Computer Map screen

Is it actually based off a level or was it just something random put together?

Interesting question. According to the Doom Wiki, the casing itself "somewhat resembles a Vectrex game console," so that might be a hint as to the source of the images on the screen. Personally, just from looking at the Wikipedia page, I don't see that being the inspiration for the casing.

The images on the screen do definitely look like they could be Doom maps, though. It would be interesting to see what the map creation tools would've looked like to the designer of this power-up, to see if there's any resemblance. For one, there are a bunch of green lines and solid looking sectors, and then some yellow bits - what's that? A selection area maybe?

Anyway, given the low resolution of the sprite, I think it's more likely that the lines were just drawn in whatever art programme id used.

P.S. I found this bad quality gif of the power-up in question, just so everyone doesn't have to open up SLADE3 to refresh their memories: :p

EDIT: I took the liberty of blowing up that image, for those who don't have image zooming plugins on their browsers.

It kind of reminds me of Mt. Erebus if you flipped it on its side.

The rounder frame actually looks a lot like the scrapped E1M5 that had a large round center region.

Seen here: http://toastytech.com/dooma/alpha4.html

Doom marine carrying vectrex in his packback and checking it every so often would look irl hilarious. Also the nightvision goggles are in the same category. Somebody should draw picture of doom marine with computer map in hand wearing nightvision goggles

One of the guys on ZDoom had an avatar of the Doomguy wearing those goggles: it looks like he's watching a 3D movie. :P

Also, that link of Chris's is quite interesting.

A very similar image can be seen on TOMW2_2 patch.

[EDIT]

For comparison:

Waffenak said:

Doom marine carrying vectrex in his packback and checking it every so often would look irl hilarious. Also the nightvision goggles are in the same category. Somebody should draw picture of doom marine with computer map in hand wearing nightvision goggles

What backpack? Everybody knows that Doomguy is actually riding the Balance Field Generator Scooter, which explains his speed, carrying capacity, movement limitations etc.

Here is a picture of the Doom 0.5 alpha intermission screen. I matches up to the computer screen pretty well. The yellow dot corresponds to anom on the intermission screen.

Now someone MUST make an all-in-one map reimagining E1 with that layout.

Maes said:

Now someone MUST make an all-in-one map reimagining E1 with that layout.

Now when you said it... :P

Jaws In Space said:

Here is a picture of the Doom 0.5 alpha intermission screen. I matches up to the computer screen pretty well.

I'm not seeing it. I mean I see what you mean, but it seems like a bit of a stretch of the imagination.

Its a dancing green jelly cacodemon

fraggle said:

it seems like a bit of a stretch of the imagination.

Really? "Ware" "Quart" and "Han" are the only buildings that aren't properly in place / shaped on the map. Other than that I'd say that's exactly what the computer map screen is.

EDIT: Though stupidly, I've been comparing it to the TOMWW_2 patch. But really, the screen is just a low-res version of that. There's only so much you can do with so few pixels.

Well, yeah, that's why I posted a fragment of that texture. It's big enough to actually see what was drawn, and the powerup screen obviously derived from it.

You can clearly see it on frames 2-4, by the way:

that supersized computer mapscreen gives headache. Imagine trying to get some info out of it while the screen if flickering like strobe lights or trying to draw the map from those millisecond glimpses. Ultimate challenge

Also, Real life computer screen game prop would look awesome sitting on shelf. I was today looking for vectrex machines on ebay because somebody mentioned them. Gotta get one of those in my collection someday, those aren't even as expensive as you could imagine 31 year old machine to be.

So for all these years we've been looking at the layout of buildings from the 0.5 alpha intermission screen, nice bit of detective work.

Hey look, a whole thread about my avatar!

I agree, it looks very similar to that alpha level.

Dagmit! It dawned on me what the graphic looked like, so I did a Google search, confirmed my suspicions, scrolled down to post, and noticed that Jaws in Space beat me to it. Welp. :P

Kudos on the find, though! That indeed looks quite plausible, I say.

Yeah when I saw this thread last night the alpha intermission map was the first thing I thought of, but I was thinking it was just the control building, not the entire base. That's pretty cool!

It's odd that no one's ever picked up on it from the texture (or if they have, I've never seen it mentioned before).

I'd love to see an E1 replacement intermission map in that style, to match the automap.

I had a bit of trouble seeing that too, however, the intermission picture has 13 locations:

1. Waste
2. Ref
3. Pow
4. Quart
5. Contr
6. Ware
7. Anom
8. Lab
9. Obs
10. Rec
11. Comm
12. SD
13. Han

And wouldn't ya know it, the Computer Map screen wall texture has thirteen (albeit, illegible) bullet points next to the map.

And another layer of Doom is peeled back. Someone should uptade the wiki with this 'finding'

40oz said:

I had a bit of trouble seeing that too, however, the intermission picture has 13 locations:
...
And wouldn't ya know it, the Computer Map screen wall texture has thirteen (albeit, illegible) bullet points next to the map.

I see eleven of them:

For those having a hard time seeing the resemblance I went ahead & labeled the map.



1. Han = E2M7
2. SD = E2M2
3. Waste = E2M3
4. Com = E1M7
5. Rec = E1M6
6. Quart = E1M4
7. Contr = E1M2
8. Pow = E1M2
9. Lab = E3M3
10. Obs = Scraped (see 0.4 alpha)
11. Ware = Scraped (see 0.4 alpha)
12. Anom = E1M8
13. Ref = E1M3

With information Gathered from the Doom wiki, The Doom Bible, & Here I believe these are the maps that go with the names.

No, the actual maps are:

- Han = E2M7
- SD = E2M2
- Waste = E2M3
- Com = E1M6
- Rec = MAP10 (Doom 2)
- Quart = E1M7
- Contr = E2M4
- Pow = E1M2
- Lab = E3M3
- Obs = E1M10 (0.4 Alpha)
- Ware = E1M11 (0.4 Alpha)
- Anom = E1M8
- Ref = E1M3

I know because I've spent too much free time with them lol

I'm primarily basing my list off of the Doom bible & the 0.4 alpha. I can see why you put E1M7 as quarters(aka Enlisted quarters from the Doom bible), but I believe that Enlisted Quarters was simply not included in the 0.4 alpha because they already had the E1M4(aka Officers Quarters from the doom bible). Having E1M7 as Quarters would have led you to labeling E1M6 as com. Now here you get really messed up, E1M6 is level 5 of the 0.4 alpha, but Doom2 Map10 is level 6 of the 0.5 alpha. I have Pow & contr both labeled as E1M2 because they are described as one building in the Doom Bible.

Funny how fast such a little thing as computer map texture escalated to full blown detective novel on internet :)

Okay, I take it back. I think there might be something to this theory.

It makes perfect sense really when you consider what some of the rest of the textures in that series display. Pictures of weird planets that have nothing to do with Mars or its moons. The barely legible words "TEI TENGA".

They're all remnants of Tom Hall's wonky Doom Bible story. Maybe if we look closely enough, we'll find something that refers to the "Butt End Of Space."