Detailing != fringing and coving

Having just played 'I Was Bored And I Made This' (http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?file=levels/doom/s-u/somemap.zip) I am feeling a bit sad about how the idea of 'detailing' has come to be understood in the Doom editing community. I'm bored of seeing the same generic style, which I originally associated only with Terry wads, from different authors. Someone could update Slige to generate maps of this type.

Detailing does not mean nesting every sector within another sector to make a fringe, then changing the texture and/or the ceiling/floor height of the fringe sector -- even when the effect thus generated has no plausible explanation or relationship to the structure of the room.

Lest anyone accuse me of hypocrisy, I did something similar to some outdoor walls in 'The Sewage Works' (http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom2/Ports/v-z/works.zip) but that was for a specific reason: real buildings often have gravel around their foundations to improve drainage. I observed that and then replicated it in Doom.

Please can we have more observational detailing and less generic 'detailing' in Doom maps. If you are designing a tech base in Doom Builder then you are doing industrial design, which means that form should follow function. Think about how the appearance of real buildings is influenced by their structure, instead of blindly applying ornamentation. Even the impressive flying buttresses of a Gothic cathedral have a purpose: they hold the walls up!

The American architect, Louis Sullivan, wrote:

Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies, in a twinkling.

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.

One final thought: even the most utilitarian architecture can be brought to life by dramatic lighting. This also holds true in Doom.

I agree with your views on how not to detail levels, but it should be noted that the "form always follows function" idea cannot be applied to level design in the same way it applies to "real" architecture. A location in a game has at least two separate functions:

1. Playing field for the player(s).
2. The function of the place represented.

In games like Doom these functions are often mutually exclusive, and compromises need to be made. The fact that Doom is a sci-fi/fantasy game adds another layer of ambiguity (artistic license).

I think Werecat pretty much got it right. Detail shouldn't be all the same insets and fringes and nested sectors in every room, but it also shouldn't be 100% restricted by what would make sense IRL.

I think my biggest objection to fringing is when it's used on floors, which makes your movement bumpy everywhere you go and can even break the flow of gameplay which is the most important thing. I'm usually cautious about putting in lots of small wall details that jut out for the same reason.

I guess you can argue that form should follow function when that function is building good gameplay, which could apply to detailing too. Good detailing, apart from looking good (which is subjective), can help give the player visual cues and landmarks that make navigating the level both less confusing and less tedious. Of course detailing should be secondary after more macroscopic architectural design, where similar guidelines of good sense and variety can apply.

StupidBunny said:

I think Werecat pretty much got it right. Detail shouldn't be all the same insets and fringes and nested sectors in every room, but it also shouldn't be 100% restricted by what would make sense IRL.

I would put it more strongly than that: I would prefer not to see another fringed floor for a decade or so.

The next time someone is tempted to make a fringed floor, I hope they will instead go outside and be inspired by the beauty and complexity of the real world: the effects of light and shadow, and the architecture in their local area.

cs99cjb said:

I would put it more strongly than that: I would prefer not to see another fringed floor for a decade or so.

But why do I see it so often in real life, then... (albeit far less pronounced than what many Doom mappers do.)

Graf Zahl said:

But why do I see it so often in real life, then... (albeit far less pronounced than what many Doom mappers do.)

I'm sitting in a room with a fringe right now; it's called a skirting board. The skirting board projects half an inch, i.e. less than one map unit in Doom. The most interesting thing about this room is not the skirting board but the central heating boiler, cupboards, freezer cabinet, and the light thrown from the doorway into the next room.

cs99cjb said:

the beauty and complexity of the real world

One day I walked out of my house and took a short walk just to look around. And I was disgusted. Clearly the mapper responsible for the outside area had absolutely no idea what he was doing. It was as if he just slapped a bunch of randomly colored rectangular buildings and signboards all over the place, kind of like what some mappers from 1994 would do. It was total chaos and boredom, I couldn't find one area that would have consistent texturing or interesting geometry. So I quickly came back home and played some Doom, an excellently designed game.

Memfis said:

One day I walked out of my house and took a short walk just to look around. And I was disgusted. Clearly the mapper responsible for the outside area had absolutely no idea what he was doing. It was as if he just slapped a bunch of randomly colored rectangular buildings and signboards all over the place, kind of like what some mappers from 1994 would do. It was total chaos and boredom, I couldn't find one area that would have consistent texturing or interesting geometry. So I quickly came back home and played some Doom, an excellently designed game.

Then I pity you. Here are a few of the buildings which have inspired me:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/University_of_Glasgow_Gatehouse_-_geograph.org.uk_-_424022.jpg
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5475/10870225486_f2a58d20a2_z.jpg
http://www.kentnews.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.988717.1312885756!/image/1289177936.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/1289177936.jpg

I have sketches of architectural details from many other places.

Mundane can be inspiring too.

Building design and room/interior design are not the same thing. I see borders and fringe details in building interiors (that is, on floors, ceilings, and walls) of all sorts, that are there for no other reason than to look a certain way, and often they look very nice (I think). I agree that the unthinking application of certain motifs doesn't yield very good results, but that applies just as much in the real world as it does in DOOM. I'm not sure that this has anything to do with a stark contrast between the things we see in DOOM maps and the ways buildings and interiors actually are - it's a more straightforward matter of poor visual design, which is something to be wary of in both domains.

cs99cjb said:

Then I pity you. Here are a few of the buildings which have inspired me:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/University_of_Glasgow_Gatehouse_-_geograph.org.uk_-_424022.jpg
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5475/10870225486_f2a58d20a2_z.jpg
http://www.kentnews.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.988717.1312885756!/image/1289177936.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/1289177936.jpg

What can I say, living in a good developed country must be pretty great. :D

cs99cjb: I've felt a similar way for years, particularly during the time DTWiD was being developed. It really opened my eyes to the way textures tend to speak much more about the location of your map than the sectors do. You can't really display the detail you've created efficiently with sectors by using a single texture, which pushes people to exhaust almost all of the available textures of a basic theme in a single room. This creates a lot of noise and dilutes the implied purpose of the map or even a single room.

Techbase textures, are usually shiny or rusted sheet metal walls, pipes, light fixtures, and computer monitors. Most likely as a result of detailing, things like bricks, burning furnaces, nukage falls, and gargoyle/satyr/lion faces have made their way into usual techbases without question. Not to imply that bad maps are made this way, but in Doom 1, where the usage of detailing sectors was very limited, you might see a room made entirely out of pipe textures and a nukage floor and get the implication that it's a flooded pumping station or something. While a conscientiously "detailed" room that has computer monitors, pipes, borders and metal frames will look nice and make the game feel more modern, it unfortunately becomes a "techbase" with no other sort of identity.

I decided to design UAC Ultra 2 that way a while back, limiting myself to sector detailing only for windows, light fixtures, and support columns I unfortunately managed to create a lot of rather drab, boring looking rooms even with much attention to unusually shaped rooms and light gradients and stuff. Rethinking about it, I don't think I had thought of enough distinct texture ideas to use to identify specific rooms, but I couldn't think of ways to shake the feeling that despite how much time and work I put into the maps, they didn't appear as though I really spent much time on them.

40oz said:

While a conscientiously "detailed" room that has computer monitors, pipes, borders and metal frames will look nice and make the game feel more modern, it unfortunately becomes a "techbase" with no other sort of identity.

Given your comments I'd be interested in what you think of my detailing in The Sewage Works. It has pipes and computer monitors exactly as you describe but I feel that it is quite effective.

40oz said:

I decided to design UAC Ultra 2 that way a while back, limiting myself to sector detailing only for windows, light fixtures, and support columns I unfortunately managed to create a lot of rather drab, boring looking rooms even with much attention to unusually shaped rooms and light gradients and stuff.

I'd be interested in seeing that, having read your thoughts, but I couldn't find that file in the archive. Is it this one?
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom2/Ports/s-u/uacultra.zip

No matter, I'll just play this one. It looks great.

I agree with the original post. So many level maps have this gutter system, seemingly stuck on as decoration, as it does not have any visible rational usage in the actual map. I am talking about the level maps with a sewer style gutter in the floor of most of the anonymous tech-buildings.

I like detailing, but not random decorations so much. Details are things that should be there because of the function of the room. Decoration is stuff stuck on the floor and walls in spite of the function of the room. I like to figure out the function of the room, and it is even better if it relates to the rest of the level map and the challenge it presents.

I wrote a guide, "Level concepts", that seems to be along the same lines as what you are saying. It argues that functional design with recognizable rational details is more enjoyable for a wider variety of player types.
AT: http://doomlegacy.sourceforge.net/hosted/doom_editing.shtml

I have made several level maps that you may like, that make use of these design concepts.
FreeDoom Map13:
FreeDoom Map09:
and I completed an abandoned map: FreeDoom Map19 (which keeps as much of the original authors design as I could save).

I liked the detailing in 'The Sewage Works' a lot, but parts of the map were really uncomfortably cramped. In no way you can justify this by saying that you wanted to achieve realism. Widening the halls (and raising ceiling height) would help considerably. I gave the map 4/5 stars on /idgames, anyway.

scifista42 said:

I liked the detailing in 'The Sewage Works' a lot, but parts of the map were really uncomfortably cramped. In no way you can justify this by saying that you wanted to achieve realism. Widening the halls (and raising ceiling height) would help considerably. I gave the map 4/5 stars on /idgames, anyway.

Thanks. I might justify it by saying that I wanted to achieve a sense of claustrophobia. I hope there was variety, at least. If there's always room to dodge and retreat then gameplay can turn into a bit of a snore-athon.

I just tried your map. It was very cool! I liked it a lot. Personally I'm a big fan of the translucent water and the bricks that were resized to scale.

I've been exploring all the details of game play over the last year and I did find, however, the attention to realism in The Sewer Works to be a bit compromising to the game play. As scifista described, the hallways, while appropriately scaled, are a bit messy to navigate due to doomguys unrealistic speed, making me feel very clumsy. The pitch black sewers for example, were a little complex to navigate in such darkness. I couldn't wait to get outside, but the walkover exit came pretty unexpectedly.

I agree with what you said about how "detail" in most maps is fake cosmetic stuff and has a weird "manufactured" look. And I like how you made an effort to make a distinct purpose for each room. You'll definitely want to create a layout that functions a gameplay purpose first before it makes a realistic purpose, because it keeps the player from going to dead ends that are no benefit to him, getting lost, or stuck on details. I think some maps in Perditions Gate (PG-LTD.wad), especially MAP01 might better demonstrate the kinda thing I'm getting at, and will make your maps much better for both an established setting purpose, and for gameplay.

cs99cjb said:

The next time someone is tempted to make a fringed floor, I hope they will instead go outside and be inspired by the beauty and complexity of the real world: the effects of light and shadow, and the architecture in their local area.

That's all well and good but the real world isn't built on a 2D floorplan with spacial awareness designed around whether or not a bunch of giant AI-controlled square-based objects can navigate the area without getting stuck, while the living occupants are still able to rush around and dodge fireballs without everything feeling too cramped.

Designing and building a Doom map with static lighting != designing and building real world architecture.


tl;dr -- real world architecture doesn't have to take this weird thing called 'gameplay' into account. Fringed floors are simply one way of making rooms look less bland without creating a load of sector-soup bullshit that obstructs player movement.

BaronOfStuff said:

That's all well and good but the real world isn't built on a 2D floorplan with spacial awareness designed around whether or not a bunch of giant AI-controlled square-based objects can navigate the area without getting stuck, while the living occupants are still able to rush around and dodge fireballs without everything feeling too cramped.

Who says the player has an inalienable right to dodge fireballs? Players can't dodge bullets and I don't see anyone complaining about that.

tl;dr -- real world architecture doesn't have to take this weird thing called 'gameplay' into account. Fringed floors are simply one way of making rooms look less bland without creating a load of sector-soup bullshit that obstructs player movement.

If you are retrospectively trying to make rooms "look less bland" then you probably didn't have architectural ideas worth making in the first place. Listen to John Romero's commentary on Doom episode one, then see whether you think that's what he did.

cs99cjb said:

Who says the player has an inalienable right to dodge fireballs? Players can't dodge bullets and I don't see anyone complaining about that.

You're probably kidding, but maneuverability is very important in Doom.

cs99cjb said:

Who says the player has an inalienable right to dodge fireballs? Players can't dodge bullets and I don't see anyone complaining about that.

I actually did comment on the irony in Doom involving the usage of undodgable bullet firing enemies as the lowest tier enemies in traditional Doom gameplay progression in this thread

EDIT: you posted in that thread too so you probably already know.

cs99cjb said:

Who says the player has an inalienable right to dodge fireballs? Players can't dodge bullets and I don't see anyone complaining about that.

As far as the zombies are concerned, it's probably so that they actually have some use outside of being "shoot this for some ammo" and can provide a basic threat and can't simply be ignored completely. The Spider Mastermind is a boss with the obvious weakness of being a huge target that's easy to see, hear and hit, and there's almost always cover to avoid being targeted in the first place. Let's not forget that unlike projectiles, enemy hitscan accuracy is more-often-than-not abysmal too, so there's no guarantee that you'd be hit even if you stood in the open waving a giant fucking flag reading "HERE I AM PLEASE SHOOT ME".

If fireballs couldn't be dodged either (thanks to everyone thinking like you), Doom would be "that shit game which thinks it's really difficult but is just pointlessly cheap".

If you are retrospectively trying to make rooms "look less bland" then you probably didn't have architectural ideas worth making in the first place. Listen to John Romero's commentary on Doom episode one, then see whether you think that's what he did.

I don't think this comment was really worth making in the first place. I've seen that video, and it's not really relevant to modern mapping standards in that sense, since most maps now are made with limit-removing ports in mind. You can have technically great architecture that provides interesting gameplay yet still looks like total shit if the detail side of things is somewhat featureless and one colour.

There's nothing wrong with fringing if it's used to break up areas of featureless floorspace and to provide a sense of location.

I absolutely hate Vores in Quake (and their ZDoom replicas from Tormentor667's bestiary), it's totally annoying that you can't evade their projectiles. Some other ZDoom monsters follow this trend too, by firing projectiles that home on the player way too aggressively, so that even if you dodge, they'll hit your back immediately. That's just not right at all.

scifista42 said:

I absolutely hate Vores in Quake (and their ZDoom replicas from Tormentor667's bestiary), it's totally annoying that you can't evade their projectiles. Some other ZDoom monsters follow this trend too, by firing projectiles that home on the player way too aggressively, so that even if you dodge, they'll hit your back immediately. That's just not right at all.

Aren't you supposed to hate monsters? You know, to make you want to kill them?

BaronOfStuff said:

Let's not forget that unlike projectiles, enemy hitscan accuracy is more-often-than-not abysmal too, so there's no guarantee that you'd be hit even if you stood in the open waving a giant fucking flag reading "HERE I AM PLEASE SHOOT ME".

Ha ha ha

I don't think this comment was really worth making in the first place. I've seen that video, and it's not really relevant to modern mapping standards in that sense, since most maps now are made with limit-removing ports in mind.

Ah, so you think that Romero would have used fringed sectors had the game engine allowed it. I don't quite buy that argument but it's impossible to prove either way.

Personally, I like to start by imagining a place, then I make drawings of it, then finally I execute the design in a map editor. I also have an interest in concept art from 'making of the movie' books. However I don't always work in that way, nor do I expect to popularise it.

I'm sure people will happily carry on adding "detail".

You can have technically great architecture that provides interesting gameplay yet still looks like total shit if the detail side of things is somewhat featureless and one colour.

I believe that a good-looking map could be made using only one texture, although that's not what I'm advocating. It might be a good exercise, if it forced the author to concentrate on lighting and the balance of positive and negative space.

cs99cjb said:

Aren't you supposed to hate monsters? You know, to make you want to kill them?

Maybe yes, but what I've talked about is specially abysmal. Unavoidable damage is just unfun, especially heavy damage relying on pure randomness of dumb AI's will to attack. On the other hand, dodging multiple projectiles (and even strategical search for cover to hide from hitscan enemies) can be fun. Vores are one step above hitscanners in dealing damage cheaply and unfairly, and I find it to be too much.

scifista42 said:

I absolutely hate Vores in Quake (and their ZDoom replicas from Tormentor667's bestiary), it's totally annoying that you can't evade their projectiles.

You can, but it's hard and takes practice.

scifista42 said:

I absolutely hate Vores in Quake (and their ZDoom replicas from Tormentor667's bestiary), it's totally annoying that you can't evade their projectiles.

It's possible to evade voreballs in Quake, you do need to run quite far away however.

Didn't have much problems with the ZDoom replica, and they've been toned down between the original appearance (The Refinery) and their latest (ZDCMP2).

I think I can see where cs99 is coming from, at least in part. I guess there's no harm in using detail elements like fringing from time to time, but I've definitely played maps (can't think of the specific ones right now) where such detailing seems to be used to hide the flat boringness of the maps themselves. I think a map can look good with just a handful of detail elements in the right places, and maps with well-placed platforms, windows, archways, tunnels, light fixtures etc. can both look awesome and play really well. Of course there's no fine line or hard-and-fast rules about where tactful decoration becomes detail whoring, and I guess at some point it just comes down to preference, but as I suggested before I think interesting/impressive architecture should come first. It's amazing what some sharp height and lighting variation can do by themselves.