[MetHy]

pavigna, on 26 November 2020 - 02:21 AM, said:

Hey, i've been having issues with elevators. i set it up correctly, but it goes up by a random amount, not reaching the next floor, and then goes back down to the starting point. i set it as elevator up, but i don't think that's the issue. Please help? let's say that the other floor is really high up, like skyscraper last floor up. Could the height be an issue?

Try making sure that your floor heights have proper Z values. Check the floor Z of your lower and upper floors and make sure they're dividable by 1024.

That's most likely the issue, but if it's not, then check gpseed value as well. Try values like 32, 64, 128, 256 etc

[pavigna]

MetHy, on 26 November 2020 - 02:26 AM, said:

Try making sure that your floor heights have proper Z values. Check the floor Z of your lower and upper floors and make sure they're dividable by 1024.

That's most likely the issue, but if it's not, then check gpseed value as well. Try values like 32, 64, 128, 256 etc

Nope, doesn't do it. it seems like the max Height it can get to is 1024x47, so -48.128 FloorZ

The gpspeed is 128 and that works fine

It ends up like this if i raise it

Note that the floor of the elevator is actually a spriteroof, so the elevator's playable area is even more down below inside of that pesky wall

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[MetHy]

Sounds like you may have hit a limit indeed, try using SE31 instead; although I think the problem with that is that you can press the switch again mid rise.

[pavigna]

ok, i'll try

[pavigna]

MetHy, on 26 November 2020 - 02:37 AM, said:

Sounds like you may have hit a limit indeed, try using SE31 instead; although I think the problem with that is that you can press the switch again mid rise.

Nevermind, it works, but it doesn't play sound at all

also how am i supposed to make the elevator go back down?

[ck3D]

I don't think I've ever had height-related issues with elevators before. Also there are some maps out there with minute-long elevator rides (thinking Zaxtor) so I don't think there is such a thing as a limit there, the only elevator-related bugs I know have to do with Transport Elevators instead (which aren't the subject here). Are you using the right tag for your elevator? You have Elevator Up (sector tag 19), Elevator Down (sector tag 18), Elevator Platform Up (sector tag 17) and Elevator Platform Down (sector tag 16) (see https://infosuite.du...page=ae_vert_a1), most of the time using the 'wrong' one won't do depending on the construction of your sectors. Also, the 'next' floor your elevator is supposed to reach should be directly attached to said elevator, you can't have a gap between the elevator sector and its destination (and origin).

I did encounter a problem recently though where one of my elevator platforms just wouldn't behave the intended way, I think because the construction around said platform was a bit of a mess of lines and the game couldn't really tell which one was the right wall height to meet (even though all the other floors were level with the elevator's starting position and the destination sector was the only place high up). I managed to fix that by replacing the SE with a SE 31, though, all the while retaining the sound and speed (replacing the elevator sector tag with a SE 31 shouldn't affect that). Place switches everywhere you want the player to be able to trigger the effect from, including inside the 'elevator'. I think the game actually prevents you from triggering that effect again till its execution is complete, too (piggybacking off what MetHy said).

Your construction with the sprites sounds quite specific, please don't hesitate to share a 2D screenshot of the elevator so people can tell you if something clearly looks wrong in the way you approached it technically, it's probably the game being finicky with something simple.

[pavigna]

ck3D, on 26 November 2020 - 05:10 AM, said:

I don't think I've ever had height-related issues with elevators before. Also there are some maps out there with minute-long elevator rides (thinking Zaxtor) so I don't think there is such a thing as a limit there, the only elevator-related bugs I know have to do with Transport Elevators instead (which aren't the subject here). Are you using the right tag for your elevator? You have Elevator Up (sector tag 19), Elevator Down (sector tag 18), Elevator Platform Up (sector tag 17) and Elevator Platform Down (sector tag 16) (see https://infosuite.du...page=ae_vert_a1), most of the time using the 'wrong' one won't do depending on the construction of your sectors. Also, the 'next' floor your elevator is supposed to reach should be directly attached to said elevator, you can't have a gap between the elevator sector and its destination (and origin).

I did encounter a problem recently though where one of my elevator platforms just wouldn't behave the intended way, I think because the construction around said platform was a bit of a mess of lines and the game couldn't really tell which one was the right wall height to meet (even though all the other floors were level with the elevator's starting position and the destination sector was the only place high up). I managed to fix that by replacing the SE with a SE 31, though, all the while retaining the sound and speed (replacing the elevator sector tag with a SE 31 shouldn't affect that). Place switches everywhere you want the player to be able to trigger the effect from, including inside the 'elevator'. I think the game actually prevents you from triggering that effect again till its execution is complete, too (piggybacking off what MetHy said).

Your construction with the sprites sounds quite specific, please don't hesitate to share a 2D screenshot of the elevator so people can tell you if something clearly looks wrong in the way you approached it technically, it's probably the game being finicky with something simple.

Yeah, i ended up managing to get it to work. the issue was that i used a SE 31, which went to the right height, but didn't come back down. That was because i forgot that SE31 can be triggered even without a HITAG and only the activator in that sector needs the hitag. removing that made the elevator work fine. thanks to everyone for the help, especially Aleks cause he's the one who figured out the issue.

[NNC]

Sanek, on 20 November 2020 - 12:05 PM, said:

You know, despite that The Watchtower often tries to pose his own preferences as the features that every good vanilla 3DR-like map just got to have, I appreciate his opinions about stuff, really.
So I have a request of sorts:

I wonder if you (if you're reading this, Watchtower) can make a thread/list of a definitive features that every 3DR-styled (or whatever) map got to have in order the capture the expierence that the original maps have.
I know that it's been discussed billions of times in numerous post but it'd be cool to have the thread we all can refer to, in case we're lost.
Like, what kind of layout the maps need to have, the monsters/ammo ratio, the positioning of it all etc. It's obvious that you examined the original maps a lot, and some of this can be a good knowledge!
But don't push your own agenda, please. Just because Fernando made the episodes where every map is half-hour long and you don't like is your own problem.

Thanks for your appreciation man. Being mostly a player and watching maps from player perspective, also using Mapster32 to analyse maps instead of creating my own might have helped to have my "sophisticated", and as ck3D said, "scientific" approach to level design and what should work with this game and what shouldn't.

However I want to elucidate one misunderstanding: when I say people should create classic style levels and episodes, I don't say they should use vanilla assets only. Most of my sentiments apply to every Build engine game, every total and partial conversion too no matter what graphic style you use. They also partially apply to Doom and other idtech1 games, as they are not that different. In fact, echoing MetHy's first point, to create new themes and visual/gameplay narratives (which is indeed a must for every level) it's a lot easier by adding custom stuff to your map, because with a few exceptions, vanilla only levels tend to end up in DTWID style lukewarm remakes with irrelevant extra details, or just a scatterbrained multi-theme works where micro detailing on environmental design take too much focus over adding a genuinely new experience. The reason is that most elements in the base game (art, effects, special sounds, interactivity types) are used in the original levels, it eventually dry up after the various map permutations that use them. It's not impossible to create great maps without adding new assets, Levelord's Sewer map might be a good example, but even these have to use a special theme, ie. that map use two layers, a city layer and a sewer layer with perfect 3D visualisation of their corresponding layouts. The only so-called """rule""" of mine with the additional art is that they shouldn't be ripped off from other games (other than LameDuke which assets are meant for this game), those more often than not looks awful. Team up with someone who can build good, fitting art, and it will work well. Ie. the art of Conrad Coldwood in both of his maps were fitting to Duke theme like a glove.

Another thing I have to add to MetHy's important sentiments (saved me a lot of letters mate!): Layout design is much more important than environmental design. Yes, I know Mapster32 well, placing pictures on walls or creating a seemingly nice spritework is much easier to do than creating a complex layout with sector over sectors, proper use of nonlinearity et al. The original authors' goal was to build as much 3D into the game as possible, that's why the team name 3Drealms come from. For example if they used a transport elevator, it didn't lead to just another random place, but often to a similarly constructed area above or below, Sewer, Derelict, Spaceport, Fusion Station are all brilliant examples of beautiful 3D visualisation and engineering art that is almost nonexistent in usermaps. The same goes to sector over sectors. What Derelict or even lesser maps like Hotel Hell did technically is just jaw droppingly awesome with the Build engine. This is however a much harder thing to do and it needs more skills than adding various details to the level as it needs lots of 2d layout legwork.

My main advice here is to construct your levels and themes on paper or in your head first before you start building them in Mapster32. From my experience levels that authors are building randomly end up being random levels. From this point of view it's clear that mapping is not always fun, and often it's really a job. It cannot be done without loving it and dedication, but my points above prove that random mapping without preset concept and avoiding the harder part of the level design (the 2D construction) is the "fun" part, but what makes levels really good is not always fun. Creating new art and concepts are also not easy. From this perspective, to answer your main question, the biggest asset you can have for your level is 1) talent, 2) utter dedication, 3) focus.

I echo the other points of MetHy, especially the one he said about limited texturing and limited monster placement. If you look at the original maps and see the texture selection with the V key, it seems even the bigger, more formidable maps (even the likes of Mirage Barrage and Golden Carnage) use only a limited texture selection. It just gives the level a character, and if you use keycards to separate the different sub-themes it gives a map a professional feel. The limited monster selection is not that important, but for example Blum very rarely used all the major enemy types in his levels, even a Golden Carnage type gargantuan map from 2016 dare to miss out the enforcers, the commanders and the newbeasts entirely. Also placing monsters thematically and not randomly is also a good thing, just look at Fusion Station, how the liztroops occupy the windowed parts, the enforcers the inner corridors, the drones the outside parts, the commanders the ending, the octas the infested sections. It's a textbook example of great monster placement. Hitscanners btw are better used in corridors than in open areas, as the game was meant to play with strafing being used around corners where an enforcer or a pig is there.

One important thing MetHy forgot: don't degenerate your maps into a random key and switch hunting. Common error in usermaps that you enter a big outdoor place, the random inner places are closed, you just have to find that one specific open one to get the first key, go the the second one, get another (or push a button which is really a keycard in disguise), kill the spawning monsters, repeat. That's tedious. In the base levels the keys weren't there to drag the gameplay unnecessarily. They often separated different segments and sub-themes. Also in the base game, the blue key always came first (exception being Occupied Territory), and the red key is usually the last, and the red key also serves as an alarm of a more dangerous place coming. That's not a rule though, but certainly helps the player to navigate well in the map and always feel his advance.

Also don't be afraid of linarity. Nonlinearity is good, but it's interpreted badly in usermaps quite often. Nonlinearity is NOT meant to confuse the player. When we install the map, we want clear narratives, where to go next for example. Adding interesting secrets and hidden secondary routes are great, also interconnecting the parts in some ways adds a lot to the 3D experience. But the map shouldn't be a sprawling confusion. If you want to see a brilliant textbook example of how to mix linearity and nonlinearity, play The Castle's Doom levels in NRFTL or the underrated Redemption of the Slain map. He is a master of creating "8" shaped structures, where you always move forward, never backtracks, but constantly revisits old areas in your advance. He is also very clever with keycard placing: you need to find a key in your process, but you often see it earlier (it's in a ledge for example) and when you get it, you don't need to backtrack: the door is very close to it. That's not a rule, but a great example of pro design. When Castle used a rare example of backtrack keycard, he provided an alternative route to the door with a BFG weapon as a reward! His Doom maps are really Build/Duke maps in idtech clothing. In Duke you can create clever nonlinearity with more elements, like sector over sectors too.

And finally: don't drag you maps too long. If your map is bigger than a net 10 minute gameplay, ie. Dark Side, Derelict, Sewer, you should use sub themes with using keycards, transport elevators or such. Players can get bored if they play the same thing for too long. That's where most Doom megawads fail. They just repeat the same thing only by adding more revenants and archviles in every level. That's not very fun.

This is my input now, as an addition to MetHy's inputs and ck3D important advice, as you learn the DNA of the base game the best if you analyse them in Mapster32.

[MetHy]

The Watchtower, on 27 November 2020 - 12:27 AM, said:

. Also placing monsters thematically and not randomly is also a good thing, just look at Fusion Station, how the liztroops occupy the windowed parts, the enforcers the inner corridors, the drones the outside parts, the commanders the ending, the octas the infested sections. It's a textbook example of great monster placement. Hitscanners btw are better used in corridors than in open areas, as the game was meant to play with strafing being used around corners where an enforcer or a pig is there.

Ha yes, forget about the Doom megawad style of gameplay, building huge areas that mix hitscanners and projectiles where the only intended gameplay method is circle strafing. This thing never worked in Duke (or in most Build games) and never will, it doesn't work because hitscanners in Duke are designed to chase you around corners, so in big areas they'll just want to get closer to the player, and even attempting to mimic Doom-like sniping hitscanners for big distances using stayput does not work because stayput enemies have no idea they're supposed to stayput, they'll just keep trying to walk past that invisible blocking wall and if you're lucky shoot once every while. There are exceptions (mostly BLords, but cover is still offered) but for the most part big areas are designed for projectiles based enemies and enemies that will rush to the player (Drone, Newbeasts, but avoid slimers). Meanwhile, most hitscanners are put in areas where the player can take cover, quick cover behind a corner.

That doesn't mean that however that circle strafing against hitscanners is forbidden, it means that it's not the primary intended design, and circlestrafing only happens on a micro scale, and when it's possible it's usually only a consequence of the scale of the area being meant for multiplayer. For the modern skilled player it only gives more choice in how to tackle the area. Example of what I mean by this: Spaceport upper floor, the floor which has the secret jetpack. The Enforcers and the central structure work together, it's designed so the player can take cover behind the structure and the Enforcers can chase the player around it; although the space in the room does provide just enough space for a modern skilled player to circlestrafe around the Enforcers to dodge their shots.
Another great example would be the outdoor area at the start of Bank Roll: minus the stayput Pigcops located accross the player at the start of the map (which are a little more complicated), every Enforcer and Pigcop encountered go hand in hand with corner design. The dark backstreet leading to the main street is narrow and full of corners, that's where the Enforcers and Pigcops are, then comes the main street, and with its bigger play area come the projectile enemies (Liztroops and Recon cars). Then, the Pigcops and Enforcers are back, but only behind corners, where the player can use the pillars as cover.

Quote

They often separated different segments and sub-themes. Also in the base game, the blue key always came first (exception being Occupied Territory), and the red key is usually the last, and the red key also serves as an alarm of a more dangerous place coming. That's not a rule though, but certainly helps the player to navigate well in the map and always feel his advance.

Indeed, it's important that keys denote important/different places, and that locked doors should help spatial awareness and identifying a goal. That doesn't always mean it leads to a different environment altogether though, in Duke that's probably a minority case, but that it leads deeper into the entrails of the place.
The progression in Death Row is a great example. The Blue key seperates Death Row from the rest of the prison, the red key seperates the control room to the cells area, and the yellow key seperates the outdoor court to the cell area. All three locks are in places we can believe they'd really be in; and also keys and locked doors are there to guide the player and make the level more sprawling step by step, so that we can end up with an huge interconneted area without the player ever being overwhelmed:
- the level starts in a dead-end and is designed in a very linear fashion (but linearility doesn't mean there is no choices and exploration! The level starts with a choice, do you want to jump at the pigcop through the window or through the door; and then you have two non-mandatory small areas you are free to explore or not on your way to the first key); and the first key to acquire provides a small side step.
- once you use the blue key, you know you're deeper into the place, and things start to open up. The next area loops back on itself and you are free to explore it going one way or another, and this choice is easily denoted by having the "CONTROL EAST" door on your left and the "RESTRICTED AREA" laser tripbomb in front of you. There is no mistaking that each path is as important.
Then, it is worth noting that there is no way the player can miss the location of the red and yellow key locks, they have a central place in the layout, and their importance are denoted by lights and signs. It is also worth noting that even if the player went the "laser trimpbomb" path, he can't miss seeing these important areas through the window. The key locks are the "goal" and those "goals" have a center place, literally. This, together with the, placement of the yellow key also ensures that the player has established the goal in the back of his mind, even if he didn't see the yellow keypad per se, he'll remember that important looking central area to go back to.
- Once the player has been in the control room, he has been through the entire place and should know his bearings At this point only is he asked for a little more advanced things like remembering where the cells are after unlocking them and viewing them through the widescreen.
A side note viewscreens being used to showcase goalposts: in the past i've complained about goals in usermaps being unclear and getting as an answer "but it's shown through a widescreen!". Handing out a key and showing the locked door through a widescreen is useless if the player hasn't had his bearings on the area first, you're basically just telling him "there is a locked door somewhere!", something he already knows if he just got the key. The same thing applies to the "switch+viewscreen" combo. This isn't an issue in Death Row because the layout and progression makes sure that the player should know where important stuff are.

One thing Death Row could have done better though: once you're in the outdoor court, it should be clear(er) that reaching the other side of that huge door is the goal, but you need to find another way to do so as you're not going through that door. Perhaps a series of windows could have helped, and could probably help players who missed the tunnel behind the poster, telling them they have to find another way to reach the other side of the door instead of wandering through the entire place again aimlessly. This has to be handled properly not to confuse the player into thinking he has to open the door, though.

Quote

Also don't be afraid of linarity. Nonlinearity is good, but it's interpreted badly in usermaps quite often. Nonlinearity is NOT meant to confuse the player. When we install the map, we want clear narratives, where to go next for example. Adding interesting secrets and hidden secondary routes are great, also interconnecting the parts in some ways adds a lot to the 3D experience. But the map shouldn't be a sprawling confusion.

in Build B-path and unlinearility are usually built on a micro scale. What I mean by this is that a new area can be cleared by going either of two directions, and ideally the player should realize that the place loops on itself before going to the next area. If you want to start building non-linearility on a macro scale, you really need to know what you're doing if you don't want to overwhelm the player and fail to establish the goals. The Smithsonian and the way it hides its keypads and goalposts is exactly how not to do it.

[NNC]

Great analysis again MetHy. Death Row is a brilliant level, but a newbie killer too, and as you said, it did have a major flaw with progression. I remember I was getting lost there for hours, because I didn't find the way out of the poster hole. In fact, I did find the hole, but didn't notice the cracks.... my child self thought they are just random grafittis... I think the biggest issue of this map is it didn't introduce the usage of the cracks properly. Sure there were some in Hollywood Holocaust, but they were hiding secret places, and even finding them didn't make it obvious for the players it's the crack that was exploded, not just the wall randomly. In DR they became mandatory out of nowhere. After the frustration of finding a dead end behind the poster, I started blaming the big door, and just marveled that viewscreen of the other side. Good old times.

I think Romero handled this better in Sigil with the eye switches. He literally didn't allow the player to move out of the first room without shooting the switch. And he repeated the case five more times in the first level, so even the dumbest players realised what they are meaning. Cracks should have been handled the same way in Duke, probably DR wouldn't have been a game stopper for many then.

What you said about the viewscreens is spot on. It's often used as a "help" to solve the KSD (KSD = keycard in switch disguise), but when you don't know where the door is in the middle of the long pile of overwhelming details, it's not a help at all.

[MetHy]

Good point about the crack. Probably something they overlooked because it became a self evident thing for them throughout the entire game.

It could have been solved easily by turning the exploding walls before the blue locked door into a crack, since the area is a small linear dead end the player would be more likely to figure it out easily. It'd also make the player a lot more likely to see the locked door before finding the key (not that it's a real issue in this case). It'd just kill the element of surprise with the explosion.

[Mister Sinister]

Maybe devs put their money on the introduction demos and also they figured that by the time anyone reaches Death Row players would have blown at least one crack.
In my version of the game the first demo that played was Freeway demo in which Duke blows up a crack with RPG to reveal a secret area.
Also cracks in Death Row are hinted via pipebombs. It is subtle, but it's there.

[MetHy]

That's true about Freeway, afaik it's a demo in both 1.3 and 1.5. In 1.3 it's not the first demo in the loop though, but iirc in 1.5 it is

I don't think the shareware version has any demo though? Maybe they added a demo with an early crack in the loop after SW feedback.

[NNC]

Also the Death Row cracks are placed in much darker areas, I think they can be seen as grafitis from a newbie (at least it happened to me, and it happened to two people I know). The shareware version has a demo of the first 3 levels, the HH one reveals the first 3 secret places in the area. V1.3D has demos of Dark Side and Flood Zone, they are very long actually, v1.5 has of Freeway, Area 51 and Duke Burger, but they are pretty weak compared to the v1.3D demos.

[Aleks]

I think MetHy's initial analysis, along with ck3D's post, pretty much captured what going "classic" style is all about. Most of The Watchtower's points I would put just under "general good level design rules", no matter whether you want classic style or not.

However, I would discuss if adding new graphical assets is compatible with classic style - in this case I'm a purist and in general prefer original Duke tileset (which is very flexible for pretty much any theme), and if you wanna try classic style, I'd say new graphics shouldn't be taken into consideration. Another point here is that most new graphics which people add completely miss the Duke vibe, either being too high-res, too realistic (without that 90's comic vibe) or just being ugly after converting to Duke's pal. Duke DC and even Caribbean are exceptions here IMO - but maybe that's because I've played Duke DC for long enough and Caribbean being just all the way intended in that type of look.

Another thing is, I would never say extra details are unnecessary - the main point here being, details =/= crampedness. It's 2020 and I'd say it's a natural technological advance consequence that people can make their maps look more "realistic". Crampedness from what I've noticed is usually more of a result of downscaling the map too much (the curse of F7 view mode) or unnecessary blocking of the decorations. On the other hand, I'd consider "Downtown Journey" episode a perfect example of the classic style (aesthetics, maps length and interconnection, monsters distribution, gameplay going "to the point") despite it being a bit downscaled and cramped here and there. And author did make his levels much more detailed than the original and even with some very creative use of tiles (i.e. shotgun shells used for drums), but that didn't make the classic vibe any less present. This point about detailing is quite important here, as I've seen people using the "I intended for classic style" excuse for just being lazy and creating a 1996 blocky user map type of stuff.

Point about puzzles and non-linearity: again, since it's 2020 I actually do expect the puzzles to be more creative and challenging than the original game, so that's something I'd always appreciate. It's not like any new levels are gonna be played by people who haven't finished the original game dozens of times anyway. But that doesn't mean they should be unclear, counterintuitive or autistic to the point of not being understandable to anyone but the author. That's really where betatesting comes in handy. Non-linearity is another thing, as in most maps it's overexaggerated (e.g. having just an open world map and a random button hunt that can be done in any order that would trigger something in the end - I think Taivo's original 2004 "banned" version of Dogville is a good example of it, it has this basic level of non-linearity while in the end being linear with different possible segments, as you have to visit the places in order anyway). True non-linearity would be something that would really add to the replay value, but that would require a lot of sequencing (for example, progressing two "agendas" in a map in a parallel fashion, but each of them affecting the other with sequenced events and perhaps target-shooter logic). This is of course more difficult to pull and requires a lot more planning. Another thing I'd consider milder non-linearity, but still worth going for, would be shortcuts/interconnections or memorable fights that can be tackled with many different tactics.

As for the battles, again I'd advise to try surprising the player and not overexploit the most common gimmicks (e.g. finding an RPG and hearing a Battlelord roar). Monster placement is very important and something that needs a lot of tedious testing, I generally agree with MetHy's and The Watchtower points of placing hitscanners and projectile shooters. This is especially tricky to pull right in the more open areas where you always risk a chaos of player triggering too many monsters at the same time (which can also be fun if they're not swarmed!).

I also agree that 2D mode layout seems to be downplayed by many. It's indeed more scientific than working on microscale, but then I wouldn't say it's "hard work" or "tedious", as it can be as much fun and very satisfactory to work too! And giving the 3D feeling immersion makes the map a lot better yeah, as well as making navigation much more natural and intuitive to the player.

--
On a sidenote, love the analysis of Death Row! Also kinda surprised that the exploding cracks were something that would give people trouble back then, that was one of the first things I remember figuring out in Duke on the contrary here. I probably had more problems in finding out that poster had to be... penetrated. I remember playing Duke with my siblings back around 1997 and slowly figuring how to pass each level together, the game probably took us a couple of months altogether to finish. Would be cool seeing a topic like that with (even the most vague) memories from people of the most difficult stuff in Duke during their first gameplay.

[Jblade]

Just build what you want, don't let anyone try and talk you out of the build style you want to do. Use custom art or resources if it'll help, puritism is pointless and the Quake community has thrived with making maps breaking limits.

[ck3D]

About monster placement, I think it's just that a lot of mappers are tempted to take them for granted as technical hazards to implement throughout levels and kind of forget about their originality in the first place, but I can kind of understand it, when your focus is on making a single user map it's natural to think of the piece as a one-off thing that's only meant to complement the original game and doesn't need any callbacks, so people can overlook what would be 'reintroducing' the monsters and considering their character over their practical function. E.g.. it's easy to think oh I need hitscanning here so I'll just throw in three Lizmen on Stayput atop of that ledge, oh this large open area calls for intense action so let's spam Newbeasts or Battlelords, etc. I feel like it's common for user mappers to think of their maps as 'continuations' of the base game, they expect the player to have been familiar with the monsters for 25 years already and so they go for broke with them. On the other hand, when you're making an episode, I think the context is different, you have a larger canvas you can piece together and articulate with quality, progressive storytelling, it's almost like working on a movie vs. working on a holiday special episode of a TV series. And there I think there is a lot to learn from how the original maps were conceived indeed, just looking at those early blueprints of Hollywood Holocaust you can tell each time you encountered a specific monster for the first time was staged to be hard-hitting and cinematic, like the first Pigcop popping up at the end had to come in straight for your ass all guns blazing, blasting its way through a wall in a room with full brightness and visibility, and then the original episodes are just riddled with similar smart instances. I know in my current project I'm making a point to introduce each monster separately and in ways that at least try making sense like it's 1995 all over again; first map will mostly be Liztroops, etc. Downtown Journey didn't have that, for instance. You run into a crowd of Pigcops literally two seconds into the first map which already has you spawn in front of your first trooper, and they awkwardly drop down that window where you can't even see them. At least keeping each enemy's character somewhere in mind in addition to their practical function I believe is important in general.

[MetHy]

Jblade, on 28 November 2020 - 06:01 AM, said:

Just build what you want, don't let anyone try and talk you out of the build style you want to do. Use custom art or resources if it'll help, puritism is pointless and the Quake community has thrived with making maps breaking limits.

The point wasn't to tell people how they should Build their levels but to try and define the style of the original game, and to a lesser extent, common points between original Build games.
Even if you don't intend on Building a "classic style" map, knowledge of the original game should help if only to bounce back from it.

When I say "forget about hitscanners in large open areas" I mean in the context of doing something in the style of the original game. Bloody Hell in World Tour alone proves that it can work if you're smart enough about it.

[NNC]

Some nitpicking about monster placement and how the big guys handled it:

It's quite a well documented information here, that Blum in particular loved to place hitscanners around corners and places where covers are available, and projectile monsters at more open places, ie. liztroops behind windows.
We all know a few other stuff, like pigs don't appear in space maps, octas largely preferred underwater and dark areas... also in Blum maps in particular, the monster selection is intentionally limited (something that was carried onto Ian Boffin's maps in his PnP episode).

A few lesser known information, just for the record:

In most maps beyond episode 3, pigcops seem to occupy the early outside locations with a few early visit inside areas, while enforcers for example appear later and dominate the second half of the levels. This is apparent in both Blum's and Levelord's mapping especially in episode 3 and 4.

In the case of Blum, he seems to prefer pigcops and enforcers as interchangable monsters. Episode 1 has no enforcers, episode 2 has no pigs, Babe Land, Derelict and Golden Canage have no enforcers, Mirage Barrage has no pigs. In High Times the last pigcop appeared earlier than the first enforcer, in Hollywood Inferno it's vice versa. In Freeway (a map with no liztroops) pigs seem to dominate the outer, enforcers dominate the inner areas with a few outliers (even those seems to make sense). In Duke Burger the pigs dominate the pre-shrinker segments (with two small exceptions), the enforcers the segments after it. Going Postal barely had enforcers before the last cinematic segment. There seems to be a lot of logic in the placements as it seems.

The three post-episode 1 Blum maps without enforcers (Babe Land, Derelict, Golden Carnage) are all water heavy levels with sharks beneath and ships to visit. Blum loved ships (and spaceships) and probably thought the lizmen don't play well in these kinds of maps.

As for the commander, Blum NEVER used them in relevant city maps (Freeway, Duke Burger, Going Postal, Babe Land, High Times, Golden Carnage), and never mixed them with pigs. The only citiyesque levels with commanders are the short bosslevels (Stadium, Hollywood Inferno).

In the case of octas, he seems to prefer them for underwater, but occasionally they appear outside of it near the water pool even in locations they don't truly belong. In the case of Levelord, he loved them more as a supporter for eggs in infested areas.

As for drones, Blum preferred them clustered in very large open areas when you can clearly focus on them and on nothing else. Levelord used them more often in enclosed areas, particularly in Incubator/Warp Factor and a supporter of other enemies.

He used tanks in two levels, and guess what? Those are the two Blum maps without octabrains (except for the likes of Stadium).

And for battlelords, just a funny thing: when he used a single one on the map, it's a normal walking version (2630), when he used them in pairs, they are always stayput monsters (2631) except for Occupied Territory when both present.

I think all of these are intentional concepts, even if most of the above don't make any maps better or worse in any way.

[jimbob]

im working on a farm map and use true room over room, i created an outer wall and three 'stories' a base, middle and roof section. i want to add a sector to the outside of the wall for a beam wich they mount a pulley on for hoisting stuff up, but the sector does not seem to appear

[ck3D]

Anyone knows what causes a properly tagged secret room (32767) to instead act like an end-of-level sector (65535)? Might or might not be related to me using an outdated Mapster32/eDuke32. I seem to be getting it - in quite the persistent way - on one particular room, no doubt it will be easy to find a simple workaround but still that's some funny behavior and I'm intrigued what could cause it. I feel like that's something I might have read on before too but then forgot.

[jimbob]

is there an easy way to tag specific sectors in TROR, or layered sectors in general? i have two rooms on top of eachother and mapster simply refuses to tag the door i want to use as a swing door, instead it keeps on tagging the larger top or bottom sector, even if i drag the vertice outside of the area into non player space it still tags the wrong sector it seems. its really frustrating as i really need those doors to block the player.

[ck3D]

^ I believe there's some sort of smart tagging system now that eludes me (or maybe I'm confusing that with how easy it is to work with copy-pasting inside overlapping sectors now, with Mapster giving you that extra window to allow you to choose your layer), but in general in such instances what I do is just copy the floor texture from the sector I eventually want to tag (assuming it's already textured), create a random sector outside of the playable area, paste the floor texture there, tag that sector as wished, copy the (now tagged) floor texture from that sector and then paste it back onto the floor of the actual sector I originally wanted to tag, as it's now logged the exact same just with the intended attributes. Then go back to the helper sector, remove its tag and then delete the sector unless I intend or expect to have to use it again.

I think you can also directly tag shit in 3D mode, but out of habit of always doing that in 2D mode I never did/tried. Also, dragging a point of the sector outside the layered area should definitely allow you to 'access' it, unless you're dragging it over another layer of course. Working with SOS I've noticed that traditionally the newer sectors (the areas you most recently built) get priority for anything wall drawing or tagging, but the older ones (the first layer you drew) tend to retain priority for sprite placement in 2D mode. In the older Mapster32 builds at least. Honestly, once you've figured it out, that kind of works.

[jimbob]

taggin in 3d would be the easiest option i guess, but ill give that other method a try, if that fails, maybe just create the door in a helper sector, copy that into the room, join the helper sector to the floor? only problem with that would be the height. yes the issue is weird, i also noticed that the tag sometimes not centers to the sector you've tagged in layered sectors, so it seems that the tag is in another sector when in reality it is to the sector you've tagged.



[edit]
pasting the 'tagged' texture seems to work just fine, awesome thanks.

[Aleks]

You can put lotag or hitag to sprites/walls/sectors (by aiming at a floor or ceiling) in 3D mode by pressing 't or 'h (that is holding ' then pressing T or H), simple as that!

As for the tag not "centering" on the sector, it is marked on the "mass center" of the sector, which is not necessarily the same as the geometric center, e.g. if one of the walls of a rectangle is divided by an additional vertex, the center won't be in the place where its diagonals cross, but drawn a bit towards that extra vertex which "adds mass" to the plain figure. For concave sectors, this is much more evident of course, as even the geometric center won't be inside of the sector at all.

[jimbob]

those are solid tips, this thing was really bugging me, thanks, i tried just T but that sets the 'transparency' for the TROR layer so i figured it wasnt possible in 3d mode.

[ck3D]

High Treason, on 01 July 2020 - 04:24 AM, said:

Once, a very long time ago, I think it was due to RAM or drive failure though, where textures probably didn't load so whatever was left in that location in memory loaded instead - pretty much all the other textures broke too. I've had some very strange failures in Blood over the years, including the game screaming at me, some of these are recorded but aren't really relevant here.

I do, however, have Tile 0 spawning in Duke on record, we couldn't really figure out why.
https://youtu.be/LJaJFVxkgyE?t=4553
Funny thing is, only minutes before I'd remarked that performance was worse than I would expect for what was on screen and questioned if the map was mildly corrupted or something, it probably wasn't but as this was DOS, literally any given thing could be wrong at any given time.

For the record, I just ran into another video where this phenomenon also happens.



10:03, apparently due to a clusterfuck of quick (if not simultaneous?) events. Situation is, player spots Assault Captain in a small room, makes the funny decision to switch to pipebombs to blow it up (I get that they also want to blow up the other Captain body next to it, but they're still at very close range), and then the explosion catches and kills the Assault Captain just as it starts teleporting which seems to instantly 'unteleport' its gibs all the while trying to spawn a new pistol clip atop of that, and for half a second tile 0 spawns instead of said pistol clip (to me it appears to be the actual pistol clip too because of the dimensions). Player is specifying to be using 1.3D but never if they are using DOS or a port.

[High Treason]

There are probably tell-tale signs that could be used to figure out what executable they were playing on, but in either case it's interesting to see it happen to someone else and may shed light on what is going on, somehow.

I'm still none the wiser as to that one wall that sometimes goes Tile 0 in Dark Side and, again, ask anyone who runs into this to save their game and DNDEBUG to dump the map in its current state for me, as I'd love to know what's going on with that.

Unfortunately I have zero time to look into either any more, right now, as I've had to dig up a sizable part of my garden due to plumbing issues that need fixing. The end is in sight, at least.

[Mark]

I'm in my 11th year of modding and I'm about to make use of the night vision goggles for the first time. Is there a countdown timer somewhere that I am missing or is there none? I noticed a slight flashing after they have been active for a while. Is that a warning they are starting to run out of power? I need to know so I can determine how many goggles I may need to place in a map. I know little about these since the only time I remember using them was in 2 small rooms of a map I played many years ago and used them for a hidden switch hunt. Up til now I assumed wrongly that there was no time limit on them.

[ck3D]

Mark, on 27 May 2021 - 09:52 AM, said:

I'm in my 11th year of modding and I'm about to make use of the night vision goggles for the first time. Is there a countdown timer somewhere that I am missing or is there none? I noticed a slight flashing after they have been active for a while. Is that a warning they are starting to run out of power? I need to know so I can determine how many goggles I may need to place in a map. I know little about these since the only time I remember using them was in 2 small rooms of a map I played many years ago and used them for a hidden switch hunt. Up til now I assumed wrongly that there was no time limit on them.

They work just like the jetpack or the Holoduke, in that there is a percentage for their capability in the hud that reduces with every second they are active, and you can turn them on or off (making them different from the boots or the steroids). It's pretty obvious with the default hud but I'm guessing is one of those indicators that's easily toggled off depending on your usual hud configuration. Otherwise besides that number then I believe there is no indicator that they're about to go out, just like there is nothing to warn you about the end of the effect of most inventory items really, it's up to the player to keep an eye on the gauges.

@High Treason, late to this but regarding Dark Side, recently we covered what I believe is the subject you're referring to in the Random Knowledge thread or whatever it's called. I only found out it even existed recently myself and according to Fox, that's a memory corruption issue that affects some early versions of Megaton.