Weird 'artistic' map (unfinished)

Updated the map again (still unfinished):
http://www.sendspace.com/file/r69913

(boom, doom2, best in prboomplus probably- might lag in other ports)

Intriguing.

Pretty cool, I liked the organ wave lift thing. I wonder if the effect would be enhanced if the lower parts of the little lifts were untextured?

Is this going to be a deathmatch map, or just a place to wander around, overcoming obstacles?

Wow the start area looks amazing. must have taken a huge amount of time to make. Never seen anything like it.

Too bad the map crashes in risen3d, probably for being too complex, but anyway nice work. How will you continue this? Single player or DM ?

untexturing those waves was a good idea. I looked at both versions side by side and probably prefer textures. No textures looks smoother but kinda like... well like its missing textures.
Mostly using symmetry (rotations, slides, flips, size scales (the latter is the what fractals are, but those are hard to use well in doom maps)) I can produce fairly organic stuff like the first part without tons of effort.
I was aiming for single player (not that difficult since the main point isn't 'action' gameplay in this case, more like making the player go wtf?). If making monsters/music had as easy of an interface as doombuilder, that would have much greater potential. If I forget to put deathmatch starts I don't care if anyone edits it or whatever to add them.

Holy crap, that is a ridiculous level of complexity. DOOMs rendering architecture is simply not designed for this.

I can load this map in the SVN version of Doomsday but even using my new experimental renderer I can only achieve about 53fps in the start area.

Cheers: For a great stress test map :)

what you have done there is quite amazing. the doom engine really wasn't designed for that and it complained but the visual oomph you have created it pretty spectacular, even if it did lag pretty badly. Have to say though that I was pretty disapointed once i got to the top of the tower to not find anything up there, took me quite a few attempts due to low frames per second. Still, coolest doom wad ive seen in quite a while.

Can't help thinking that it could be improved x10 with an illusio-pit though... :) haha

That's weird because for me the frames are pretty normal so far, I can't really even tell the difference. And I might want to increase complexity (like that 'intestine' track would look cool with a sequenced light flashing all the way through it), but I have to worry about the seg limit eventually. I don't even have a great computer (an old optiplex sx270). I do use prboomplus (complevel 9) though, so perhaps other engines might be slower. Or maybe you're using super old dos type computers just for doom?

Yeah I intend to put something 'interesting' (not sure what yet) on top of the tower so its not a pointless anticlimax :)

I guess the illusio pit is a WOW or whatever reference (I never actually played that though)- actually 'hall of mirrors' stuff might be interesting to experiment with.

Ran a bit "unsmooth" but not choppy on my machine (ZDoom). Reminded me a bit of Voxlap :)

It inspired me to see how Gothic DM 99 has stood the test of time. The detail was quite staggering for the time, but by today's standards it not that special. I should look up those King REoL maps with their REoL DeTAIL (tm) next...

Anyway, I hated the tower. I don't see how inching up those ludicrous thin steps is fun, and it's way too square. I'd suggest to try using invisible sectors to come up with some weird geometry. More curves would be nice too - a map with no straight walls could be neat.

I absolutely love that waving organs, getting pooped out of the giant colon made me chuckle. :p

The 'cave' is just crazy. How long did that take you?

Wow, this is really cool.

voxlap looks very interesting. gothic99 looks quite cool imo. KingKill33's 1024 maps (not released yet) are super intricate too.
For the 'cave' I only had to do a single quadrant of a single square (makes sense in automap). From these quandrants I pasted 2 different squares: points facing inward and points facing out. Then I checkerboarded those squares (also stepped them by 32 diagonally). So symmetry made it take less time.
I kinda agree about the tower, all well. I have almost no experience with invisible sectors or skies.
Glad people find it interesting so far.

Played it a bit last nite. It's pretty neat. I agree with everyone else - the cave area is pretty rad, but EDGE lagged a bit.

Maybe the tower has 2 switches on the top of it, 1 to start making weird light effects in the room, and 1 to turn it off?

Also, it doesn't lag at all for me. I had about 60fps in the tunnels.

Another idea, maybe make a toilet at the end of the organic tube thing? :P

Coolio. I think your mutating stairs would fit nicely too. :)

bullsquid said:

Too bad the map crashes in risen3d, probably for being too complex,

For me, does not crash Risen3D v2.2.02 or the as yet unreleased v2.2.03. Runs perfectly for me. What version are you using ?

I thought I was going insane when I went up the stairs...I was like WTF are these getting smaller, or is my brain finally overloading? It also seemed like it took an eternity longer than it should have :P.

I was quite amazed by the starting area though, I had NEVER, seen so many sectors in one place.

yeah this was intense. it went fairly smoothly for me.

my favorite was the intestinal tract.
i've been meaning to make an organic map for awhile now and i think i've finally found the inspiration to do so.

Dude, you really need to go into the intestinal tract and align all the textures.

Every last one.


(j/k)



No seriously, this map was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I was blown away. Awesome.

I can't believe it! This is crazy!

Heh heh, I added a rather trippy elevatoresque motion element to the 'cave' (and removed some areas for the better to keep the seg limit at bay), but not really enough to update the link yet. I was planning on adding a new 'mutating stairs' type illusion :), not sure what yet- also I spent awhile trying to make something weird with stairs, inspired by that weird double stair build in flanagan (but havn't done anything yet).
probably the top of the tower (shorter now) will have a necessary switch for advancement rather than optional lights, and a toilet might be funny but I like more surreal.
2 things I've discovered that really help the texture aligning problem: a) sometimes you can just select all and 'lower unpeg', which aligns verticle (still have to worry about horizontal) b) only make parts out of 2 sided linedefs. Then texture/align/choose floor/ceiling height of sections before attaching lines to eachother (every time you attach 1 sided linedefs together you have to retexture and realign where they attached. But attaching 2 sided lines together seems to mostly keep the texture and alignment. (this is doombuilder btw)).

gggmork said:

That's weird because for me the frames are pretty normal so far, I can't really even tell the difference. And I might want to increase complexity (like that 'intestine' track would look cool with a sequenced light flashing all the way through it), but I have to worry about the seg limit eventually. I don't even have a great computer (an old optiplex sx270). I do use prboomplus (complevel 9) though, so perhaps other engines might be slower. Or maybe you're using super old dos type computers just for doom?

Yeah I intend to put something 'interesting' (not sure what yet) on top of the tower so its not a pointless anticlimax :)

I guess the illusio pit is a WOW or whatever reference (I never actually played that though)- actually 'hall of mirrors' stuff might be interesting to experiment with.

I made a cool light sequencing pattern effect in a hallway once. You'd run down the hall and the light would strobe at a rate of like 3x faster than you moved in the opposite direction you moved. So if you walked slowly you still felt like you were moving fast, and if you ran it made it seem like you were going a bazillion miles per hour. it was pretty cool but I lost the wad. :( Took me a long time to do and I can't even figure out how I did it anymore! It was a complex system of lights turning on and off.

But you've made is awesome. If i ever figure out the hallyway strobe effect i made I'll let you use it in your map if you want to. Another novelty or odd wad I made (that I also lost somehow) a "funhouse.wad" where monsters would appear at timed intervals so as soon as you'd kill one monster (if you were efficient) another one would appear. I agree with you about surreal. I think you shouldn't have anything in the map like toilets or normal things... strange and anomalous effects and events (like appearing and disappearing monsters in strange and freaky ways) would be cool.

EDIT:

I figured out how to do it again using DeepSea. Make a corridor. divide it into 64 length sectors. Ideally have the same 4 sectors repeating. Give each sector a corresponding linedef tag (1,2,3,4) make duplicates of the sectors with a new sector attached to the "dummy" sectors. Give the new sector a light level of 128 or 144. Now go to grid 8 and make 7 two sided lines in each sector (you don't need to connect them to the walls) these lines are going to be the light strobing triggers. You will give each linedef an alternating linedef type of 80 and 79. 80 makes sector go to brightest adjacent (hence the dummy sectors) and 79 turns lights off. Now you need to give those linedefs the correct corresponding sector tag. The order and sequence of the sector tags determines what kind of strobe effect you will have. The sequence I used was: 1,4,2,1,3,2,4,3... and then repeat that sequence until all the lines have been given a tag. Now when you walk down the hallway you'll get a cool strobe effect. For example, if you give the sectors an initial light level of 240 and give them the strobe type (type 8) the sectors will all go bright again when you stop walking. Conversely, if you make the sectors dark, the hallway will go dark when you stop walking.

To make this process less tedious you can make the first sector 64 in length and then divide it with the 7 two sided linedefs. Then copy that template sector and paste it onto the end of itself. Fix any bugs from copying and then copy the new sector and paste it onto the end of itself and repeat the process until the corridor is to the length you want. Then give the sectors linedef tags in sequence 1,2,3,4... repeating. Don't forget to do the dummy sectors otherwise it won't work.

Notes: if you decrease the number of linedef triggers in each sector, the strobe effect will be slower (and thus more dramatic) Not sure if doom will allow linedef types closer than 8, but if so, then you could make the strobe effect more dramatic by increasing the number of linedef triggers in each sector. You can also experiment giving each sector a sector type (like strobe) to see if that makes it more interesting. Also, if you don't want to hassle with dummy sectors, you can use type 81 in place of type 80 and then you won't need to use dummy sectors. Type 81 turns lights ON (255 light level)

I've actually set this up so the lights strobe in the same direction as you (making it seem like you're moving slowly.) If you reverse the sectors' linedef tag order it will reverse the strobe. Also, to easily adjust the strobe speed, resize the sectors larger or smaller to make it go slower or faster. And then just resize the width of your hallway. Make sure you do that with snap to grid off.

Take that Torm!

Thanks for the strobe tips. I actually made something like that longish ago (an old amateur crappy zdoom map before I knew about scrolling floors and dummy dolls, but the strobe happens after the green torches):
(requires zdoom):
http://www.sendspace.com/file/u4zhra

Cool idea you got going there..Certinly different and new. I like it...Anything thats new a fresh like that is always good to see IMO.

The moving-light effect described by Hellbent can also be taken a step further, in Boom, to create a self-running moving light/light-sequence effect such as those seen in Hexen and many ZDoom maps. By putting a voodoo doll on a conveyor belt that carries it across the lights-on linedefs one by one, then silent-teleports it back to the start, a constant-speed moving light effect is created.

This effect was used in Phobos: Anomaly Reborn, and probably some other Boom releases.

The movement speed of the light can also be altered ingame, if desired, by the use of displacement scrollers to have a sector's floor/ceiling movement affect the conveyor's speed.

esselfortium said:

This effect was used in Phobos: Anomaly Reborn, and probably some other Boom releases.

iori used it in Community Chest 2 MAP02 as well. It's in the second room of the main building.

How do you make the sector's floor/ceiling movement affect the conveyor's speed with 'displacement scrollers'? That might be quite useful.
I did a scrolling floor/dummy for the 'intestine' light sequence (edited first post with version 2). I tried but canned another idea which was to make a light sequence out of every OTHER intestine 'segment' going one way, then the rest of the segments have a light sequence going the opposite direction- just looked overly complicated.

Cool stuff - props