Into the Void - NOT DEAD!

It's about time I kick this thing off.

What is Into the Void?

A rather excellent song by Black Sabbath.

Okay, what is Into the Void in this particular context?

Into the Void is a PrBoom+ community project centered around the Abyssal Speedmapping Sessions, an event held once a month over Skype: for more info see the Doomwiki page. The aim of this project is to tune up a good number of the speedmaps from the sessions Whitemare style and release them as a polished megawad.

Ooh, can I join? I've got this neat map here and I-

Hold on there trigger. For one thing, the only maps that are gonna be used are maps from the sessions. Secondly, Into the Void is open only to people who have mapped previously for the sessions, considering they made the maps we'll be building on. The only exception to the rule is if you get permission from one of the authors to tune up one of their maps for them. And finally, bear in mind that quality control is very much going to be a thing and maps will be rejected if they aren't up to snuff. If you feel like you can't do it yourself, collaborate with someone: have someone on detail while you flesh out the layout, or vice versa.

Aw, I didn't make any maps. Can I still help?

Sure! We're going to need graphics and music later on down the line, so if you're handy with a graphic or MIDI editor then we'd be more than happy to have your help. We'll also need playtesters when the set is nearing completion, including someone who can record a few demos to pop in when we're wrapping things up.

Do we have resources to use?

Sure we do! If you have a suggestion for a texture set that should be included or are just using the odd custom texture, let me know and I can slot 'em in. Info on the new custom monsters can be found here.

What's the deadline?

lol i dunno

Any other guidelines?

I'm hoping to have the megawad broken up into separate themes to have a sense of flow and continuity to proceedings: theme suggestions are very welcome. I'd also like to do something special with the secret maps, so talk to me if you wanna have a shot at MAP31 or MAP32.

One last thing: why do this now?

Because unfortunately the Abyss forums, the origin of the Abyssal Speedmapping Sessions, will soon be closing its doors. There's still gonna be the Steam group, but I feel like this would be a good last hurrah for a small piece of Doom history that may soon be gone forever.

I think that about covers everything. Put your name in the thread if you'd like to participate in any capacity and go to #abyssal on IRC if you want to ask any direct questions. Go forth and ASS!

THE TEAM.

ASS Mappers.

-Obsidian (duh) - Lament
-Alterworldruler
-Jaws In Space
-Surreily
-Xaser
-Jimmy
-Vanger_ru
-Breezeep
-Scifista42
-Joe-Ilya
-Unholypimpin
-Katamori
-4shockblast
-Pinchy - Rockets Around the Christmas Trees

Non-ASS Mappers.

-Noiser


Map contributors. (people leaving their maps open to other mappers)

-Memfis
-An_mutt (only other ASS mappers)
-FuzzBallFox
-rf` (only to Joe-Ilya, apparently)
-Darsycho
-TheMionicDonut(?)
-Walter Confalonieri
-CWolfRu
-JMickle66666666 (only AD_79)
-Gaspe
-Obake
-Scifista42 (details here)
-Joe-Ilya
-4shockblast (except his map from ASS20)
-AD_79 (except his maps from ASS19 and ASS21)
-TheMionicDonut
-Alfonzo
-Surreily

Composers.

-Eris Falling - Descent of Madness
-Rdwpa - SCP1 SCP2

Reserving remakes of my ASS19/ASS24 maps (Cacophony of Dissonance and Jimothy Running Down '94 Hallways), i'm busy with an other map for a secret project at the moment but i'll get around those after it.

Am I understand right? I may took my map and polish it. And there's no deadline. Right?

CWolfRu said:

Am I understand right? I may took my map and polish it. And there's no deadline. Right?

You may take your map and expand upon it until it is megawad worthy. And yes, there is no deadline at present other than having things wrapped up by mid year.

I think I participared in ASS once? Anyone, feel free to take my map and edit it if you want.

Might work on my map from Ass20, I think that's my worst one so far, so it'll be a good one to fix up. I plan on using textures from Ass20 in my map.

Just to clarify, can I use other people's maps? Similarly, can I incorporate several speedmaps into a single level?

I'm interested in making some MIDIs for this, though I'd be better suited making tracks for specific maps rather than a generic "put this anywhere" kind of thing.
Anyway, my services are offered.

edit: I'll be lurking in #abyssal while this is in progress, so if anyone does have any requests for music, I guess you can find me there if it's more convenient than back and forth PMs

This is actually a pretty cool Idea. Am I allowed to expand on some of my maps a bit?

I want to make music too. :D

Obsidian said:

You may take your map and expand upon it

So, for example adding detail, cleaning up visuals, tweaking shapes of architecture, tweaking the layout, extending the layout, completely redoing texturing, and completely redoing thing placement, is all allowed? Or, to what degree?

While I can't remember off the top of my head which I've been in and what map slots I've got- but I'm open to offers on a tune up of my crap! :D

I'd like to reserve my own map "Wait Till You See It" from ASS21 if that's okay. I'd love to see what I can do to improve the "dynamic architecture" :)

I thought that every one of us already has all of his own ASS maps reserved for himself, unless he explicitly gives permission to somebody else - so that nobody should need to ask for permission to reserve his own map for himself. Did I misunderstand it?

I want Joe Ilya to remake one of my maps.

I will then in turn remake the remake into something passable.

Memfis said:

I think I participared in ASS once? Anyone, feel free to take my map and edit it if you want.

I would like to respectfully take this :-)

Gloomtown (Map 09, Ses 17)

an_mutt said:

Just to clarify, can I use other people's maps? Similarly, can I incorporate several speedmaps into a single level?

If you have permission from the original mapper, then sure! :)

scifista42 said:

So, for example adding detail, cleaning up visuals, tweaking shapes of architecture, tweaking the layout, extending the layout, completely redoing texturing, and completely redoing thing placement, is all allowed? Or, to what degree?

Yep, all bets are pretty much off as to what you can do with your maps. Just make sure we can tell what map it was originally underneath it all, haha.

scifista42 said:

I thought that every one of us already has all of his own ASS maps reserved for himself, unless he explicitly gives permission to somebody else - so that nobody should need to ask for permission to reserve his own map for himself. Did I misunderstand it?

Nope, that's about the long and short of it. What happens to your maps is completely up to you.

Obsidian said:

If you have permission from the original mapper, then sure! :)

Okie dokie, thanks for the heads up!

I'm gonna give everybody else who has contributed to the ASS full reign over doing whatever they want with my maps! Go nuts!

Heh, neato. I might see about turning Matryoshka Citadel (session #4) and Archtrees and Everlasting Towers (session #12) into proper maps. I'm fond of both but the gameplay was thrown together quite randomly.

Precursor Consortium (session #3) has already been massively expanded and is becoming E4M7 of NEIS, so that's a thing for another time.

I don't have much of an idea what to do for this project since I already have Jiffy Bag which is in a sense a megawad already - but I could conceivably go over the maps of mine that currently aren't in Jiffy Bag (Super Bollocks from ASS7, Kettle Decapitation from ASS14, Mt Kilimanjaro from ASS16).

Alternately I could mush together a few maps that might fit, like Vaginal Euphemisms (ASS17), Snowflake Technology (ASS20) and maybe a couple others to create a kind of megamap.

Kind of want to get others' thoughts on this, heh.

I'm gonna expand one of my maps and possibly one of mutt's.

Oi, if anybody wants to edit my maps, feel free.

I'm probably going to do something with Chocolate Goldmine and maybe EC2 but others are on the table.

As a reminder to all you great mappers, ASS22 never got released. I only remember playing two of the maps; a great Egyptian tomb map and a 'gangrene something' with very cool re-colored textures. I'm sure there's probably others in there that deserve to see the light of day, or at least to be finished.

EffinghamHuffnagel said:

As a reminder to all you great mappers, ASS22 never got released. I only remember playing two of the maps; a great Egyptian tomb map and a 'gangrene something' with very cool re-colored textures. I'm sure there's probably others in there that deserve to see the light of day, or at least to be finished.

From what I recall the Egyptian map was used in someone else's project, heh.

Obsidian said:

From what I recall the Egyptian map was used in someone else's project, heh.

Yep, that map is firmly wedged within 50 Monsters as one of the secret maps.

I should probably get that project finalized sometime, now that I think about it!

Alright, I think that's all the names jotted down. Remember, theme and texture suggestions are welcome: I'd prefer not to decide things myself and constrain people's work.

Hey, if someone wants to work on my maps be my guest!

DUMSTEIN2 is free for changes! YAY!