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cph

graphics: doom1 intermission maps

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Is anyone considering, or remotely interested in, doing the animated maps for the intermission screens for Doom 1? Most episodes that replace these screens just null out the animations and replace the map with a backdrop screen - even id got bored of the map idea, and dropped it for Doom II and Ultimate Doom. There are ~20 little animation patches per map and they have to tie in with a whole bunch of hard-coded offsets in the doom engine, by the look of it, which is probably why noone bothers.

Unless anyone is actively working on these, I propose linking all the WIA* graphics to null patches, and link WIMAP* to the INTERPIC we already have. That removes the need for >50 fiddly little animations.

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One could use a port like Jdoom and noclip to above the level and take a screenshot, make some neccessary changes to it, then paste it on some kind of a terrain pic and there you go.

I could do this if it actually works and looks any good, but of course the levels need to be done first.

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Even assuming we're insane enough to try replacing all the Doom 1 levels, we certainly aren't waiting that long to do the intermission screens. So we should go with the cheap'n'cheerful option I suggest, at least for the meantime, unless anyone is actively working on these.

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Yeah there's no reason to not put a simple single screen there for now.

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Done, they're all dummy 1x1 transparent images now. I also fixed all of the sprite and graphic offsets while I was there.

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Being a romantic person, I think it would be lovely to have an animated intermission once we have all the levels done.

What might help is if we try and work on a 'sensible' and extensible neo-standard for the animation screens, and propose to have it patched into the source ports. That way we could (relatively easily) provide them and if the port doesn't support, then you get nothing.

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Nulling out the animations sounds like a good idea to me. I guess that includes the splat and you-are-here ?
I would like to see different backgrounds (wimap) though.

BTW, EDGE specifies the animations in a DDF file (games.ddf) allowing them to be changed. That could serve as a model.

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Ajapted said:
Nulling out the animations sounds like a good idea to me. I guess that includes the splat and you-are-here ?


Good point. Funnily enough, I was playing an old episode at the weekend which forgot this - it replaced the map with a background, removed the animations, but still had the splats appearing around the screen, which looked quite odd.

I would like to see different backgrounds (wimap) though.


As with all things in FreeDoom, if someone comes up with something better then it's welcome.

WRT animation, if ports want animated end screens then surely the easiest solution is to allow a texture as background instead of a graphic. That way you get animation for free, the existing TEXTURE/ANIMATED lumps do it, no special case code/ddf sections/bex hacks/info lumps needed. It can be made trivially backwards compatible, look for a texture first and if not fall back to a graphic.

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Put me down to make some plain (no anim) versions of wimap0..wimap2.
I experimented last night with craters on a fractal surface and the results were pretty good.
And if someone eventually wants to make better fully animated ones, that'd be great too.

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If anyone here's interested (believes it's not I waste of time), I think we should make a WIMAP3 and possibly even intermission maps for DOOM 2. Not because they're necessary but because id never got the time to make them...

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You are completely right. It's too bad that noone cared to sieze this opportunity to edit Doom. Personally i think the intermission screens were one of the things that made doom1 special in relation to Doom2. I do also see your point that it is a LOT of work due to the obscure hardcoded data.

I'm up for it though, but there is a slight but!

One of the things that weren't so cool about those intermission screens in the original doom was that they didn't correspond to the levels. Especially the Episode 3 screen was glaring. (Unholy Cathedral was represented as a lava pool, while Mount Erebus was represented by a mansion on a hill).

Therefore I will only do it once the levels are complete, so I can base my pictures on the levels. Email me with a zipped attachment with the levels once you are finished with an episode. (The levels need not to be totally complete. I just need to get the general feel of their size, form and style).

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One of the things that weren't so cool about those intermission screens in the original doom was that they didn't correspond to the levels. Especially the Episode 3 screen was glaring. (Unholy Cathedral was represented as a lava pool, while Mount Erebus was represented by a mansion on a hill).

I think that was pretty cool though. Especially in episode 1/2, where in-game you only got to see the inside of the levels and never the whole thing on the outside...

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Yeah, the E1 and E2 intermission screens were OK, but the E3 one (even though it looked cool) was disturbingly inconsistent with the levels and shouldn't we avoid doing such a thing now we have the opportunity?

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cph: texture animation sounds like the best way to get those little flashing lights and lava flows (etc). That's assuming the 128 height limitation doesn't kick in.

Fredrik: yeah, WIMAP3 would be cool - I noticed how Ultimate Doom just uses the interpic - a bit lame. Doing it for Doom 2 would be nice as well, there are three skies so three backgrounds makes sense (CWIMAP0..CWIMAP2).

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