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Eregore

HYMN: A Heretic Community Project!

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Springy said:

Now if only I could get the tower and buildings height to be varied from that of the wall.

The "wall" part should just be a floor that's raised higher than the surrounding floor. The tower part should be made from actual one-sided walls. Will try to get an editor shot up if that will help.

//EDIT: Okay, here we go:



If your main outdoor area has a floor height of 0 and a ceiling height of 512, then your walls (Sector A) could have a floor height of say 192 or 256, but they'd still have the same ceiling height of 512. They're basically just raised platforms.

The inside of the tower (Sector B) would have a similar floor height to the wall, but usually a lower ceiling because it's indoors. As an example you could say 384.

The borders of the tower (Sector C) are purely decorative, but make the tower look more realistic. They look best if you make the ceiling a few a few units higher than the inside of the tower, so say 416. You can also raise the floor height a little to make a foundation or base for the tower. Once you've connected your walls to your tower, you'll need to add an extra little sector (as shown in the completed version) to make sure the border continues above the wall. Add a window or two and you're done.

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Now that the Cacowards have been posted Doomworld begins a new year. I have been slowly carving away at my map for this project. I must admit, I have been busy working on maps for other community projects as well. Not to mention real life stuff . . . Oh, and playing through Cacoward material.

Looks like there has been some activity here, though not much. I would like to encourage those of you who haven't posted any progress to do so. And if you haven't posted any progress because you haven't made any, start mapping!

As for my map:
Structure: 90%
Actions: 90%
Texture/Lighting: 70%
Items/Monsters: 10%
Total: 65%

I will post some new screenshots in a few days.

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I've been throwing around ideas in my head about community projects, episode concepts, port compatibility, map format, decorate, etc. If this project goes well, perhaps I could host another one. Maybe next year. Which project sounds more appealing:

-A: Heretic vanilla speed mapping sessions: I host a week long speed mapping session where the 9 best maps are selected. Those mappers will have another 2 weeks to fine tune/polish their maps for final submission. Its fast, easy, and accessible.

-B: Heavily modified Heretic: Zdoom: Heretic in Hexen format, with an added DECORATE pack. I would essentially pre-assemble a content PWAD packed with new DECORATE content, including weapons, monsters, items, etc. Not to mention a more extensive texture pack. The episode would loosely follow a story and mappers would claim map spots with per-determined themes.

Input, advice, and criticism welcomed.

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Option B sounds good ZDoom mapping isn't my strongest aspect however. I'd say host both as option A would be quite quick to create and is more recommended for novice mappers anyway but that's just my two pennies on the matter.

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Personally, what I feel this community project lacks is cohesion.

I mean the individual levels are good, but there is no progression between them; either/or visually, plot wise, difficulty, weapon/bad guy introduction etc.

It feels like a bunch of individual maps shoved into an episode just because 'a new episode' sounds cooler than '9 new individual maps'.

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Well, Vermil, I was hoping that once I get all the submissions I would select the strongest ones, and place them both from easiest to hardest, and thematically, if possible. I've asked everyone to tackle more than one fantasy theme so that levels wont feel mono-thematic, allowing for a better sense of blend.

I find that community mapping always faces this dichotomy: either the theme is too narrow and restricted and players can't be as creative as they'd like, or the theme is too broad and open, which lacks cohesion. Either way, a project has a hard time being both well defined, and open ended.

What could we do to improve this project? Any ideas are welcome.

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that's a good point vermil, but ja know? it is quite easy-to-fix issue, the maps choosen to be part of the episode can be rearranged before being released. in other words: you can modify each level (i hope this won't be necessary ) to have the beginning similar to the ending of the previous one.
One thing that botered me a little... D'Sparil can be used right? any thougt about it? there must be at least one on the last slot no?

Egregor: a speedmapping session can be really fast to do, regarding the quality of the derived mapset, is like playing a roulette...

a zdoom mapping seesion can take basically forever if not strongly leaded, but can have some interesting results if the work is divided between some people (es: the most of the mappers can do the mapset and the acs scripting, a couple [or at least one] of them have to code the various DECORATE, MAPINFO, DIALOGXX lumps, and one project leader that have to blend all together and be prepared to fill the various holes that a project like this will surely have in time.).

TL;DR : they can be both interesting to do, meanwhile i'll probably start an another map ;P

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Egregor said:

-B: Heavily modified Heretic: Zdoom: Heretic in Hexen format, with an added DECORATE pack. I would essentially pre-assemble a content PWAD packed with new DECORATE content, including weapons, monsters, items, etc. Not to mention a more extensive texture pack. The episode would loosely follow a story and mappers would claim map spots with per-determined themes.


If you want to do that, feel free to join HPack. I hope the project will restart after ZDCMP2 is out, now that the R667 website is operational again.

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Gez said:

If you want to do that, feel free to join HPack. I hope the project will restart after ZDCMP2 is out, now that the R667 website is operational again.


meh, if i was as good as 1/10 of tormentor667, i have had already joined that project, it is too much for my poor mapping/scripting/editing skills.

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So making a heavy Heretic mod would be redundant because there is one already in the works? Yeah, I actually have looked at that one before, but it seems as if progress has slowed to a crawl on that project.

Perhaps not-so-obviously, maps that feature D'Sparil or Maulotaur would be considered for the E1M8 spot. If no one creates a map with D'Sparil or Maulotaur I will probably pick the largest or hardest map.

Would this episode benefit from a narrower theme, some examples:

'This episode will focus on medieval towns, castles, and dungeons.'

'This episode will focus on swamps, catacombs, and lava caves.'

'This episode will focus on canyons, temples, and icy areas'

I will narrow the theme if there is enough support to do so, so let me know. Some variation would still be welcomed. Don't avoid creating a lava cave in your dungeon level. We are talking main episode theme.

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January submissions/updates roll call! Anyone?

I think I may host another community project like this next time, but changes to the model will include:

NEXT TIME:
-one month mapping session: not exactly speed mapping, but I feel this project has been dragging on.
-specific setting theme: fantasy theme seems to be too vague.
-monster limit of 150: as well as having dimensional limitations, which are guidelines anyways, map to medium sized game-play. If your map is truly medium sized you wont hit this limit.

What do you guys think?

DooMAD: That castle looks truly great! Don't hold it against me if I yoink your pillar support technique. In fact, you may have started a trend. I'm curious to take a look at Gothic DM 2 http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=9318 to see what the heck they did. Many tricks could be learned from a WAD as beautiful as that one.

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egregore: i think that first this must be finished before thinking on another one, there too few heretic mappers around here :P

doomad: your screeenshot... well, seems you know how to map :)

just for... i have started finally another map that i had in mind for too long... dunno if it will violate the medium-size rule, oh wait, it already does.



seems that i failed again to make a small map... actually it is pretty monocromatic, needs a lot of work.

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Cacowad said:

seems that i failed again to make a small map... actually it is pretty monocromatic, needs a lot of work.


Just do what you can/want to do Cacowad. At this point I'm reconsidering my expectations as the 'Doom mapping community: sub-catigory: Heretic mapping community' seems to be too small and fragile to ask for anything more than any map contribution, regardless of context . . .

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just don't worry, during cristmas period everyone had it's one mess to solve, there are plenty contibutor here, and since the deadline is a bit far, just take care of your map(s) and wait ;) actually i will resize (if not scrap) the map of the screenshot, it is just too big for this: it is becoming an 7168x7168 map :S

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I'm not entirely sure I like that texturing Cacowad... those textures kind of detract from the Heretic feel... also Heretic had a lot of textures that contrasted well with eachother, I'd personally experiment with trying to contrast the grey with some of those wooden city textures from original Heretic, or maybe even something that's a little greener.

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are you talking about the last screen or about the map i have posted?
if it is about the screenshot, i have decided to scrap the map, i have done the layout but it don't fit into the project at all, i am making a new one instead. and yes i will try to experiment with the defoult heretic textures a bit.

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One small thing to bear in mind is that since some of the textures in the HYMN resource wad are just recolours of standard Heretic textures. Any maps using those textures will have to be edited before being included in Blasphemer, since they won't meet the licence requirements.

Also they might need tweaking anyway, since the Blasphemer textures currently vary in colour at times, although I don't know if those are final or not:

http://www.teamhellspawn.com/blasphemercomparison.png

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75 days 'til submission deadline. Still time to participate if people want to join in.

Figured I'd post a general progress report. The starting area isn't shown here since I'm not liking how it's turning out. Will redo that part later. But here's the rest of what I've got so far:



It's slowly coming together, but plenty more to do. Got a rough idea of how it's all going to tie together. I'd probably say this is 15% complete.

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Hey guys! I've found a very minor bug with the texture set, apparently I forgot to uncheck the Decal box on the falling liquid textures, so if you shoot at them in a port that allows decals... well you'll see some weird holes on them.
Since this is a very minor issue and easily corrected I don't think it's worth to upload an update, but if you guys want me to, just say it.
BTW I finally caught a good pace on my map, so it should be done this month.

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thats why... well my map had some lavafall near to some volcano, so a fix this in the final release would be really appreciated.

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The final release will address this bug. My map is about 75% done. Working on item/enemy placement/balance. Most of these screen shots look very cool. I'm excited to see who will submit. about 40 more days to go! Crunch time!

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While trying to give a more "nature overruns castle" feeling to my map, I noticed that while we have lots of lovely hanging vines, we have no overgrown grass textures (like this).

So, should I go and add similar textures to the pack?

Or is it only me who feels we need them?

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Instead of starting another Heretic community project, I would have suggested to join HPack over at the Realm667 forums. This is no self-advertisement but joining forces is always better then splitting them

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Tormentor667 said:

Instead of starting another Heretic community project, I would have suggested to join HPack over at the Realm667 forums. This is no self-advertisement but joining forces is always better then splitting them


Well I'm not sure about that, since the projects focus seem to be complete opposites; in one hand HYMN is trying to give a classic Heretic feeling within boom limitations, and in the other hand HPack is trying to enhance the Heretic experience using all of Zdoom's power.

Also I do not know about the other mappers but I don't even know how to use half of the shiny features Zdoom has to offer. :D

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