way for future design.

Just to answer some of the previous comments:

This map was created using the Polymer renderer. So when it is released make sure you play it in that video mode because it uses
a lot of true room over room (TROR). I have only tested this map with EDUKE version 3022. I would recommend
running version 3022 or the latest version of Eduke. No Mods have been tested with this map.

[Micky C]

He's talking about the particular way the sprites are put together, not the tiles themselves. It's pretty unfair to tell him to use custom art tiles. Of course mappers are going to use the Duke tiles.
It's alright for you to base your designs off other maps as long as you don't directly copy them and paste them into your map, that would be like copying an entire room from another map and is greatly frowned upon. Mappers can put a lot of work into making some aspects of their maps look good and unique and it can be frustrating for others to steal that hard work and have the same result in a few seconds. Although I don't know how sure Gambini can be that they're "his" benches just by screenshots without looking at them in game.

[Paul B]

Micky C, on 07 October 2012 - 01:51 PM, said:

He's talking about the particular way the sprites are put together, not the tiles themselves. It's pretty unfair to tell him to use custom art tiles. Of course mappers are going to use the Duke tiles.
It's alright for you to base your designs off other maps as long as you don't directly copy them and paste them into your map, that would be like copying an entire room from another map and is greatly frowned upon. Mappers can put a lot of work into making some aspects of their maps look good and unique and it can be frustrating for others to steal that hard work and have the same result in a few seconds. Although I don't know how sure Gambini can be that they're "his" benches just by screenshots without looking at them in game.

In BrooklynBridge.map I have used 5 sprite objects that I have referenced from other user maps. The benches I did use the exact same tiles from Gambini's map IT lives because it just made sense to use them in that manor the sprite phone booth's which I also used in Parkade were referenced very similarly to those found in IT Lives.map. They weren't exact copies but I tried to keep them very similar. The third stolen sprite idea used was David's street lights used in Hamilton pool map. And last but not least I did try and do an exact copy of the dinning room tables found in the NSA map by Norvak. Oh and i'm pretty sure the enclosed fire extinguishers that I have used through out my map came directly from Loke's TROR map and if its not identical then it was his work that inspired me to follow suit.

I am not trying to step on anyone’s toes by doing this and its not like one mapper see's a good sprite idea in someone's map and doesn't try and produce a similar sprite effect in a map of their own. Surely I can't be the first and I'm not trying to create any hard feelings. Perhaps I should be including this information in my text file, would that make it more respectable?

In no way am I trying to take credit for these sprites objects. I am just glad they exist as these sprites enrich the atmosphere of my map. I can only hope that the work that I have done myself designing this level can only inspire others to expand on these ideas to go forward and create something better.

[Gambini]

Chill out, if the spritework/construction/whatever improves the map, that means I´m gonna play a better map . Don´t take me so serious. I´m fine with people taking inspiration from my maps (in fact it´s a honor to inspire other people). But I feel the need of barking and growling everytime I realize a bold one.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, it´s indeed a shameless copy!! I mentioned the waiting room because the other thing you once imitated was the vending machine trick but those bench wouldn´t look any worse if a couple of the composing sprites were different.

[LeoD]

Re-using props like those benches is OK IMO. If mappers shall not re-use any [ideas for] props or tricks altogether, then we agree to stop progress of mapping...
Can people praise classic style maps and at the same time frown upon, for example, Gambini style props if not done by the master himself?

[Gambini]

Excuse me, but music is basically composed by only eight different notes and yet musicians call plagiarism when 8 of them are put togheter with the same compass than a previous theme.

Duke nukem 3D has more than 4000 tiles and that bench has been made of exactly the same 5, in the same positions, angles and sizes. Plus, no one of those were purposed for benchs. One is an arch for frames on space stations, another is a wooden wall for a church in a prison, and the others are trims for who knows what. If you ask me, yes it is a shameless copy.

But, please! let´s not make a big deal of it. Duke Nukem 3d is overly exploited and there are hundreds of thousand maps out there. And it is very likely that ideas are repeated from time to time, intentionally or not. I can not say I never took inspiration from other maps. And, besides that, I´d hate to see this so promising map being negatively affected by a bench question.

[LeoD]

Gambini, on 07 October 2012 - 05:36 PM, said:

If you ask me, yes it is a shameless copy.

I understand and respect your point of view, but it shouldn't be applied to Duke mapping. From my player's point of view there's just no shame in copying a good delimited item (S***k's former way of "mapping" not included). I just wanna play good new maps on a regular basis. To me, not everything new needs to be unique. Well, that's the difference between engineers and artists, I suppose.

Gambini, on 07 October 2012 - 05:36 PM, said:

And, besides that, I´d hate to see this so promising map being negatively affected by a bench question.

Nah, won't happen. We're clearly off topic already.

Can't discuss further for now, must go to bed. Tomorrow is important for me.

[MetHy]

Somebody call an exorcist to get the spirit of Pascal Rouaud out of Gamibini's body!

[David B.]

This map has a strong and successful atmosphere, I've already tried a beta version of it. I think Paul has made improvements again in its own style, the map seems to me even better than parkade.

IMO it's not a problem to copy some minor spriteworks ideas provided the mapper ask the creator/"owner" of this idea. Well, I saw the lightstreets, so what ? for me it's ok to share ! It means my idea is appreciated by another good mapper so that he wishes to use it and it's pleasant. Copy of architecture or important part would be more serious and probably not acceptable. Here It's not the case. A certain freedom should be allowed provided we ask the creator for his agreement. Otherwise progress in the overall creation of the community would be blocked.

Cya

[ck3D]

i personally think recreating something another mapper has built before (provided that it is a fairly original, remarkable construction of course... not a basic, coincidencial texture combination that might just as well have been present in the original levels already) is fine, as long as one credits their source of inspiration in the .txt file... i don't know, it seems to be the logical way to do it to me, if you are going to consciously mimick something or someone, you might just as well let it be known, so all the credit goes where it is fairly due. and its not like it holds back any of the creativity to be spent on map either.

[High Treason]

I'll admit to spending hours in Mapster pulling everyone elses spritework to pieces. I don't necessarily copy it, I just want to know how it was built, then I try to build the same thing my own way or else start building it and think "Hmm... What if I used tile X here instead?" and "We don't need that bit, surely..."

Copying is the finest form of flattery after all, I wouldn't really be bothered if someone used my maps for inspiration, hence I usually include the text "Feel free to reverse engineer this, just remember where you got the idea. " - though why anyone would use my lego-land building style for anything I don't know.

Anyway, Paul B, the map looks good, anyone will tell you, I have a thing for bridges in Duke maps.

[LeoD]

MetHy, on 07 October 2012 - 10:40 PM, said:

Somebody call an exorcist to get the spirit of Pascal Rouaud out of Gamibini's body!

Only if it doesn't affect the mapping spirit.

[Forge]

I really like the ambiance & light/dark contrasts

[rasmus thorup]

edit: ohh sorry, stupid question -.-
But in the first picture, the building in the backgrund is 100% clear without the ambient light level involving. It looks like the first picture and second/third picture have different ambient light levels, it confused me :S
I like it when you can see into the infinite without ambient light level involving, so i actually like the first picture the most. But everything looks great