DTWID: Project is done, check the release thread

yeah, Doom is small. We shall not forget it.

This is a House of Pain / Limbo / Unholy Cathedral themed one.

I have started to work on a E3 map for this project. Marble and Gstone1 themed. I hope I can avoid as many 90 and 45 degree lindefs as possible hehe. Will post screens later

40oz said:

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/7692/randomize.png

This is a House of Pain / Limbo / Unholy Cathedral themed one.

Brilliant! Can't wait to play it.

Excellent! I'm really looking forward to trying this out. best of luck guys!

I've finished an E2M1 map. A bunch of the areas are similar to E2M1, as I used it as a guideline for the setting, but I think it turned out different enough.

Who do I send it to?

Mista_T said:

I've finished an E2M1 map. A bunch of the areas are similar to E2M1, as I used it as a guideline for the setting, but I think it turned out different enough.

Who do I send it to?

you can send it to me: chesterules@yahoo.com

What map slot are you mapping for? Let me try to help answer that question for you!

There are no map slots per se. Think of it like this: Doom was originally 3 episodes comprised of 10 levels per episode. From each of those episodes one of the maps was lost. One day, someone found the three maps and recognized that they were made by id by carefully studying the maps. They then placed the maps as best as they could back into each of the episodes they belonged in, inbetween the mapslots they felt was most fitting. This is where you come in. You get to make the map that was 'lost' and get to decide where in the episode you would like for it to be missing from. So it could be from the beginning of the episode, the middle, or the end, but it does not replace an existing map slot in the episode. It is an entirely new, original level made by id (ie. you) that somehow became lost right before the release of Doom. So the best you can say is that you are making an e1, e2, or e3 map that fits somewhere in the episode, either near the beginning, somewhere in the middle, or near the end.

Done!

"Purgatorio"

Currently replaces E1M1 for convenience. The map is intended to use the E3 sky so ignore the phobos mountains. The music is a placeholder, I want something creepy and intimidating. I was considering settling for Doom 2's D_MESSAG or D_TENSE but i dunno yet.

My initial response immediately was that the BFG's placement makes it feel like a DM map more than a Doom map? :-/ a soul sphere would be more ... classic?.. maybe even more moody. The first room looks really good tho! Just one man's initial impression, tho... after playing through the map I very well may have a different one.

My second impression is that it's a bit on the easy side! Doom from pistol start isn't that easy! I would hate to be able to blaze through this map too quickly. First looks look awesome.

Took some of your ideas into consideration. Updated link.

The map is now E3M1 so it uses the E3 sky, I intend for the map to be somewhere toward the end of the episode though. Changed the music to D_DEAD. Included multiplayer items and deathmatch starts. Upped the difficulty a little with some more monsters, additional traps, less ammo, etc. I changed the BFG9000 to a soulsphere as you suggested. I thought it was a bit of a nerf at first but it depends on how easy that secret is to find. Changed the lighting and texturing a wee bit, added some support textures where necessary.

Purgatorio

Sorry to double post but I'm concerned about people's opinions on my maps and am interested to hear suggestions on how to make them feel more like official id software stuff made in 1993. I don't wanna rest until it's perfect!

Untitled E1 Map

and Purgatorio linked in the above post.

Sorry I didn't reply earlier. I am currently choking midst the tendrils of calculus, physics and chemistry.

I liked the e3 map. I keep thinking about what an official doom map is. And the more I think about it and the more I look at attempts at mimicking id's style, the more I appreciate id's original doom maps, and the more I think it's not just nostalgia, but maybe the maps actually have some intrinsic merit that exists independent of their novelty when they were released in 1993.

I've been trying to formulate an articulate critique of your maps. I like this project because on the one hand, it's straightforward, but on the other, it is not at all simple and is a much greater challenge than it appears on the surface.

The easiest way I know how to give constructive criticism is to be blunt--the more criticism, the more there is to fix, the better the map can be, right? So I apologize ahead of time if my criticisms seem overly harsh. I just want to make sure that my points are clear.

I think one thing your maps suffer from a little bit thus far is a sense of homogeneity, ie, too many areas aren't distinct enough from other areas, despite the high level of creativity in your maps. This is something I didn't like about Episode 4--lot of creativity, but too much homogeneity. I really liked how your E3 map starts out. It is top notch. But some of the areas later on left something to be desired. I felt the snake floor/pipe wall area was the weakest part of the map. It didn't feel true to DooM and struck me as lazy map design. Whatever concept you had in mind for it (to me it isn't anything more than a random maze with a snake floor) I think the concept needs to be better developed or rethought. It didn't have an effect on me of the right kind, which brings me to my next point.

I'm realizing something about the original Doom maps. They did a good job of having a certain type of effect on you at different places, and every map had something novel about it that made it unique. The red skin area at the beginning of E3M3 had an effect on me of the right kind, but your snake/pipe area doesn't quite. The blood on E3M3 where you get the soul sphere and BFG is a very clever layout design--it is the right size and shape. The floor crusher deep in the bowels of E2M4... the drop down area at the false exit of E2M7... the zombieman room and water separation on E2M5... the BFG closet on E2M4... and many more... are examples of areas that have a good atmospheric/emotional effect. The overall designs of most id maps have an effect on me as well, but the overall layout of your e1 map not as much (although I think your e3 map is pretty good in this respect, but maybe would be improved if the homogeneity is also improved). For example, E3M7's layout produces a certain effect. The fulcrum of the map is the lake of blood with an island in the center and more lake behind it. It also divides the level into two halves. This whole setup, along with the key puzzle, has a peculiar, hellish effect (even one of limbo, being stuck in that hellish place, trying to escape).

Your puzzles are good. I liked the one with the switches. The layout of this area was a bit square (I realize it has echoes of E3M7 maze) but maybe the layout here could be tweaked slightly or improved? Maybe a kink in the wide hallways so that there is a narrow passage through at a point or something. The texturing of this area is okay, but maybe could be improved. You make great use of pulsing lights in many places, but here it seemed a little out of place.

I didn't really like how remote the switches were from the lowering of skull keys. Maybe you could have the switch that lowers the yellow key lower a wall near the yellow key instead, that reveals a switch that lowers the yellow key. ie: similar to the setup at the end of e3m4 when you get the blue armor, but instead the wall lowers from the remote switch that lowers the yellow key in your map.

I'm not sure brown144 is appropriate as a hallway texture. I also didn't feel like your use of gray brick for the floor of those steps and surrounding floors was the best choice.

The green armor area I think needs a little work as far as textures go.

I really hope I am not the only one who is going to give feedback on others' maps. I know others have insightful things to say, and if you disagree with me, I want to hear your arguments, and your justifications for your point of view.

Finally, monster count. Most levels in Doom have < 100 monsters (I think yours has 185), and yet all doom levels are still fairly challenging from a pistol start. You have a swarm of imps at the beginning, but perhaps due to spaciousness of your map, or something with the layout, they are fairly easy to deal with. Contrast this with the swarm of demons at the beginning of E3M7 that is so memorable and so difficult to deal with! So something everyone should be thinking about : how are you using space to make the gameplay fun and challenging without resorting to pumping tons of monsters into your map? Go through some doom maps and notice how few most levels' monster counts are.

Your monster use also suffers from this idea of homogeneity or repetitiveness. Id did a good job with monster use: demons on a raised platform (e2m1), lost soul cachés (e3m1, e3m6) baron of hell placements that have the sense of dominion of an area or place (e2m3) or of being in a place that is particularly fell (e2m4 at the soul sphere near the bfg). I always felt barons of hell should never feel like just another monster roaming around. Often there is a baron face near a baron of hell.

One final thing to say on homogeneity. I realize Limbo (E3M7) is an extremely homogeneous map as far as texturing and design. But the map has such a singular vision and focus in its design that it totally works as a novel map in the episode.

Anyway, you're on the right track and your efforts are showing a lot of promise. One last thing, maybe check the size of your e3 level against the size of later Doom e3 levels. Maybe I should have been stressing this more, but.. Doom is small! We shall not forget it.
Holy shit how did I write such a long wall of text /facepalm/english major.

homogeneity:
1. composed of similar or identical parts or elements
2. of uniform nature
3. similar in kind or nature
4. having a constant property, such as density, throughout

send the first release of my e3m1\m2\m3\m4\whatever map via pm to hellbent, feedback is highly appreciated...

First impressions from the first part of the map:

Very interesting layout. Very creative and well implemented. I like the 'feel' and atmosphere it produces. I really like the little lava bridge. Overall, the map is a bit sprawling for an original Doom map (read the last part of my really long post I just made). Also, it looks more like a replacement map than a 'discovered' map if you know what I mean.

Difficulty is WAY too easy, but I guess you knew that. I struggle pistol start on doom's e3m2, and I know the map like the back of its hand and have played the map tens of dozens of times. Before you make any changes, let me play through your whole map. (I may not get a chance until tomorrow).

EDIT: I went through the door at the end of the first lava bridge... you remade different parts of e3m3 and made then made them slightly different. While it's kinda cool to mash different parts of e3m3 together like that, it's not really what this project is about.

There are no map slots per se. Think of it like this: doom was originally 10 level episodes, and from each of those episodes one of the maps was lost. One day, someone found the three maps and recognized that they were made by id by carefully studying the maps. They then placed the maps as best as they could in each of the episodes they belonged between the mapslots they felt was most fitting. This is where you come in. You get to make the map that was 'lost' and get to decide where in the episode you would like for it to be missing from. So it could be from the beginning of the episode, the middle, or the end, but it does not replace an existing map slot in the episode. So the best you can say is that you are making an e1, e2, or e3 map that fits somewhere in the episode, either near the beginning, somewhere in the middle, or near the end.

Remember you are not making a map to replace an existing map in an episode, but rather, a map that could be as though a 'lost' map from the episode (like a tenth level that could fit somewhere in the episode, either near the beginning, near the middle, or near the end of the episode.)

EDIT: Your original stuff is great. Delete all the "homages" and work with the original stuff! No homages from now on. Just original stuff. You are very creative and show that you can do it--so as nicely as you have implemented the 'homages' they are WAY too close to copies of their e3m3 counterparts. Delete them all and leave all your original stuff and work from there. You've done well minus the homages.

Thanks for the feedback Hellbent...

A PM has been sent to lucky Mr. Bent featuring the first release of "Ecology Control", my middle stage episode 2 map for the project. For those unfortunate souls who cannot play the level however, here are a couple of shots taken in Choco-Doom to sate yourselves with: One of some random toxic area, one of me getting raped, and another of some crazy-ass hallway with a tree in it. Feast your eyes!

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/1130/dtwid201.png
http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/1604/dtwid202.png
http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8724/dtwid203.png

Criticism is not only expected, but encouraged. Verbally abuse me 'till your heart's content.

I think it has too much detail.

You could be right I guess. Certainly from looking at the second and third shots it looks a bit heaped on. Thankfully though it's kind of easier to tone down from a higher level of detail than it is to tone into it without losing the atmosphere of the room/area. That seems to be largely down to lighting, texture selection, shaping and height variation. I'll see what Hellbent has to say once he gets round to playing through it. Should be interesting.

Sigvatr said:

I think it has too much detail.

same thing here, downgrade it a little...

Purgatorio was great, it really catched the doom feel. It's better than the E3 maps, and when i played this, i felt like. Hell, This is the way E3 should have been (no pun intended). Because IMO it looked better and played better.

Stuff to change would definitley be the outside area, change it to a more E3M2 outside area or something similar, and remove the light flicker.
As was already mentioned aswell was, maybe vary the areas look a little bit, with the grey and red brick variants instead for example. that would already change it enough.
As long as you keep away from the ID E3 where the texturing was so random so it really killed the felling. (the random startan and
For me E3 was such a failiure(except for mr erebus which was neat). If Purgatorio would have been a map in E3, it would definitley have been ranked higher for me :P


Also i might just make a E3 map aswell. if not E2.

st.alfonzo said:

Feast your eyes!

These shots look pretty great, although due to the blurry-ness of them its hard for me to tell whats going on in the background, perhaps a bit too much detail, but thats easily rectified

Excellent map St. Alfonzo! Wow, that is some great stuff! Some very creative stuff and a really neat layout.

Some of the texturing and structures were a little haphazard. The room with the fire and the green armor and lava ceiling was pretty cool, but not quite right somehow--looks a little off or something. The homages were well impemented, but this project is having waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy too many homages. No one is to make ANYMORE HOMAGES.

The e2m6 area was very nice, but really too much of an echo of e2m6. It will be some work, but if you can manage it, it would be really great to change the areas that are homages or echoes of other areas in id maps. Some changes will be easier: for instance, you can easily change the three pipes pillars to metal or metal1 or brown96 or what have you.

The length of the map. I really liked the length of it, but despite its length, it's still easy to blaze through. The difficulty of the map was a bit low. The layout is easy to navigate and manage the baddies in. The flow of the map is great, but the fact that it is too easy isn't so good. Also, it isn't quite in line with the project's thinking of a map just like id's if the map is 200k and an id map is I guess around 40-60k. Somehow id maps take some time to get through even though they are not that big. Something in how they make use of space. We all need to study this more to get a better understanding of it. I'm not quite sure how to articulate it just yet.

I very much liked how different areas connected to others. Overall, it is a very good map. But it does need work (as is expected in this project).

Hellbent said:

No one is to make ANYMORE HOMAGES.

All right...

Whatever in these days i working on the map and the main things i did is... just erasing the e3m3 parts. Just that.

Hahahaha, I'm going to have to remember that line.

Today's highlight on id mapping: pay attention to id's use of lights. Lights often bring attention to where you need to go and often light up divisions between two areas.

Notice how cramped e3 levels are. Especially how cacodemons often get crammed in tight places. They are used in similar fashion on e3m4 and e3m5. On e3m4, before the room where you find the bfg, there are like 3 cacodemons in the tight gstone quarters. In e3m5 there are several cacodemons in the part of the level with the divider walls near the plasma rifle room. So you might want to examine the use of space and the size of sectors and how monsters are placed in those small rooms in the levels from the episode you are editing for.

my try at making a E3 id styled map, still in the works.
(sorry the image might be rather big :|)

Nice!

A DB shot dosn't show much, so heres some ingame pictures. Some texture changes might still happen, havn't focused much on flats right now, i can do that later.


http://oi52.tinypic.com/2z5oc9g.jpg
http://oi55.tinypic.com/aaxjdi.jpg

Heres a E3-ish midi i made just for fun
http://www.speedyshare.com/files/25286927/E3-1.mid

Heres a try at "improving" one of the unreleased doom songs.
http://www.speedyshare.com/files/25285571/un39icy.mid

Not really happy about the outcome of them, but if interest is shown, i might try to improve them :P

Interesting snippets from The Masters of Doom that mappers could potentially use to their advantage.

Why Tom Hall was an outcast

Despite the Enthusiasm, the two Johns were still not happy with Tom's work. Tom had taken Carmack's advice to study military architecture too much to heart. The levels created had the banality of a real life military base. He stuck stubbornly close to the scenario of his Doom Bible, creating a room, even, that showed a group of soldiers sitting around a table playing cards. Many of the rooms looked like actual offices and file cabinets, Tom was trying to appease Carmack at the expense of the game, Romero thought. So he decided to show how the design should be done, even if that meant Carmack was going to have to make his code faster.

Romero retired to his office, cranked up Dokken, and got to work. Hours into the night, he pointed and clicked, dragged and dropped, creating lines on his map editor, switching back and forth into the first person point of view. He knew what he was going for: To break out of the concrete box-like military bunkers and into something else, something big, expansive, twisting, weird, and abstract. After a series of late nights, the world emerged just as Romero wanted it. And when he pulled the others into his office, they stepped inside.

It began in a room with a low gray ceiling but angled walls. Walking to the front right, they came to a wall with slats in it, open spaces that revealed an outdoor vista, a sky, but no apparent way to get out. Two large lights stripped the opening of a hallway. It seemed like the way to go. As one walked down the hall, the rooms opened up to a plank leading outdoors. There was a gray sky overhead. Mountains off in the distance. But as one moved, the path only led back inside, now into a room with higher walls than the first. Lights flashed from overhead as a flurry of Former Humans -- zombie soldiers possessed by demons -- unleashed rounds of fire, emerging from the shadows with bloodstained chests. When Romero was through, everyone agreed. Tom's banal levels were out. Romero's were in. This was the design. This was DOOM,

Doom's pace

Shot in a photorealistic manner, Myst set players on a mysterious abandoned island, where they were to explore strange rooms and machines and unlock the secret of their inventor, a man named Atrus. Like Doom, Myst unfolded from a first-person point of view. But in Myst, players didn't run or, for that matter, crawl. They just slowly flowed; clicking a space or item before them would gracefully fade one setting to the next. "It's brilliantly designed and rendered 3-D images" Wired magazine raved, "and its funhouse world of mazes, puzzles, and human intrigues will certainly set a new standard for this type of adventure game.

Id hated Myst. It had none of the elements they liked: no real-time interaction, no pace, no fear, no action. If Myst was like Shakespeare, Doom was going to be Stephen King. With Carmack's engine in gear, the rest of the team buckled down and finished elements of the game.

Level Design

With the guns and monsters and gore, Sandy and Romero went to town on the levels. Romero found his voice in Doom. He loved everything about the game, the speed, the fear, the suspense, and he tried to play it all up. Romero's levels were deliberately paced. As level designer, he was responsible for not only designing the architecture of the environments, but also choosing where to put monsters, weapons, bonus items and objects; it was like being a theater director and a haunted mansion creator all at once.

Romero relished the roles. In a level of his, a player might run into a room and see a window leading outside but wouldn't know how to go there. So the player would run down a room, music pumping, looking for a way. A door would slide open and BOOM! there'd be a howling Imp. Blast that monster down, run down a brown spotted corridor, open another door, and BLAM! another herd of beasts. Romero had a knack for staging the battles, letting the player win one small round and then pummeling him with a storm of enemies.

While Romero was raw and brutal, Sandy was cerebral and strategic. One level was littered with green barrels that, when shot, would explode. Sandy made levels in which the only way to kill a monster was to shoot a barrel at the perfect moment. His levels were not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as Romero's; in fact, some of the id guys thought they were downright ugly, but they were undeniably fun and fiendish. They complemented Romero's well.