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Dragonsbrethren

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

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fenderc01 said:

I can't seem to reproduce this bug.


Bad wording, it's not the bars at all -- just backpedal immediately as the map starts however, and you'll go straight between the barriers that normally need lowering via the two switches found to the left and right, through the two main doors ahead of the start position.

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Dragonsbrethren said:

PSX Doom: The Lost Levels is a community project that will do just that, attempting to make authentic conversions of maps from all of the classic Doom games.

As Gez put it, this is sort of a "Doom the Way Williams Did", and we're aiming for authenticity. Unfortunately, since we can't target the original engine, we can't be 100% certain our conversions would have run on it.

How accurate are you aiming here? I can help with this, as I know a lot about the PlayStation, along with PSX Doom and what it can and can't handle as far as levels goes.

I ask because this can get pretty involved, pretty fast. These levels (sans the normal Doom levels that were omitted from the Jaguar port) were left out of the game for a reason. They are very complex versus the levels that made it in, and some of those featured some pretty extensive changes to their level of detail (especially for levels like Perfect Hatred).

Just making a couple of minor changes to the design of the maps is not going to cut it if you want to be as accurate as possible. These maps are going to need extensive changes to the way they are designed in order even have a chance of them running in PSX Doom.

Here are a couple of basic tips from the original post that I have expanded upon to help start things off.




Limitations on Heights:
PSX Doom has a limit on wall heights. The engine will only vertically tile a texture one time. Because of this, changes in sector height need to be kept to a limit of 256 map units; ceiling and floor heights are exclusive.

So, for example, this room is O.K. (although I'd advise against this for framerate purposes)



This room is NOT:



This is why if you look at some maps in PSX Doom you will see that there are some zero height sectors that surround certain rooms (like the yellow key area in Heck, or the southernmost room in Unto the Cruel). This way the engine is actually rendering two walls that are equal to or less than 256 units in height instead of one that is over. This doubles the polygon count for that wall and has a negative toll on the framerate, so I would advise avoiding it unless it is regulated to one or two small walls or the room is otherwise simple and can not be seen from any other rooms (note how in Unto the Cruel this southernmost room is moved east a bit to get it out of view).

So what would happen if you actually tried to make a room that tall? This (this is simulated, obviously :p):



The engine would just stretch the texture to fit the wall. You can see an example of this in Heck. First, go to the yellow key area, but do not grab the yellow key. Instead, go over to the wall that opens up and releases some monsters into the room when you pick up the yellow key. Whereas the rest of the room uses the 0 height sector trick to get higher walls, this particular place can not, since it is a door. So this texture is stretched to the fit the wall. It's most noticeable if you get up as close as you can to the door and stand near its edge and compare it to the regular wall next to it.

Here is some screens of Heck for those of you who do not have the game:







Stairs:
Let us look at this map shot from E4M8 for a moment:

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/7986/psxe4m8.png

First off, you should notice the areas circled in blue are highlighting the zero height sectors we talked about in the last section.

For this section, let us concentrate on the stuff circled in red. Notice how most of these are stairs, and how they are simplified in the PSX version. Many times, this is done to lower areas to get rooms under the 256 height limit. However, this is also done because lots of splits in walls and floors will wreck havoc on PSX Doom's framerate (as is primarily the case in E4M8).

Typically, for example, if a staircase was made up of many steps that were 8 units high a piece, it would be made into fewer steps that were 16 units high a piece. If a staircase was already 16 units high a piece in PC Doom, how they approached it varies and it becomes more of a judgment call. If an area was too tall, then they would lower it, thus requiring less steps. Sometimes they would just leave them as is.




Windows:
Don't be afraid to remove or drastically shrink windows to block view of complex areas.




Sky Exits: (Sky on the ground)
All sky exits were removed in PSX Doom and replaced (usually) with exit teleporters. Reason being is that skies do not tile vertically at all, therefore there is no sky down there to show.




Monster variety:
Due to memory constraints PSX Doom typically has less monster variety compared to PC Doom. Considering there are a lot of factors that determine how many monster types you can have in a map (IE how many objects you have, how big the map is, etc) an exact amount is near impossible to determine.

I have, however, made this very basic chart to help you gauge whether you have too many monster types or not. This chart errs towards being somewhat lax.


Demon/Spectre/Nightmare Spectre - 4 points
Imp - 2.5 points
Trooper - 2 points
Sergeant - 2 points
Chaingunner - 3.5 points
Lost Soul - 1 point
Cacodemon - 3 points
Pain Elemental - 3.5 points
Arachnotron - 6 points
Hell Knight - 4 points
Baron of Hell - 4 points
Revenant - 8 points
Mancubus - 6.5 points
Cyberdemon - 12 points
Spiderdemon - 22 points
____________________________
Total can be used - 26 points




NEW CONTENT ADDED - 12/19/2012

Simplifying 2 sided linedefs:
Moving back to something I forgot to cover in my initial post, let's go back to the E4M8 picture above one more time. This time we'll take a look at the areas circled in magenta; these are places where curves consisting of 2 sided linedefs are simplified. Unless the area is small and well contained, then you should probably do this as well.

Don't bother simplifying one sided linedefs, however, there the benefits in framerate are negligible at best. Only in a few instances in really complex rooms (like E4M2/MAP25 - Perfect Hatred) did the team do this, and even then the benefits were near zero.




I will try to cover some more things (like Arch-Viles, the consolization process, using ChocoRenderLimits for guidance, etc.) when I get some more time.

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Nuxius said:

-A hell of a lot of technical stuff-


*watches bonfire get pissed on*

Seriously though, thanks for the info. This should go a long way in making the project much closer to the original intention (and most likely explains why PSX Final Doom had no Spider Masterminds in any levels whatsoever).

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I should get back around to editing my map so it meets the requirements fully, I just don't have much time yet.

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This is fascinating... it's good to finally see a technical breakdown of PSX Doom, and your comparison screenies are excellent. I'd never have noticed the difference since I play the original maps on the PSX, and only play the "aftermarket" wads on the PC.

Can't wait to see a breakdown of why the Archie was chopped, not that I miss him. Has anyone got any information on the PSX Arch-Vile sound files? He probably sounded horrific, given how all monsters generally sound tougher and more frightening on the PSX.

Can someone do this for the N64 version as well?

EDIT: This is a useful guide as I wanted to do a PSX-style map of my own. Are the Spectre/Demon/Nightmare Spectre 4 points per species, or 4 points in total for 1-3 species?

Baron of Hell - 4 points
Spiderdemon - 22 points
____________________________
Total can be used - 26 points


I see what you did there ;)

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MajorRawne said:

Can't wait to see a breakdown of why the Archie was chopped

Arch-Vile - 50 points*

*Note: I just made that number up, but you can imagine what it would be. :)

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MajorRawne said:

EDIT: This is a useful guide as I wanted to do a PSX-style map of my own. Are the Spectre/Demon/Nightmare Spectre 4 points per species, or 4 points in total for 1-3 species?

They all use the same sprite set, so they count as only one.

The idea is to compute the total memory imprint of a sprite set, which can be computed by making the sum total of all their pixel counts (width * height). The spiderdemon is so expensive because it's so large. The arch-vile is expensive because it has a lot of frames.

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Thank you so much for that Nuxius, I was completely unaware of the wall tiling issue and I'm going to have to take a look at my maps to see if they comply. Ideally, we'd be so accurate as to have these ports work on the original engine, although I'm sure that wouldn't be the case for the huge levels. (I suspect everything in Ultimate/Doom 2 was dropped for a reason. Not so convinced about Final Doom). If there are any other limitations we're unintentionally ignoring, don't hesitate to make them known.

I'm going to put a link to your post in the OP, before all of those guidelines the rest of us came up with.

Edit: Any limitation on translucent textures? Power Control is using a ton of them at the moment.

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Edit: Well I've already done quite some progress with Baron's Den, I will upload it soon.

I would like to take a stab at Baron's Den.

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Jesus Christ this Wolfenstein bollocks is taking me forever.

I know I'm lazy, but even by my standards I am taking too long. Whatever, have some (garish) screens, because it's nearly done (a few texture issues aside)!

Apologies for such a long list...

http://imageshack.us/a/img685/8632/psxwolf01.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img9/8227/psxwolf02.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img138/8991/psxwolf03.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img96/8537/psxwolf04.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img138/4516/psxwolf05.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img6/6327/psxwolf06.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img341/4431/psxwolf07.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img14/7177/psxwolf08.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img43/5376/psxwolf09.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img171/9250/psxwolf10.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img819/3157/psxwolf11.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img23/6027/psxwolf12.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img100/8972/psxwolf13.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img706/8751/psxwolf14.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img838/6295/psxwolf15.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img62/5595/psxwolf16.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img694/5795/psxwolf17.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img197/1792/psxwolf18.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img20/7756/psxwolf19.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img841/1967/psxwolf20.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img7/284/psxwolf21.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img703/4602/psxwolf22.png

Yeah, yeah, I know. It doesn't quite adhere to the guidelines regarding monster variety or limiting visibility, but cut me some slack here. Turning what was essentially a series of 128-high blocks into something not-quite-so-blocky with various height differences was difficult, in the sense that it was eventually tedious to try and think of ways to keep it interesting enough without turning it into anything near an unwanted (and unworkable) 'sector soup'.

I'll upload a test/demo soon for feedback.

Also, while I am here, I'll take a shot at converting all the MAP30 slots. Short and to the point, it shouldn't take much time or effort to alter them enough in order to fit the requirements -- although I need to know what we're doing about not having any BossBrain objects or the ZZZFACExx textures. Or are we making exceptions? I can work with either scenario.

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Honestly it does look a little over detailed for PSX Doom. At the same time I definitely like what you've done, since I can't really identify it as being based on Wolfenstein from the screenshots.

I'm not sure what to do with the MAP30s yet. We'd definitely need a new monster spawner with less variety if we keep the final boss. If not, I don't know what to do with them. If we wanted to do it only using what the real PSX engine supports, I'd say set up a bunch of monster teleports, but I don't know what to do for the boss itself. Using the face textures from PC Doom is fine.

If you do Icon of Sin please make the fluid textures/flats consistent. That's always made that level look horrible compared to what it should (Sandy~!).

Avoozl: I haven't tried your map yet, is it ready to be put in the OP?

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I can simplify a few sections if need be, it's always much easier to remove bits of detail rather than add more.

But yeah... that's pretty much it finished. About bloody time, I can get back to the simple conversions.

Oh, and I intend to keep textures/flats consistently one colour. I hated that awkward mix too, although I suppose blood + nukage = shit in some way?

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Avoozl, I gave Baron's Den a go. Seems like a pretty good conversion, I'd recommend simplifying a few of the curved areas like the one near the start (those always seemed overdone even on the DOS engine). Also the lifts near the end are too tall.

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I've been thinking; instead of having three separate MAP30 conversions, would it be better to mash them all into one file? Not that I advocate cutting corners; it's just that with all three maps assuming that one MAP30 slot in the original game (and having the same overall goal), it would be somewhat tedious (and peculiar) to have them all so close to each other.

It's easy enough to mix them into one long map (start with Last Call and end with Icon Of Sin), only a few edits for this would actually be needed.

(I only ask this as I went and occupied all three MAP30 slots; I'm not trying to cut corners [my Wolfenstein edit should prove that], but for the sake of not making a bunch of redundant things it should at least be considered.)

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Gez said:

The idea is to compute the total memory imprint of a sprite set, which can be computed by making the sum total of all their pixel counts (width * height). The spiderdemon is so expensive because it's so large. The arch-vile is expensive because it has a lot of frames.

Bingo. ;)


Dragonsbrethren said:

Thank you so much for that Nuxius, I was completely unaware of the wall tiling issue...

I don't think anyone was. Or if they were, they certainly never shared this info with anyone.

Dragonsbrethren said:

I suspect everything in Ultimate/Doom 2 was dropped for a reason. Not so convinced about Final Doom.

I think the stuff from Final Doom was dropped for valid reasons as well, hence why they decided to include the Master Levels as part of the package.

Dragonsbrethren said:

If there are any other limitations we're unintentionally ignoring, don't hesitate to make them known.

I'll try to get through them all when I get the chance.

Dragonsbrethren said:

Any limitation on translucent textures? Power Control is using a ton of them at the moment.

Depends on how they're used. I'd have to see the map first. However, outside of Club Doom, they weren't exactly "generously used".


fenderc01 said:

They Will Repent updated to new specs:
http://www.mediafire.com/?5ldahhdki0j39pc

Looks great! A few things I would recommend:

A)simplify the stairs (change them from more 8 unit high steps to fewer 16 unit high steps)
B)simplify the curves on the walkways in the area with the blue key door (I circled this in magenta in my E4M8 map shot and forgot to cover it in my post [oops!] Sorry about that guys!)
C)do something with the window over the exit room to stop the player from skipping the yellow key and just jumping through the window right to the exit. Yeah, it was like that in the original, but I imagine the PSX Doom team probably would have fixed it.


Avoozl said:

Alright, here's an upload of what I've done so far with Baron's Den:

Looking forward to taking a look at it.



MAP30 and Wolfenstein stuff:
I actually have a lot to say about this, but not much time right now (heh). Hopefully Wednesday I'll have more time. Regardless, on combining all the MAP30's into one Icon of Sin map, I say go for it, BaronOfStuff.


Spirit World:
Sign me up for this one, please. Should be fairly easy; not exactly sure why it wasn't included in the first place.


Odyssey of Noises:
Anyone want to co-author this one with me? Getting this down to PSX Doom levels without altering it too much is going to be a bit of work, so I'm not sure if I'll feel like putting the PSX Doom textures in and adding all the lighting when I'm done it. Like to have a person to hand it over too if I don't for whatever reason.

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Nuxius said:

do something with the window over the exit room to stop the player from skipping the yellow key and just jumping through the window right to the exit. Yeah, it was like that in the original, but I imagine the PSX Doom team probably would have fixed it.

I thought about doing that too, but how would the player get to the BFG?

EDIT:
I guess I could put a step on the southwest corner of the area with the exit switch.

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fenderc01 said:

I thought about doing that too, but how would the player get to the BFG?


Close it with a new sector inside the window (like a shutter or something) that opens with the Yellow Door. The sound of this opening up wouldn't be immediately obvious, but players would still hear something else open with the door -- seeing the BFG would (should) make them go back and check around.

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Looks very good.

I had ideas in my head of a PSX Twzone.wad TC myself and other selected maps made by me.

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Finished up Power Control. I avoided the translucent line issue by removing all of the windows looking into the large round outdoor area. I also toned down the light sourcing dramatically. Curved geometry has also been simplified. Nuxius, I'd like your opinion on this one especially. (Looking forward to the rest of your guide.)

http://dkk.slickproductions.org/files/doom/psx/tmap03.zip

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Dragonsbrethren uploaded:
Power Control


Very nice. I did encounter one gamebreaking bug while waiting around on the raising bridge in the Yellow Keycard room though -- as I am one of those players who'll automatically 'hug' the walls without thinking, the bridge doesn't raise all the way if I block the floor's movement:


This can easily be fixed by making the linedef impassable.

Other than that, I found no problems.

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PSX Wolfenstein/The Castle:
http://speedy.sh/wyxPf/psxwolfenstein.wad

It's had a few minor changes made, largely to a certain secret area, and should be bug-free. Uses the MAP121 mapslot, secret exit leads to MAP122.

EDIT:
Another map that might be worthy of consideration for 'conversion' is the PC version of House Of Pain (E3M4); several bits and pieces of it are missing in the PSX map, and the endings to each version are completely different too. I know it's somewhat redundant to bother with, but for shits and giggles it might be worth a look.

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Odyssey of Noises could simplify the collapsed outdoor areas so that instead of a crevasse, it's simply a lava pool. This doesn't have the same visual appeal but sounds like something they would have done.

Processing Area (Final Doom level 20) features a building with tall areas, and that map scared the crap out of me with the creepy music and its brutal difficulty from a pistol start. Maybe you could use that music and this visual style for Odyssey of Noises. The contrast between PC Doom's jaunty E1M1 track, and the Playstation's dark, abandoned-city sound would serve to highlight the difference in tone between the two versions: PC Doom is an action shooter with some jolly tunes, PSX Doom is dark, frightening and lonely.

I'd help without hesitation... if I even had a clue how to go about doing this :P

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MajorRawne said:

I'd help without hesitation... if I even had a clue how to go about doing this :P


Same. Sad really :S

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Here's some early WIP nonsense of what I'm cutting up and hacking the shit out of for the 'IOS' map:


You can probably guess what I have in mind at this point for this section.

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