Area 51 (Avery51) WAD Progress and Screenshots

So, I got stared on my Area 51 WAD (AKA Avery51) and heres the progress and screenshots thread.

So far, I'm completing MAP01. The maps are fairly large, meant for Coop play with about 4 people, so its challenging to go through alone. All the maps feature puzzles as well as hordes of monsters for Coop play. The maps are also detailed pretty well. I spent about 2 hours on the first 5 rooms.



The starting room of MAP01, everything is even and measured. You start with a shotgun because the monsters get pretty harsh. 4 players spawn behind the shotgun area as well as player 1. The room is exited via a staircase near the middle of the screen shot.



The staircase that exits the starting room. The switch opens up a door that leads to a teleporter, leading to the security room where you have to open the locked doors further down the hall.



The teleporters closet opened, you can see the teleport pad. The teleporter already leads to the unfinished security room where a medium sized battle happens.

More screenshots soon!

Please tell me what you think, I'm intrested in what you want to see improved.

In the first SS I think you should inset the computer readouts, it looks a little weird to see gray going directly to the screen. Also I'm not sure how I feel about the blue lights, they look okay but seem to clash a little with the gray, especially when there's no border between them. Try adding a little 8 or 4 unit long section of metal or doortrak between those textures. Then you need to do something with the texture alignment of the metal5 on the bottom of the switch box in the last pic, splitting the lines in two and aligning to the edges so there's a small vent will probably work while having little effect on the metal2 on top.

Other than the texturing problems I can't really say anything, the bottom two look like good transition locations but the top one doesn't look like a very interesting room =/

ArmouredBlood said:

In the first SS I think you should inset the computer readouts, it looks a little weird to see gray going directly to the screen. Also I'm not sure how I feel about the blue lights, they look okay but seem to clash a little with the gray, especially when there's no border between them. Try adding a little 8 or 4 unit long section of metal or doortrak between those textures. Then you need to do something with the texture alignment of the metal5 on the bottom of the switch box in the last pic, splitting the lines in two and aligning to the edges so there's a small vent will probably work while having little effect on the metal2 on top.

Other than the texturing problems I can't really say anything, they look like good transition locations but I don't see any actual rooms =/

Yeah, I fixed the computer thing. I'm adding the border now. The blue is necessary to be able to tell the difference between the teleport closet and the security room floor itself. I'm fixing the apparence generally right now.

And I didnt get the full room in the above screen shot for the first room. Its actually a little too clustered...

But the thing is, is that I have to have a lot of room and blank space while keeping the rooms detailed. Since its multiplayer based, you need room to move around since there are large groups of monsters. Think of it as coopbuild. Its fun, but not as visually appealing as Alien Vendetta for example.

Thanks

avery1555 said:

But the thing is, is that I have to have a lot of room and blank space while keeping the rooms detailed. Since its multiplayer based, you need room to move around since there are large groups of monsters. Think of it as coopbuild. Its fun, but not as visually appealing as Alien Vendetta for example.

If you're worried about room for co-op then I hope these rooms aren't too cramped, I've never done co-op so I can't say how much room is good but these are looking a little cramped for the large monster battles you said you were looking for. And you really don't need a lot of detail, just make it look nice and have a break in the textures every 128 or so units. Leave the massive detail for areas the players will be in for a long time ;D

ArmouredBlood said:

If you're worried about room for co-op then I hope these rooms aren't too cramped, I've never done co-op so I can't say how much room is good but these are looking a little cramped for the large monster battles you said you were looking for. And you really don't need a lot of detail, just make it look nice and have a break in the textures every 128 or so units. Leave the massive detail for areas the players will be in for a long time ;D

Yeah, There will be plenty of room, I'm working on it now. I decorated the starting room to make it more interesting. I added some scenery, and fixed some of the things you said. Still working on it. I decided to make it more interesting since there obviously is no fight in the starting room and it fits all the players, so I could do what I wanted with it. This is what I came up with :



It kinda looks like the computers are aligned wrong in this shot. But in game it looks fine. I like this room a lot now, so I think I'll just fix up some of the textures as you said and leave it as is. (Oh yeah, I picked up the shotgun in that shot thats why its not on the stand.)

Here a shot of the security room. As I said, it looks basic and bare, but the monsters fill in the gaps. I decided to keep this room fairly simple rather then large and detailed as it originally was supposed to be. When you flip the switch near the front, the back of the room floods with monsters. That's where the coop comes in.



I'm probably going to throw in a reference to Bungie's Marathon, since it is a security room and the two games are extremely identical.

Well it looks a bit better. Now I think a small step for those lights might be interesting, but eh I'm nitpicking. Anyway, check this thread out, it has quite a few texturing techniques that you could use and I wouldn't have to spend 5 posts to talk about :P

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/44143-essels-mapping-tips-and-tricks/

ArmouredBlood said:

Well it looks a bit better. Now I think a small step for those lights might be interesting, but eh I'm nitpicking. Anyway, check this thread out, it has quite a few texturing techniques that you could use and I wouldn't have to spend 5 posts to talk about :P

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/44143-essels-mapping-tips-and-tricks/

Yeah, I'm going to finish the level and then go back to make things visually more appealing. This WAD so far has been focused more on fun then detail, although I would like to put in both.

avery1555 said:

Yeah, I'm going to finish the level and then go back to make things visually more appealing. This WAD so far has been focused more on fun then detail, although I would like to put in both.

Well you keep posting empty rooms so I don't have anything more than detailing to comment on :P

ArmouredBlood said:

Well you keep posting empty rooms so I don't have anything more than detailing to comment on :P

Lol, but like I said, I'm trying to keep them empty for now. I'm making an ambush, I'll post some screen shots of it pretty soon so that I can show how much the room really floods.

Thanks for the tips though ; D .

avery1555 said:

Lol, but like I said, I'm trying to keep them empty for now. I'm making an ambush, I'll post some screen shots of it pretty soon so that I can show how much the room really floods.

Thanks for the tips though ; D .

Well if it's an ambush you should finish the map and post it instead so people who read this thread can enjoy the full surprise ;D and you're welcome.

Looks a tad sterile right now, keep in mind how your lighting is going to work in these rooms. I see lots of light sources but also a general dimness to everything. Be careful placing too many lamp sprites around, these can clog up the movement and actions of the players.

Also, consider doing something new to set this apart as an 'area 51' project with some custom textures or a unique alien weapon or the like.

Watching thread :)

Obviously, split your linedefs and align textures so the middle blends in and the ends of the line are the edges of the texture, like Tip 3 in essel's thread.

Looks pretty classic i'll definitely have to watch this one it looks great.

Thanks for the support guys : ) more screens soon. Working on a few ambush sequences, as I will keep secret, until I release MAP01.

It looks okay, but choose your textures more carefully. METAL2 and GRAY textures don't look very good together. Mainly because gray is meant for bright areas and METAL2 is meant for dark. I wanna suggest COMPSPAN but that's a little dark too. Maybe try SUPPORT1?

40oz said:

It looks okay, but choose your textures more carefully. METAL2 and GRAY textures don't look very good together. Mainly because gray is meant for bright areas and METAL2 is meant for dark. I wanna suggest COMPSPAN but that's a little dark too. Maybe try SUPPORT1?

I'll try them all together in a test, and see what works. If it looks good I'll try to convert it to that theme. No promises as I have already done a lot of MAP01 like this, so I may need to implement that in MAP02.

Hi Avery.

Because I am such a leet haxor, I cruised on over to your hard drive and borrowed your map, as you can see from this screenie.



(Actually I am not even remotely a leet haxor of any sort, I just made a quick copy in DoomBuilder.) Made a couple of minor alterations. (Heh, I am not saying my way is better or anything, I just really like playing around with ideas, and I thought it might give you a different perspective. Anyway, hope you don't mind.)

And the next two screenies I went a little more detailed. Again, not saying this is better, it is just my take on things. Hope it helps.





It probably doesn't look very area 51-ish, but anyway.

I will definitely have a play of this map when it is done. :)

Good luck finishing it.

Those look great! I'll modify the starting room to look like that as best I can.

I think your going to need some new textures, possibly from Half Life, becuase right now it just looks like a standard UAC tech base rather than an Area51

Captain Toenail said:

I think your going to need some new textures, possibly from Half Life, becuase right now it just looks like a standard UAC tech base rather than an Area51

Area 51 is basically just a name for the project, as I am not really trying to base much off of it. It does take place in Area 51, though, which in my small story is run by UAC. I'll probably throw in some Roswell references or something to give it away.

Sorry about the double post.

Anyways, I finished the starting room, using a lot of your ideas, Kyka. I hope its ok that I simplified a few of them to save space, since my room is a bit smaller then your remake.



Heres the general overlook.



Heres a shot at an angle.

Thanks again, Kyka.

Dude. That looks pretty cool. In fact, I think it looks better than the one I did. Yours looks less cluttered, mine looked a little crowded I thought. :)

Glad you liked the idea anyway...

The only thing I would change is to align those lights along the base of that raised platform in the middle of the room. Splitting the linedefs in two and then moving each half so that the lines sit neatly on the edges is a good way to do this.

Otherwise looking good.

Kyka said:

The only thing I would change is to align those lights along the base of that raised platform in the middle of the room. Splitting the linedefs in two and then moving each half so that the lines sit neatly on the edges is a good way to do this.

Otherwise looking good.

Thanks, I'm splitting the linedefs now.

Also, how do you feel about this, I'm a bit unsure. I modified the security room so when you step out of the teleporter, the teleporter room seals so you cant escape until you deal with all the monsters. However, back to the Coop aspect of the WAD, a second player can go throw the teleporter and manually open it from the other side. Is this a good idea?