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inkoalawetrust

gz_bigcity - A GZDoom city sandbox map (UPDATE 1.1.5 RELEASED 19/5/2022)

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This is a really cool map, and the amount of detail is impressive. Just wish there was things to shoot at, would make a really cool open ended combat map

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10 minutes ago, NaturalTvventy said:

Whenever I select "sandbox" GZDoom crashes. v g4.7.0.

 

Does it crash the moment you select the Sandbox episode ? If yes then I'm not sure if that's a bug with the map, since the skill selection is supposed to come up after you select an episode.

 

If it crashes after you select a skill and the map starts to load, then do you get some kind of crash log or error message that you could send me ? And what's your hardware ? I suspect this may be because the map takes about a second or two to load even on my i5-11500 for some reason.

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A giant stretch but I'd love to see this as a Zandro compat map for Prop Hunt game modes and the like! This looks sick though, congrats on the release!

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16 minutes ago, Major Arlene said:

A giant stretch but I'd love to see this as a Zandro compat map for Prop Hunt game modes and the like! This looks sick though, congrats on the release!


Not really doable without hugely downgrading the map, since it uses so many GZDoom features. Just off the top of my head:

The map uses a static portal for the parking lot under the AGM office, which in Zandronum would have to be replaced with a crappy teleport transition to the part of the map where the interior is located. Which also means that monsters wouldn't be able to get in or out at all. Nor would you be able to hear sounds that should be hearable outside the lot. Such as the train crossing.

On the subject of the train, it uses ZScript for its custom physics, that allows it to damage things in front of it while also pushing them forward, WITHOUT being forced to slow down. Which to do in Zandronum would probably require several hundred lines of hacky ACS code, which I don't know how to write. That or the train would just have to use normal physics, and stop when it hits something on its' path, until it eventually kills or destroys it.

The map also uses a modified version of ZDoom's sky camera, made by drPyspy and modified and made customizable by me, since nobody will ever natively implement a 3D sky camera similar to the one in Source. This modified camera can actually move around the 3D skybox relative to the players' movement. And is the reason gz_bigcity's skybox is so seamless that you don't even know where the map ends and the skybox starts, unless you look REALLY close, or cheat and start flying around.
In Zandronum the modified sky camera would have to be replaced with an ACS solution instead. Which IS apparently possible to do, but would likely also be very hacky. And once again, I don't know how I would write that either lol.

The thousands of trees in the forest are made lightweight enough to not turn the map in a slideshow by me simply changing their statnum to STAT_INFO, so that they do not "think" at all. This is an optimization that I know for a matter of fact is not doable in ACS at all. And just using the NoInteraction flag does not actually reduce the overhead of an actor either. So in Zandronum the forest would need to be entirely ditched and replaced with bad cardboard cutouts of trees. While in the current version of the map, the only tree line cutouts are only very far away in the skybox. Where you can barely distinguish them from the thousands of individual trees closer to the map.

 

Spoiler

Three out of these four reasons I listed involve Zandronum not having ZScript lol.

 

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Just now, inkoalawetrust said:

...
 

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Three out of these four reasons I listed involve Zandronum not having ZScript lol.

 

all fair enough, I was kinda going off of the screenshots but yeah, Zandro UDMF is not nearly as robust so completely understandable!

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4 hours ago, DaxxAlabel said:

This is a really cool map, and the amount of detail is impressive. Just wish there was things to shoot at, would make a really cool open ended combat map


You could always duke it out with the inanimate objects on the map :p
 


More seriously, you could just spawn in monsters to fight through the console, or place monsters and items on the map through a level editor like UDB.

 

2 hours ago, Major Arlene said:

all fair enough, I was kinda going off of the screenshots but yeah, Zandro UDMF is not nearly as robust so completely understandable!


Most of the problems I could list off the top of my head had more to do with Zandronum's lack of ZScript rather than lack of mapping features.

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My only 2 issues are the framerate, and that is 100% on my end, and the way the wad is bundled into 3 parts, I don't know why the wad couldn't have been 1 pk3, but I don't know anything about GZDoom Mapping, (I barely understand Boom and Vanilla mapping let alone GZdoom) so that could also be on me.

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1 hour ago, Astronomical said:

My only 2 issues are the framerate, and that is 100% on my end, and the way the wad is bundled into 3 parts, I don't know why the wad couldn't have been 1 pk3, but I don't know anything about GZDoom Mapping, (I barely understand Boom and Vanilla mapping let alone GZdoom) so that could also be on me.


The Voxel Vehicles pack is packaged separately because I want to avoid any conflicts or duplication issues with any other map or mod loaded along gz_bigcity, that may also use the pack. But it wouldn't be too hard to merge it with the main map PK3.

ObAddon_Textures.wad though is just included separately because there is somehow no Doom tool to extract only the textures a certain map(set) uses. SLADE has maintenance options that include removing unused flats and textures, but those only work for WADs. Except they don't since when I put all the ObAddon textures on the maps' WAD file under TX_ markers, those maintenance options still did nothing. The only other method I have to only included the textures needed for the map, besides doing it all manually and taking forever. Is that I apparently can use MTrop's Doom tools for that, specifically WTexScan and WTexport, but when I ran the former it didn't work due to the regional format of my PC.

So I'll have to wait until that is fixed to try again. If I can get it to work, then I'll merge all the textures to the map instead of having to include the whole resource WAD.

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14 minutes ago, inkoalawetrust said:

The Voxel Vehicles pack is packaged separately because I want to avoid any conflicts or duplication issues with any other map or mod loaded along gz_bigcity, that may also use the pack. But it wouldn't be too hard to merge it with the main map PK3.

Would not loading the Voxels increase framerate, I don't use GZDoom often.

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omg gmod real 

all jokes aside tho i really like this map 
despite the low frame rate i got most of the time i still enjoyed the map 
there is a lot of hidden little detail and gags everywhere which makes me appreciate this map more 

my only suggestion is to try to do something with the performance if possible 

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Now it needs some monsters/weapons/gameplay/secrets so we had yet another Dawn Of Reality or Planisphere 2.

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NEW SEMI-MAJOR UPDATE RELEASED: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vrG7mhn7dsZTuRtARuFK9Dj5dkT6DyjM/view?usp=sharing

(Can also be downloaded from the original post.)

Version 1.1:

  • Removed unused sprites, textures, and actors. Like the broken and unusable glass I had made for the gas station.
  • Updated some code comments to match the current iteration of the code they are for.
  • Added editor keys to the grey metal barrel prop.
  • Optimized the PNG textures used by the models, not sure how I forgot to do that before releasing the map.
  • Added a new desktop that can appear on the office computers.
  • Slightly raised one of the buildings behind the supermarket.
  • Removed unused defined camera textures, originally the supermarket camera system would just be one monitor for each camera, but that was WAY too inefficient for performance, so I had to make the scripted fullscreen switchable camera instead.
  • Fixed the trash can lid so it appears again when the trash can is destroyed.
  • Added credits to Cherno for the SimSun shader my models use, I forgot to add credit because the shader was a completely last minute addition.
  • On the subject of the shader, the computer monitors no longer use it, so they appear brighter again.
  • Added FreeDoom door textures on the front doors of the AGM office. And added FreeDoom door sounds on the whole office area.
  • Added siren sounds to the police cars around the map.
  • Made a wall that could be climbed to get out of bounds impassable by players.

 

Urban prop pack released:

Besides this update and cleanup to the map. I have also decided to release the urban props I've made as a standalone pack that can be used for your maps. Besides the assets I've entirely made myself, it also includes the props whose sprites are originally from Realm667 such as the trashcans, but which I've made a lot of changes to, like new code and sprites for them. I've also added some comments explaining how to add more graphics that randomly appear on the billboard and PC models.

However some things that only make sense and work in the context of the gz_bigcity map have been removed such as:

  • The "I am with stupid" UAC graphic doesn't appear on the billboard, since it's a joke that makes sense only in the context of the map*.
  • The easter egg desktop texture on the PC that is literally my own PCs' desktop has been removed. Since it's a joke specifically tied to me, the easter egg desktop that is a recursive screenshot of the PC model in Blender is still kept though.
  • The train model is only a static prop in the pack. Since the mechanism by which it moves in gz_bigcity is incredibly hardcoded and tied to the map itself.

DOWNLOAD LINK:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gp2hsd4hph2iC7iAuzs6qoxUzyibqlCK/view?usp=sharing

Note: This also obviously doesn't include the very map specific models like the gas station roofs and mountain in the skybox.

But all this exposition text is boring, so here are renders of the prop models that I made for the map:

All the (relatively) small model props:
LN8JBvCh.png
(Full resolution render)

The billboard model:
K43tJuYh.jpg
(Full resolution render)

The train model:
zXf3ANbh.png
(Full resolution render)

*The UAC office building is just a bit further down the street from the AGM building.

Edited by inkoalawetrust : Replaced images, because I split the renders into a different album for the ZDoom forums release thread of the map.

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Alright, the map has been updated to 1.1.5. This update basically adds all the small changes and additions I had made to the map since the last update, but that I had not made public. Such as the train honking sometimes when passing through the map. It's not too major of an update.

 

But evidently enough, I wouldn't be able to make too many major additions to the map even if I wanted to anymore. Because as it turns out, gz_bigcity was MUCH closer to entirely breaking GZDoom's limits than I thought it was. As replacing the pillar in the city square with a new mini model of the city, caused the node builder to corrupt the entire map every time it tried generating nodes for it:

unknown.png

unknown.png

So the original sector-based version of the new monument had to be converted into a 3D model. Much to my dismay, since models have such piss poor collision, and cannot have decals on them.

Anyway, the download link to the new version of the map is here, and also in the original post, which also has the version changelog.

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Dude this map is so cool I love it so much!!! The train is awesome, it's so big and full of stuff to see, it's really good! I'm actually glad it doesn't have any enemies or anything. It means you just get to enjoy exploring the map, which is all I want to do in it. I love levels that try to replicate cities in doom, and this just really does it for me. Great work!

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