PSX Doom: The Lost Levels - New Pre-Beta Available courtesy of Salahmander2

the only issue I have with this so far, is that in whoever's playstation conversion, they made the levels way too dark
playing the playstation version myself I've compared them
I understand that these levels are not finished, and probably not anywhere near being finished, but the levels are much brighter
the zandronum playstation total conversion is the correct brightness on the levels I have played on

I think it's important to point this out as much as possible for recognition, the first level in the pre-beta, is much too dark in opengl mode and I fear playing in software mode would be even darker for any other levels

otherwise, I really like this idea

Mikk said:

I fear playing in software mode would be even darker for any other levels

If you're using the software renderer for the PSX TC, then you're doing it wrong.

Also, as far as the OpenGL renderer goes, you should probably adjust the ambient light level and change the Sector Light Mode to 'Doom' or 'Dark'. There's nothing wrong with the light levels in the maps I've played so far (which is near-enough all of them).

the zandronum playstation total conversion is the correct brightness on the levels I have played on

u wot m8
Adjust your OpenGL settings. There is no difference for sector lighting between default mapsets, and if there are any then I can assure you that the Zandronum version is wrong in that regard.

MajorRawne said:

EDIT: Am playing through Anti-Christ. A Hell Knight just went after a Baron! After he'd hit the Baron with three ranged attacks, the Baron turned round, threw a plasma ball at the Knight and killed it! How did they hurt each other with ranged attacks?

The PlayStation version is based on Jaguar Doom, which itself is derived from PC v1.2, with the Doom 2 additions added on. When they copied things over, they forgot about the bit of code that makes Barons immune to Hell Knight projectiles and vice-versa. Likewise, Lost Souls still count as kills in PSX Doom, and Demons/Spectres still have hitscan bites.

I hate to be so cruel, but I'm taking a brief detour from critiquing maps to say that I kind of wish Mephisto's Mausoleum would be rebuilt from scratch. The map progression from the original level has been completely destroyed in the conversion. What used to be a series of hectic arena battles is now condensed into a single cyberdemon fight that's over in about 30 seconds.

If the cyberdemon were dropped, there'd be enough "RAM" to allow for all the original map's bestiary--revenants, barons, mancubi and arachnotrons--sans the boss spitter, which would allow for the original MAP07 behavior to be restored. The interior of the primary building could be entered and exited completely with teleporters (for example, changing the red door that leads out of the main building into a teleporter with a red key barrier around it), so you wouldn't have to worry about matching up heights between the interior and exterior, and therefore the interior could be taller like in the original map. (You'd just have to make sure sound "leaks" into sectors 99, 106, 110 & 114 so the revenants will wake up and be ready to teleport once you step up to the red key-barred teleporter and let them loose.)

And there's honestly nothing keeping someone from retaining the 512-unit-tall sectors that housed the cages (that looked like boss spitter faces) that the mancubi and arachnotrons used to snipe at you from (sectors 0, 17, 26 & 33 in the original WAD), provided you employ some zero-height sectors for additional texture tiling on the walls with the caged openings, and lowered the ceiling height of sector 74.

As for the final battle.... Well, I guess there just wouldn't be one. You'd pass through the blue door and be surprised by two barons waiting for you. But instead of a lift that takes you up to shoot the boss brain, it'd be an exit teleporter. The map's challenging enough already, even without a true final battle.

So if anyone's got the time or enthusiasm, I implore them to take a second shot at this map. It could be far more faithful to the original and more exciting with a little extra care.

Tl;dr (I'm kidding)

"If you want something done well, do it yourself." (c)

I want to say that nobody will do "your vision" of this map except yourself. Do it by yourself, seriously :)

Even if someone does so, as you wished, you still do not get the good results (on your view)

Well, I suppose I could, but I'd need someone else's help since I don't have much understanding of ZDoom editing.

I wonder what Sverre will think of Mephisto's huge change. Hes looking forward to this project's completion btw.

Did Titan Manor today and a bit of Trapped on Titan. Theres a lot of things downright broken in Titan Manor, yet more things caused by the fact that PSX Doomguy is slower. Everything to do with that pillar in the opening room is broken for me. The BFG in the starting area is also unobtainable, several things there wouldnt open or lower. The outer rim with the mancubi on it doesnt get lit up when the lights are turned on, this makes it pretty pointless to even use the lights. The room with the blue bed, that bed should have some marine corpses on it, on the original map thes marines were accidentally flagged as multiplayer only, this kind of thing was generally fixed in PSX levels. In that same room, the automap seems to be unobtainable, the floor lowers too quickly to get onto the platform.

In Trapped on Titan, I only got to the area with all the revenants on platforms with the rocket launcher, this area looks much improved, good creative use of coloured lighting and height changes. However, the sky is wrong, it should be a night sky. Jim Flynn specifically borrowed Anderson's night sky for his Titan levels, and then created his own night sky for his free Titan followups. The pillar in that area trhat lowers when you ascend the spiral staircase has a bug, it cannot fully raise while your on it, it bumps into the sky ceiling and then lowers again. It looks really weird and out of place.

Ragnor said:

The room with the blue bed, that bed should have some marine corpses on it

Show me one original PSX map with (ungibbed) marine corpses, and I'll believe you!

There werent any? News to me.

Ragnor said:

Theres a lot of things downright broken in Titan Manor, yet more things caused by the fact that PSX Doomguy is slower. Everything to do with that pillar in the opening room is broken for me.

You mean, the pillar with the super shotgun in front of it, in front of the yellow door? That pillar works just fine for me. You do know that you have to find a hidden compartment in the fireplace in the next room over, which leads to a switch, which exposes another switch (the one next to the window that looks out over the starting point), that lowers the pillar, correct? I can get to the pillar just fine and jump to the rocket launcher with no trouble. And bear in mind that you no longer need to run across the pillar in order to lower the blue key, unlike the original level.

The BFG in the starting area is also unobtainable, several things there wouldnt open or lower.

This is true, and I'll be documenting that in my next testing update.

The room with the blue bed, that bed should have some marine corpses on it, on the original map thes marines were accidentally flagged as multiplayer only, this kind of thing was generally fixed in PSX levels. In that same room, the automap seems to be unobtainable, the floor lowers too quickly to get onto the platform.

Not true. If you're careful, you can edge across the corner of the teleport pad that leads into the area, then hop into the nearby window, then up onto the ledge with the automap. That's how I always did it, even in the PC map.

I got started on rebuilding Mephisto's Mausoleum. Since UDMF is mostly foreign to me, I'll be doing the majority of the editing in vanilla format and then using the conversion utilities to change it to UDMF for me, at which point I'll be editing the lighting and texturing. I still am clueless about certain things, like how to set the proper sky texture or if I need to do anything special to make MAP07's sector tag 666 behavior work properly once converted, so hopefully someone else can tie up those loose ends for me.

The default sky texture and the MAP07 special flag are both things that are generally done from MAPINFO.

That said it's of course completely possible to do both from within the map, using ACS.

In the meantime, more testing stuff. :)


By the way, I thought of a bit of a workaround for how to make the secret exit in Industrial Zone harder to reach, like it used to be:

Step 1: Move sectors 61& 136 much further south.

Step 2: Create a platform with the same floor and ceiling height as sector 136. This platform will stretch from east-to-west (but make sure it's not long enough that you can jump onto it from sectors 18 or 139), but its north-to-south length will be a mere 32 map-pixels. Place this platform in such a manner that its northern linedef is exactly 224 map-pixels away from sector 56. (Yes, I tested this. You can just barely make this jump without straferunning.)

Step 3: Create another narrow ledge connecting the one you just made and sector 136 together. Make sure it's at about a roughly 45-degree angle. (If it's straight north-to-south-oriented, the player can just aim for that section for an easy jump.)

Step 4: Merge the ledges and sector 136 all together. Now the player will have to make a tricky, dangerous, high-speed leap onto a very narrow ledge to unlock the secret exit.

Oh, and Living End didn't have any issues, so my Doom II Lost Levels testing is complete for now.


[psxlost-prebeta2]

LOST13 - The Garrison

-The lighting seriously needs work. As usual, the PC brightness values remain and need to be decreased (with the exception of the blue sectors in the southwest quadrant of the map--sector 72 and thereabouts--which could actually stand to be brightened), and there's also almost no lighting coloration. Key doors need colored-coded lighting (in the sectors in front of, behind, and underneath doors--don't forget), sectors containing key pickups need color-coded lighting, and in general, the map needs more color.

-Line 439 needs to be translucent.

-Consider shrinking the sector 69 window, leaving an opening to the east. Also, you may want to consider replacing the massive staircase connecting sector 56 to sector 72, with a lift. The stairs leading down from sector 0 also need to be replaced with a smaller amount of 16-unit-tall steps.

-Thing 35 (chaingun) and thing 121 (plasma gun) have most of their flags disabled, and do not appear under most gameplay settings.

-Thing 126 used to be a rocket launcher in the PC map. Now it's a rocket for an unknown reason, and there is no rocket launcher available in singleplayer.

-Things 20, 21 & 22 used to be three extra BFG's, and have been replaced with large cell packs. Each BFG pickup gives you 40 cells, so three large cell packs would give you over twice as much extra ammo as three BFG's. A better equivalent would be one large cell pack and one small cell pack. Or just restore the extra BFG's that used to be there.

-This has nothing to do with the port job of this level. I just hate all the stupid, unintuitive, wall-humping secrets in this map.


-----


LOST14 - Titan Manor

-Make sector 228 a different, brighter color to draw more attention to the BFG.

-The lines around sector 193 (the pillar blocking the rocket launcher) need to be translucent.

-Sector 5 is over the 256-unit maximum height. It requires a reduction in height, or needs some zero-height sectors around it to account for the additional texture tiling.

-Sector 71 doesn't seem like it's supposed to be tagged.

-Sector 23's floor height needs to be lowered, as it seems to be impossible to make a non-straferun jump onto it from sector 67. (Sector 23 also should probably be less wide so there's not as much viewable area.)

-Line 677's impassible flag needs to be removed.

-Line 835's offsets need to be altered so the switch is closer to ground level.

-I'd suggest deleting sectors 190 & 191 (making them into solid walls), since those walls are now shorter than they used to be, exposing more viewable area when standing in sector 24 than in the PC map. You may also want to consider reducing the ceiling height of sector 179 to 616 units and putting WOODX01 on the ceiling. This way, the ceiling of the stables would attach to the line 370 wall, making the stables look more like a solid structure rather than having a big plank of wood floating in the air over top of them.

-The torches around the sector 170 area could use some more appropriate colored lighting.

-Sector 239 should be removed by merging it into one of its adjacent sectors. The lift that used to be in that sector no longer exists, and the lines around that sector are still tagged to that nonexistent lift, causing lift activation sounds for no reason.

-The BFG secret appears to be unobtainable, since sector 251's height is 0, barring the player from stepping through it.

-Lines 1098 & 1100 need to be translucent.

-Sector 167 needs to be lowered so enemies can actually step out into sector 205.

-Oh boy, this sucker runs badly when testing in DOSBox. I highly recommend cutting some details. Here's a few suggestions:

*Reduce the sector 49 & 50 windows in size.

*Narrow the sector 15 front door to 128 units in length.

*Remove the "ceiling staircases" attached to sector 29.

*Delete sectors 21, 25 (both highly recommended deletions) 92 & 98, and merge sectors 110, 112 & 113 into sector 107.

*Remove the sector 268, 269, 270 & 271 pillars and just have sector 169 be a regular square lift.


-----


LOST15 - Trapped on Titan

-As usual, the PC brightness levels remain and need to be darkened.

-The enemy variety is too great, weighing in at 32 points. The sole thing 467 hell knight needs to go, which will reduce the count to 28. I'd also recommend removing all the imps, as there's only five of them in the map, and four of them are in a single monster closet.

-The original map used the starry sky texture. It's not required that you change it back. I'm just making a note of it.

-Sector 252 seems like it should have some coloration for it being a sinister monster closet and all. The sectors with key pickups could use color-coded lighting, and the same for the locked doors. Sectors 48, 49 & 245 could use some color to reflect the torches inside them. Some different coloration for sectors 64, 65 & 68 would be good too, so they'd stand out more from the surrounding enviroment. (Maybe DE8B4D?)

-Why keep the switch texture on line 337 when the player can never reach it and the switch no longer has any function?

-Sector 13 used to have a backpack in the original PC map. Obviously it had to be moved from that location since the teleporter line would've kept the player from actually obtaining it, but it wasn't actually moved anywhere: it was simply deleted. Maybe it should be a prize in sector 264, or one of the compartments attached to sector 82? (Of course, there is a backpack later in the level, so it's not a huge loss to simply leave the first one deleted.)

-This is a nitpicky thing, but when you teleport to sector 81, you're immediately confronted by a squad of enemies. Your first reaction would probably be to back up. This will cause you to get wedged between the teleporter, the wall behind you, and the two blue torches. Your only option is to step forward onto the teleporter, which beams you back out of the room again. I'd appreciate if the torches were spread further away from the teleporter so you can run around it if you need to. (The teleporter should probably also have block monster lines so you can't just hang back and have the enemies get teleported out of the room.)

-What's with the exit sign textures around sector 81? I think that'd be misleading. Would be better to just change sector 81's ceiling/floor textures to a GATE texture so people know it's a teleporter.

-The stairs that build when you cross line 261 are 10 units high, which was not possible in vanilla Doom. They need to be either 8 or 16 units tall.

-Check sector 198 and the monster closets around sector 212 for misalignments. The green brick textures make them quite obvious.

-Sector 96 has flickering light for no apparent reason.

-Even though it was in the original map, sector 145 and the switch inside it aren't necessary since you can just jump off the side of the lift anyway. If you insist on keeping it, at least remove the sector tag from sector 145.

-Lines 527, 529 & 532 used to have textures that distinguished it from the wall, so it wasn't completely obvious that it was a lift, but you had a feeling it might be.

-The jump from sector 115 to sector 111 no longer seems possible without straferunning. Lines 515 & 516 need to be dragged to the north so the jump is manageable.

-Maybe some different textures on the sector 269 lines? (The crusher with the barons near the end of the map.) That area looks a little repetitive with all the green marble bricks and could use some variation.

-The final battle is pretty lame. Two revenants and a nightmare demon/baron? Not a good substitute for the spiderdemon or cyberdemon that used to be there. Why not four barons on UV (four 1000 HP barons to replace the 4000 HP cyberdemon), three barons on HMP (to substitute the 3000 HP spiderdemon), and two revenants on ITYTD/NTR (to replace the two arachnotrons)? It's somewhat important that you don't mix the enemy types or else they might infight and make the battle easier, which wouldn't have happened with the original map's boss fight.

-Running this in DOSBox, this map had probably the worst framerate I've seen so far. Unfortunately, so many details of the map are integral to gameplay that I'm not sure how to cut things without destroying map features, so I only have a few suggestions this time. If anyone else has any ideas, feel free to make tweaks:

*Delete the sector 44, 51, 160 & 162 windows.

*Delete sectors 125 & 126.

*This suggestion isn't optional: Remove the sector tag from the sector 199 wall. It is crucial that this wall does not lower, because in the original map, having all four of the walls around sector 198 open actually had the potential to cause visplane crashes. That wall needs to be there to block some of the view.


-----


LOST16 - Bloodsea Keep

-I wonder if sectors 82 & 93 should glow in order to simulate the glowing recessions in the walls that were in the PC map. The hallway seems a tad static without it. (Whether or not you do that, while you're there, check for misalignments on lines 394, 450, 1421 & 1423.)

-Sector 221 should probably have BLOOD1 as its floor texture.

Megamur said:

I still am clueless about certain things, like how to set the proper sky texture or if I need to do anything special to make MAP07's sector tag 666 behavior work properly once converted, so hopefully someone else can tie up those loose ends for me.

map LOSTxx "Mephisto"
{
   sky1 SKYxx
   music PSXMUSxx or FINMUSxx
   next LOSTxx (the next map number)
   Map07Special
}

Also, I really think the Master Levels should be kept to one word where possible, for authenticity. The exception is TEETH

Yeah, that's how I do my maps too. It's one thing to map in UDMF if you plan on taking advantage of its features, but for this project it definitely makes more sense to do your modifications in Doom format, then convert. I personally prefer Hexen format with tags for lighting, too. UDMF has the advantage that you can see the colored lighting in GZDoom Builder, but that preview was so dark that it was pretty much worthless to me when I was working on The Living End.

For skies, that's done in MAPINFO, on my end. Same with tag 666 - you don't need to script the behavior into the map, just add the MAP07Special token to MAPINFO.

My other reply as a bit late, I see. Anyway...

Eris Falling said:

Also, I really think the Master Levels should be kept to one word where possible, for authenticity. The exception is TEETH

You're right, I didn't even think about this. I'm not sure we can really get away with one word for some of these, though. How's this, any sugguestions?

LHUSTR_13 = "Garrison";
LHUSTR_14 = "Manor";				// should this stay Titan Manor?
LHUSTR_15 = "Titan Trap";
LHUSTR_16 = "Bloodsea";
LHUSTR_17 = "Mephisto";
LHUSTR_18 = "Black Tower";
LHUSTR_19 = "Elevator to Hell";
LHUSTR_68 = "Bad Dream";

-edit-

Changed Trapped on Titan to Titan Trap (TTRAP.WAD).

Pretty much, though I think you can get away with "Trapped" and "Tower," and I'm not sure if "Dream" works on its own, and also "Elevator" sounds a bit crappy, so those latter two might be as you have them there.

They seem to have based the names on the WAD filenames, so I'm almost sure they would've kept Black Tower (BLACKTWR.WAD). TTRAP is debatable, I could see them just going with The Trap or something, heh. I don't think whoever did the names read the text files.

Oh goody, more Megamur suggestions to sort on such a wonderful evening. :D On top of that, I noticed that some parts of Living End didn't have reverb so am gonna sort it.

Cool. I'm debating reducing some of the heights in The Living End. I know it conforms to the guidelines, but it just looks wrong to me, it "feels" too tall for a PSX map. Most of the height in the map is completely unnecessary, anyway.

I'll wait until you're done your edits.

You may as well start them now, since I am only adding reverb and that my internet is bad at this minute.

Okay, it might take me a while to get around to it, though. I've still got some suggestions from Megamur to implement in Caged, plus other stuff I keep putting off.

Eris Falling said:

"Elevator" sounds a bit crappy, so those latter two might be as you have them there.

TEETH.

Since there was talk of doing a Lost Levels status bar (an idea I'm iffy on, but okay with as it'll be optional), a suggestion:

There's an alternate status bar shown in one of the shots on the back of the case. This is taller (looks like 8 pixels), uses red text for the labels, weapons are labeled (arms), the selection box is yellow, the shading on the big font looks different, and the background has higher contrast and is more repetitive looking. I think that, if a new bar is made, it should be a recreation of this early one.

It'd be great if we could dig up higher resolution shots (or at least higher quality scans of the case insert) of this bar.

I agree with using "Black Tower" and "TEETH."

And I don't really agree with a new status bar. These are technically still Doom/Doom II/Master Levels/Final Doom maps, so it's less like a whole new game and more like if Midway had more time and resources to port all the maps when they released the PSX titles.

Maybe if/when we get around to doing Doom 64 conversions, that would merit a new bar.

Yeah, but this is like an official lost status bar. It fits, in a way. Like I said, it'd be entirely optional. We need a higher quality shot of it to do a real recreation, though.

Edit: While digging around I found an obvious mockup JagDoom bar using a background graphic found in the earliest 32X prototypes. Nothing for PSX Doom though, it's like prerelease images of this port didn't exist...

Dragonsbrethren said:

Since there was talk of doing a Lost Levels status bar (an idea I'm iffy on, but okay with as it'll be optional), a suggestion:

There's an alternate status bar shown in one of the shots on the back of the case. This is taller (looks like 8 pixels), uses red text for the labels, weapons are labeled (arms), the selection box is yellow, the shading on the big font looks different, and the background has higher contrast and is more repetitive looking. I think that, if a new bar is made, it should be a recreation of this early one.

It'd be great if we could dig up higher resolution shots (or at least higher quality scans of the case insert) of this bar.

Are you referring to the one with the automap where doomguy is in god mode (got to love these screenshot takers)? The one that looks something like this:



(hastily thrown together mockup)

That image is so small (even on the longbox version) you'd never be able to make anything from it. Once you get it big enough, the "color print dots" (or whatever you call them) become extremely visible.

I can certainly get you a larger scan of it if you want, though.

Yep, that's the one. I kinda figured on the scan, that's why I'd really like to find some actual screenshots, like the ones available for PC and JagDoom. Doubt they're out there, though.

(Honestly it is kinda ugly, cut for a reason. Maybe we could just do one inspired by it, and I'd personally be okay with not having a custom one for Lost Levels.)

Eh, the only shortened map names I'd go for is Garrison, as all of Klie's levels got that treatment, and Black Tower. "The XXXX" was a name theme used in PSX Doom and Doom 2 heavily, but all those Thes got dropped in Final Doom. Titan Manor and Trapped on Titan are map 1 and 2 in a 6 map series, so I'd rather keep those named that way, and some of Sverre's maps would sound like they were Anderson's maps (Mephisto sounds like Geryon, Minos and Vesperas for example)

Also, no matter what, a map named Teeth is ridiculous, especially if it has nothing to do with teeth in any fashion. It probably needs a shortening, but if PSX Doom has long-ass names like Threshold of Pain. Just "Elevator to Hell"? Also, heresy to anyone wanted to named Bad Dream either Dream or Bad. Bad? ITS HIS CROWNING MAPPING ACHIEVEMENT. Ahem.

Secondly, the stuff Megamur replied to: I know how to get that pillar down, I've beaten this map on PC and PS3 with 100% :p Jumping off it doesn't work for me at all, either its unnecessarily hard now (like most maps requiring jumping puzzles) or I suck even more now. Also, theres now THREE spots that need to be jumped to, urgh. The back alcoves were reachable on foot before, and have much needed ammo. The map secret, the intended way to get that is to run across the lowering wall as its lowering, if you miss it, its supposed to be inaccessable. Pretty sure it lowered slower on PC, that or Doomguy's speed reduction is making it near impossible to reach in time.

I've been thinking about dividing the final map back into its original parts to get around the RAM limitation (which is killing the gameplay now); thankfully this will be a trivial process as the main work has obviously already been finished.

Of course this throws a spanner in the works regarding map order, and while I think we should still end the set with Icon Of Sin (for obvious reasons), as far as Last Call and Gateway To Hell go I'm not too bothered if they're reshuffled to the end of the Evilution/Plutonia episodes or just kept as one sequence of final maps that flow into each other. What's the general opinion on this?

Dragonsbrethren said:

Yep, that's the one. I kinda figured on the scan, that's why I'd really like to find some actual screenshots, like the ones available for PC and JagDoom. Doubt they're out there, though.

(Honestly it is kinda ugly, cut for a reason. Maybe we could just do one inspired by it, and I'd personally be okay with not having a custom one for Lost Levels.)

I have a PlayStation and original copies of Doom and Final Doom. Fortunately, I also have a 72" TV. Do you think I could use these to get you a good-enough quality screen capture of the status bars?