Detailing Project: Room by Room

This is just an idea, until input is received.

This project (idea) is very simple. Each person involved will make a room. This room will be detailed to hell and back. That is all the description needs to tell you, so here are the rules.

Length: Long
Difficulty: Progressive
Style: Tech base transitioned to hell.
Port: Boom (seems like people would prefer this)
Textures: Use some that you want to use. Share these for others to use though.


Each person can have a maximum of 3 rooms in total. No one person can have the same styled room more than once (in other words, you can have one hell, one tech base, and one transition, for example). There is no limit on the amount of people wanting to have a room... within reason.

Room rules:
Your room must be one room. It can contain anything you want in it. The only thing is requires is 2 doors minimum (an entry and exit to the previous and next rooms respectively). You can detail as much as you want so long as you stay within the confines of Boom-compatibility, so go crazy in detailing (which is what I'm looking for). Your room must follow the theme that you have chosen. It cannot be anything else, unless you want to change your room's theme to something else.

Room sizing:
Try and keep the earlier rooms small, and the later rooms larger. That's it.

Slots (although infinite, here is the basic roster):

Tech:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Secret Tech Rooms:
1.
2.
Tech to Transition:
1.
2.
Transition to Hell:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Secret Transition to Hell Rooms:
1.
2.
Transition to Hell to Hell
1.
2.
Hell
1.
2.
3.
4.
Secret Hell Rooms
1.
2.

Rough layout, if more themed rooms are presented, they could be added to the list.

Please respond with criticism on this project: should it be done or not? Has it been done? Is it a good idea? What can be added? Removed? Etc.

I've wanted this to be a project for awhile. I dunno if I ever made a post about it. Another thing you can add to this project is separate group of people to organize the rooms into levels. You could even release different versions of the agglomerated rooms. I'd be down to do a room.

A cool idea but I have some questions since I've never done anything UDMF before ...

What textures can we use?

What UDMF editors are there? wth is UDMF format anyway? Why is it different from .wad if at all? Are UDMF line actions more similar to boom or zdoom? where can I find out?

Is there going to be a palette change? If so what color(s) might change?

If I do a boom map can someone convert it to UDMF for me?

That'll do me for a while.

I think Tormentor667 would be interested in this project...

...as it needs more detail...

I'm interested.

ArmouredBlood said:

A cool idea but I have some questions since I've never done anything UDMF before ...

What textures can we use?

What UDMF editors are there? wth is UDMF format anyway? Why is it different from .wad if at all? Are UDMF line actions more similar to boom or zdoom? where can I find out?

Is there going to be a palette change? If so what color(s) might change?

If I do a boom map can someone convert it to UDMF for me?

That'll do me for a while.

The textures are up to you at first, but its up to me if they fit. Meaning you can choose some textures to use in your room, but if they do not fit with the joining rooms they will have to be changed. So feel free to use anything you for the time being.

You can edit UDMF in DB2. Basically its an advanced version of ZDoom (Doom in Hexen Format). I urge you to make ZDoom-compatible maps, so that you can have as much detail as possible (slopes, translucency, pseudo-3d floors (through use of skyboxes), etc). UDMF is still a .wad file, however the final product will be in .pk3 format.

As for a palette change, I'd like for the simple things like green blood and blue blood on enemies that require those blood changes. Anything else will be up to the whole for color changes. For example, if everyone wants the blue to be darker, then the blue will be darker!

I imagine the seg count would get high quick and cause slowdown or crashes or something eventually. You can't really have that much complex stuff afaik.

Antidote said:

You can edit UDMF in DB2. Basically its an advanced version of ZDoom (Doom in Hexen Format). I urge you to make ZDoom-compatible maps, so that you can have as much detail as possible (slopes, translucency, pseudo-3d floors (through use of skyboxes), etc). UDMF is still a .wad file, however the final product will be in .pk3 format.

Interesting. I don't have much experience with slopes/skyboxes, but do have a little with 3d floors from gzdoom, so maybe I'll figure something out. There's some other stuff I'm working on so it might be a while before I focus on a room, but I am interested in doing one.

On textures and palette, I'll probably stick to vanilla, maybe throw in a few random textures. I haven't really tinkered around with the palette before, I was just asking so I knew how some textures would look. If the green/blue blood doesn't change anything texture-wise I'm fine, tell me what will change if it does.

No 3d floors, please. It would cause major slowdown if every room had it. Bridges are fine, but no 3d floors.

gggmork said:

I imagine the seg count would get high quick and cause slowdown or crashes or something eventually. You can't really have that much complex stuff afaik.

I am aware of this, so I'm thinking about breaking up sections of rooms into levels. Perhaps Rooms 1-10 is MAP01, Rooms 10-15, MAP02, etc, in a sort of hub style. To the point where it would eventually lead to the last set of rooms (however many that would be) and a score screen would display. Eh, that would require scripting. I'm not set on this idea yet.

Probably going to make a tech room for this.
edit: I'd like a palette like Claus1024 did, that looked awesome.

So I can only create 1 room with 1 theme? If so, I'd be interested in this.

1 room 1 theme (with the exception of transition levels, which are two themes). Just follow the rules, its that simple. Project is not in motion yet, I'm waiting on more approval for it.

Also, tech, transition to hell, and hell are the three current themes. Hell is a gigantic theme ranging from castle to fiery hell. Tech base, however, is either earth-base, or e1 styled. Transition is combination of both. If anyone wants to suggest any other themes let me know.

for doom2?

original textures only?

Has to fit one of those themes or can it be random/abstract/anything?

--
say everyone makes a room like this (R=room, D=door)
<code>
DRD

 D
DR

RD
D
</code>

...riiiight, I rule at html.

Well connecting door to door doesn't really work since that's a double door, so maybe you connect one room's door to another room's blank wall? Also should all the doors be perfectly horizontal or verticle and like 256 wide or something (like a slanted door won't fit on a boxy room and vice versa). And really weird shaped rooms might not fit with other rooms (like a doughnut with a door on the inside only or someothing).

--
pay attention to monsters/gameplay too?

--
I might do one but supposed 'quality control' doesn't make some community projects worthwhile given that someone might just reject what you made thus wasting your time, whereas you're in control of stuff you make on your own.

Antidote said:

1 room 1 theme (with the exception of transition levels, which are two themes).

I'd be willing to give it a go.

Antidote said:

I urge you to make ZDoom-compatible maps, so that you can have as much detail as possible (slopes, translucency, pseudo-3d floors (through use of skyboxes), etc).

/me hits head on wall

Antidote said:

I urge you to make ZDoom-compatible maps, so that you can have as much detail as possible (slopes, translucency, pseudo-3d floors (through use of skyboxes), etc

I am going to skullfuck you.

Antidote said:

I urge you to make ZDoom-compatible maps, so that you can have as much detail as possible (slopes, translucency, pseudo-3d floors (through use of skyboxes), etc).

I urge everyone to make maps that purposely do not work in ZDoom, so this useless sack of bones and fat can cry himself to sleep at night.* Also so you can be as creative as possible by making maps that do not require slopes, translucency, pseudo-3d floors, etc to be interesting to play.

*More than he already does, I do not wish to imply that he does not sleep on a tear soaked pillow every night.

Using ZDoom to make your map more detailed is like using a jackhammer to unclog your toilet. It misuses your chosen tool's features, wastes its potential, and will probably make an awful mess.

Also have you actually made any maps yourself or do you expect us to do all the work for you?

Negative criticism ensues. I never said anything was final. Would you rather it just be boom-compatible? I mean, it doesn't make or break the project. So if its better that way, we should do it.

Also, I'm not controlling anything. If someone wants something different by all means say something. This is just a basic overview to iron out some details.

Trust me man, Skyboxes and slopes and 3d floors and other stupid zdoom shit has nothing to do with detail. And having a project leader that thinks that's what detail is throws this entire project into a toilet clogged with vomit and diarrhea.

That said, even if this project does turn out good, I think the result is going to be an extremely linear and inconsistent wad.

Antidote said:

Negative criticism ensues. I never said anything was final. Would you rather it just be boom-compatible? I mean, it doesn't make or break the project. So if its better that way, we should do it.

Just think of it this way. Making something limit-removing essentially removes from your target audience the people that still use only the DOS .exe for their primary gameplay experience, which is hopefully a very small number of people or even nobody at all. On the other hand, you could make this ZDoom-only and render your project playable to a significantly smaller audience as opposed to the same project made limit-removing or Boom-compat.

tl;dr ZDoom sux get over it

I wouldn't say it "sux", just that it's completely unnecessary for just making a "detailed level" (and smart money says his idea of detailed is boring repetitive Tormentor667 copypasta detailing full of hideous, gratuitous slopes anyway). I don't think many people here would say Action Doom 2 "sux", even though it's probably the most ambitious ZDoom wad ever released.

I never meant that any particular mod for ZDoom sucks by extent, just that ZDoom has some issues that make me dislike it personally.

Me too. Zdoom doesn't even truly feel like doom to me anymore.

Personally I'm just not sure I understand how any of the features listed have anything to do with how "detailed" you can make a map. None of them are even exclusive to ZDoom. o_o

*pushes the restart button* I'm starting over. Read 1st post in a bit.

40oz said:

Me too. Zdoom doesn't even truly feel like doom to me anymore.

Eh, it's close enough to me. Once you go with an uncapped framerate and mouselook you can't go back (or at least I couldn't), and the really subtle bugs nuances of physics aren't that important to me.

Plus to me part of ZDoom's whole appeal is using it to completely transform Doom. In fact I'm doing beta testing and additional monsters for Wildweasel's newest weapon mod. To me, if you make a ZDoom mod and don't avail yourself of features like DECORATE and ACS, you're wasting your time and should make a Boom-compatible wad instead.

Also, people should be very careful with slopes. There are a lot of wrong ways to do them and when you do them wrong it usually looks godawful.

I`ll make you a room. A hell-themed one.

Antidote said:
Basically its an advanced version of ZDoom (Doom in Hexen Format)....

NO. No UDMF is absolutely not. Currently one of the more popular ports that SUPPORTS UDMF is ZDoom. However, UDMF itself is a specification of the Doom format that is supposed to be supported by any port that has support for it. Quasar(The writer of Eternity Engine, which is a BOOM based port) was one of the main writers of the specification. Meaning unless port writers all of a sudden have an interest of writing map formats for ports other than their own, this isn't even close to true. Do your research, or at least pay attention somewhat, especially before you start informing others.

I'd say use UDMF(because it's new and needs more maps that support it!) or Boom format. Or, best of all, an Eternity Engine map pack. Linked portals and all sorts of portal effects would go great with higher detailed DooM maps. 8)

People have expressed their distaste for it being in UDMF, so its set to Boom. I'd love to start editing in UDMF, though.