q3dm1 - a re-interpretation for doom

hey, wanted to jump back into mapping a bit and got the idea to make a re-interpretation of a map from good ole quake 3 arena. initially i wanted to do "house of pain" but changed my mind and started q3dm1 "arena gate".

it's a very simple map without any vertical aspect. it's very small as well. i would suggest a maximum of 4 players.

what i plan to do is create some custom monsters and scripts to simulate a bot match. just for fun, you know. :)

here are two screenshots of a early version, started today, circa three hours of work.

the room you see there started to be an outside area but i just couldn't make it look nice, so instead i closed the ceiling and just added a small ceiling window with a sky texture.





let me know what you think so far. thanks and enjoy.

Looks nice, interested to see it after you add more :)

scaled a few things around, added some detail to first room.

You could make it even closer by using 3D floors and slopes.

Avoozl said:

You could make it even closer by using 3D floors and slopes.

actually i want it as classic doom as it can be. if i continue this little project and i get to maps that would require 3d floors, i want to find a way around it, even though it's practically impossible.

in "house of pain" for example is a bridge that can't be done in classic doom. however, i do have a few ideas in mind to alter this segment of the map to keep the design of the map and also keep to what's possible in classic doom.

It looks cool! A minor gripe would be, that the ceiling and floor textures are a bit too similar. It's nothing serious though, perhaps just a matter of personal taste. Keep it up :)

thanks for the feedback. yea, textures and smaller details change all the time. in fact, i use a similar approach john romero used when he created his maps for doom. it's an iterative process. build, playtest, iterate, repeat.

here's an update:

first room after some more iteration. facing the way inside.

http://i.imgur.com/Ac37Q1b.jpg?1

first room, facing the other direction.

http://i.imgur.com/wiiTn5L.jpg?1

connection between first room and hallway.

http://i.imgur.com/uqCSluq.jpg?1

last room in early stage. only minor iterations have been done.

http://i.imgur.com/rccoEoH.jpg?1

Impressive and promising, keep up the good work!

The architecture is nicely re-imagined and accommodated to Doom's.
I think you captured the essentials of the Q3 look.

last update for today. overall some more polish and details added.

Awesome love me some q3a doom...think I might have a to myself at making a q3a - doom dm

more details and polish.











feedback and suggestions much appreciated.

Looking really sweet. I think a little bit more color and some more drastic light variations would really cap it off

Ralphis said:

Looking really sweet. I think a little bit more color and some more drastic light variations would really cap it off

there are other colors than brown in doom? :) but yea, i'm constantly switching the textures to find that sweet spot. in fact, some of the textures on the latest screenshots are already outdated.

light variations are a bit more tough though. you see, there are a lot of light textures which means that obviously there must be some light. actually, there already is some variety, admittedly it's not that noticeable but it's there and i will try to make it more noticeable. (i just wish the doom engine could handle actual light sources and render lighting and shadows itself. :) )

This is looking rather amazing. I love it when people use stock textures; it's somewhat more impressive to me in some weird way.

There really needs to be a project that converts all Q3A maps to Doom. And with this effort, zzzornbringer, you are definitely the man for the job.

messed around with some lightning and shadows. overkill? :)

For anyone interested. Afterglow already made this about 10 years ago. Map01 of Lamentations DM is a cover of Arena Gate from Quake 3.

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom2/deathmatch/Ports/d-f/dmdlamdm.zip

plans for today:

close ceiling in the two hallways that connect the front and back rooms.

maybe open up the last room with a window facing the first room, showing a courtyard or something.

add more details and polish all the rooms, especially last room. maybe change the design of last room for better flow. (inspired by the link kristus provided)

polish, polish, polish. make ready for testing.

update time. plans for today partly completed.

ceiling in hallway now closed. window added to last room showing a small outdoor area (probably not visible on the screenshots because of the angle, may record a video soon). last room did receive some polish but far away from complete. still not certain if i change the layout of the last room.

edit:

here's the progress of the first room. i find it interesting to see how a room evolves throughout the development.

http://imgur.com/DewiVDf



screenshots:

just recorded a short video to show the map in motion.

you'll notice that i did some drastic changes to the last room. still not done though. i just started to polish it but i guess it will take at least one more day until it's finished.

comments and suggestions are much appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4IELDgNEpY

so, here it is. done some almost final tweaks to the map. i'm pretty much satisfied with the whole thing, except maybe a small portion of the ceiling in the last room. but i feel the map is pretty much ready to get published, at least as a beta map.

i would be happy if you check it out and leave your feedback. thank you!

http://www.xup.in/dl,28363811/gate.rar/

edit: did some minor changes. you only need the doom2.wad now.

My first reflex was to make the map vanilla-compatible. I played on Doom+. Looks great. This is a good map for a compilation of maps. Are you going to recreate other Quake 3 maps?

axdoom1 said:

My first reflex was to make the map vanilla-compatible. I played on Doom+. Looks great. This is a good map for a compilation of maps. Are you going to recreate other Quake 3 maps?

thanks for checking out the map. do you think it's necessary to make the map vanilla compatible? what would be required to achieve this? i only use zdoom for testing and i actually don't know how to make a map more compatible.

i don't know what's next. first i want to finish this map which means, hope to get some more feedback. if people seem to think that the map is final, i may do some final polish. after that, i don't know but i tend to re-create "house of pain" (should be q3dm2) which was my initial idea in the first place. i'm also interested to try out a hell layout.

again, thanks for the feedback. this is what keeps me going.

the start of something new...

There is one more thing I would do on q3dm1 and that is raise the depressed floors to be maybe only 4 or even 2 units deep. I think they will look a lot nicer than having big fat depressions but overall it looks real cool

Ralphis said:

There is one more thing I would do on q3dm1 and that is raise the depressed floors to be maybe only 4 or even 2 units deep. I think they will look a lot nicer than having big fat depressions but overall it looks real cool

man, i feel so stupid right now. you know, i actually did this but reverted it, because i didn't raise the depressed floor tiles but lowered the inner floor parts. it looked better but the character would basically go down a 4 unit step and this didn't feel that good. obviously, you don't have this problem if you raise the depressed floor parts and leave the inner floor parts where they are.

so, thanks for the suggestion. i just changed this and it makes the map look even nicer.

i've also drawn some shadows in the hallways that connect the front and the back room. and i changed the ceiling in the back room. i think it looks really nice. there are also some barrels in the front room.

also, i hope you noticed that there is a plat in the last room where the blue armor is. it goes up every 666 ticks, waits 333 ticks and goes back down.

here's the new download link:
http://www.xup.in/dl,86497143/gate.rar/

zzzornbringer said:

do you think it's necessary to make the map vanilla compatible? what would be required to achieve this? i only use zdoom for testing and i actually don't know how to make a map more compatible.

Don't make it vanilla-compatible. You'll have to decrease the number of floors and walls. I'm sure you wouldn't like to do this, your map is so much detailed. You may have to remove half of the detail in the big room of your map to make vanilla stop crashing. Even small maps with a simple layout like yours can generously overflow.

Can you post some comparisons?

Katamori said:

Can you post some comparisons?

no but i can use google:
http://quakelive.wikispaces.com/Arena+-+Arena+Gate