The Chaos Crew

2002

December 12, 2002

You know, Doomworld forums are cool. Check out the blue key area of Phobos: Anomaly Reborn level 6:

I like transparent water, don't you? Now, if I could only find some way to PASTE THESE DAMN SECTORS into my original file...

- Lutz

December 2, 2002

I...live...AGAIN!

Of course, that isn't exactly accurate -- I've been living for quite some time. However, it's certainly appropriate with respect to my involvement with the Doom community, since I have been gone for about six months. Not that I need to justify anything, but here's what I have been up to:

Finishing my Master's Thesis: Yep, I am soon to be an official holder of a Master of Science (Computer Science; focus on Computer Graphics) from the University of Virginia. Whee. I still have a little work to do on the paper, but everything should be done by the end of the week. Now, I don't suppose anyone really cares, but here's a link to the project site: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/Monticello/. And if anyone needs any software designed to facilitate the process of manually repairing/editing laser rangefinder images by employing traditional computer painting metaphors, I might be able to hook you up.

Moving: So I'm now in St. Louis, MO, hanging out with the same gorgeous five-foot-three blond woman I've been hanging out with for over five years now. I tell you, this whole "dating when both of you are in the same zip code" thing is pretty cool.

Trying to Find a Job: So I'm now in St. Louis, MO. Hire me. (PLEASE! -- it's to the point where it really isn't funny anymore!)

And finally, PAR Level 6: This is all you care about, isn't it? You can be honest, it's okay. (Cretins)

Yes, Phobos: Anomaly Reborn may actually be completed by the end of the year. I don't know where Nokturnus has gone, but I haven't heard from him in at least 8 months (not that I am complaining; I really don't have the right to, anyway), so I have started building my own version of level 6. And yes, I have some pretty pictures; however, I should tell you that the level less than 50% completed, so these might change. Also, I know that they all kind of look the same -- I'm working on that. Anyway, here you go:

Finally, I need to apologize to the Mordeth team -- I really have let you all down, and I am sorry. I'll go ahead and blame Real Life (TM), but know that I do feel pretty damn bad about disappearing like I did.

Well, that's about it. Joel, if you are out there, send me an e-mail and let me know what's up.

- Lutz

May 4, 2002

So the obvious question -- what now?

For those of you unsure of exactly what I mean, Caverns of Darkness has been released, to generally positive reviews. I was surprised at how many people had problems with the engine, but that aside, most people seemed to enjoy the levels and the gameplay. Anyway, the Games page has been updated with a correct link, which is this here:

ftp://despayre.org/pub/games/doom/wads/cc-cod.zip
http://www.gginc.co.nz/downloads/cod10src.zip - Source code
http://www.gginc.co.nz/downloads/cwsdpmi.zip - Memory manager

So, back to were we started -- what now? Well, Joel and I are both committed to two other projects: Mordeth and Millennium. Joel is once again working his coding magic for both projects, while I'm just making a level for each.

Also, Phobos: Anomaly Reborn remains to be completed. The good news is that Nokturnus has returned from the dead, and sent me an early version of level 6 to clean-up; the bad news is that I am never going to be able to complete his vision. I design levels one area at a time, and rarely move on to build "the next room" until I'm satisfied with the current one. Nok, on the other hand, builds almost all of the geometry first before correctly texturing or even adjusting floor/ceiling heights. What he sent looks like it could be amazing (and if you've played levels 4 & 9 of CoD you'll know just how amazing), but it is too overwhelming for me to work with.

We've discussed a couple options, the most obvious (and probable) being "Me starting from scratch" and/or "Nok finds the time to finish the level." Recently, he implied that he was going to try, but didn't really promise anything definite (that whole "Real Life" thing is a giant pain in the ass). Given my other commitments, I wouldn't be able to start a new level for at least a couple months, so there is some time for him to build, but I don't know. I guess we'll just have to see.

That's about all I have to say -- play CoD if you haven't (and if you can't, I've been told that a Win32 port of the Eternity engine will be done "sooner than you think"), and keep sending us feedback...

- Lutz

April 24, 2002

Caverns of Darkness is here -- prepare yourself for 12 awesome levels of mayhem and slaughter beneath a terraformed moon of Saturn. Get it now (or as soon as it's out of the /incoming folder):

ftp://3darchives.in-span.net/pub/idgames/newstuff/cc-cod.zip
ftp://3darchives.in-span.net/.../levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/cc-cod.zip

One of the links above should work. Note that the link above is going to change within the next few days; the file will eventually be removed from the /newstuff folder and put in its final spot. When everything is settled down, the Games page will be updated with the permanent link to the file. If all else fails, browse around the ftp looking for cc-cod.zip.

Send all comments to Lutz (click the link at the bottom of this update); I'll distribute them to the team. Any questions solely related to engine/sound stuff should go to Joel Murdoch -- you can find his address on the Crew page.

Enjoy your demise...

- Lutz

April 15, 2002

Basically, all I am going to say has already been said on Joel's Site, but since I haven't updated this page for a while...eh, why the hell not? So, here's the news, one project at a time:

Caverns of Darkness is no more than 2 weeks from being released (actually, it better be no more than 5 days from being released, but given the amount of time it has taken so far, why bother to under-estimate now?). All I am doing at this point is fine-tuning some maps as Joel fine-tunes the engine. For those of you who hunger mightily for the release of this project (you know who you are), let me assure you that this endless testing is definitely beneficial -- release candidate #3 contained, amongst other things, a bug that spawned an arch-vile right in front of the player when you pressed the 'S' key. So we press on with testing. However, it is looking like release candidate #4 will be the one we consider golden; should that be the case, all I need to do is include the text file and zip it up.

Phobos: Anomaly Reborn has much more static; I've basically been replaying the levels I do have over and over, slowly refining. There has been a major development, though: after going AWOL for 3 months, Nokturnus has emerged from hibernation claiming that (A) he feels pretty bad for letting Real Life supercede Doom, and (B) level 6 is pretty much done. As is my understanding, he should be sending it to me in the very near future in completed form or with detailed instructions as to how to complete it. That is the good news; upon receiving his level, I can patch it up (if need be) and add an ending to level 5 so that it blends into level 6 -- at that point, P:AR will be fully built and ready for final testing.

Also, since I really don't think there will be a better time to announce it, I might as well go ahead and say that I am including a small surprise with the release of P:AR, mainly as an apology for the curious release history of the project. In retrospect, it was pretty silly to release level 1, and then levels 1 through 4, and (eventually) levels 1 through 9; there's a lot of overlap (although I will point out that the first four levels have been slightly modified as per some suggestions I received.) Thus, as a special gift to those of you who have/will diligently download(ed) all three files, I am including a little surprise. What could it be, you ask? --I'll only give you this terrifically broad hint: "Mockery never looked so good." Chuckle, chuckle. Oh, the suspense.

And since I'm rambling, I'll go ahead and say that I have signed up to do levels for both the Mordeth and Millennium projects; Joel has already done a lot of work on both, so now two-thirds of the remaining Chaos Crew members can claim to have helped (though I really haven't done much of anything on either, yet). Consider it our celebration of Doom-Design-Crew unity.

Well, that's all I have to say. Sorry there aren't any pretty pictures to show you this time; we're actually working, so I can't afford to the whopping 30 seconds it takes to fire up the game and take some screenshots...

- Lutz

February 12, 2002

I don't have too much news to report, but I have some kick-ass screenshots of Phobos: Anomaly Reborn level 5 ("The Dig Site" -- hence the bulldozer in the last screenshot). Feast your eyes upon the wonders below...

Pretty cool, huh? I'm am really in the final stages of development on this level -- just some monster placements to finalize, and this baby should be ready to go. At this point, I am waiting on Nokturnus to let me know that he is alive and what he has been working on. Last I heard (two weeks ago), he was about 85% done with level 6 -- now, if he is finished, you could be as little as a month away from 5 more levels of P:AR glory (in addition to updated versions of levels 1 through 4). I'm not going to make any promises -- I haven't heard anything from Nokturnus despite some rather bitchy e-mails on my part -- but who knows? At this rate, P:AR could be out before Caverns of Darkness...

- Lutz

January 21, 2002

Sigh...

I could start this update with a terrifically bad pun -- something like "I'm utterly in the dark about Caverns of Darkness" or "Living up to our group name, Caverns of Darkness is in complete chaos" -- but I won't, so forget I brought it up. My point is that I really don't know too much about the current state of the project; nothing has really changed since the last time this site was updated. I sent out a status-report request today, though, so I should be getting some news soon. I guess we are still waiting on the engine to be completed.

I have brighter news about Phobos: Anomaly Reborn: level 8 is now done. That means that there are only two levels to be created before P:AR is released (and at the rate we're going, it may be done before CoD). Nokturnus has graciously volunteered to create level 6 for me, which means two things: One, P:AR is truly a team effort, and Two, level 6 is going to rock. I don't know how he does it, but Nokturnus has an incredible knack for unfathomable detail and some ingenious texturing skills; looking at his architecture, I constantly think "You know, that doesn't look correct, per se, but it looks right". You'll have to see what I mean.

Anyway, in light this milestone, here are 10 -- that's right, 10 -- screenshots. The first four are LegacyGL shots of level 7; the next three, MBF shots of level 8; and the last three are LegacyGL shots of level 8:

I didn't really plan this when I started the level, but level 8 ended up a lot like "Nullspace" -- the level is floating in an endless black void. For the record, I started this level before the release of Nullspace, so I'm not just blatantly stealing an idea (but Nullspace seemed to make a lot of people happy, so I would welcome comparisons); I was actually more influenced by a level from (I think) the O-L-D "Wheel of Time" conversion (the one with the smaller stone walkways "floating" in blackness). Visual similarities aside, this level plays a lot differently from Nullspace -- hey, it's a boss level, so the concentration is on a few large fights.

Anyway, I'll let everyone know what is going on with Caverns of Darkness as soon as I find out myself.