What is the purpose of the COMP_01 flat?

[Impeller]

I've wondered for a while what the purpose of this texture is. I don't think it was used ever in any ID Software maps, I don't recall seeing it at least. Only official map I remember seeing it used was TNT Map 20 where it was plastered all over the floor in a room. It must've had some purpose because it's also in Doom 2. But again, I don't think I've ever seen it used in ID maps. Anyone have any idea of where else it was used or what the purpose was?

 

COMP_01

[thiccyosh]

I like to call those kinds of textures "Tech bullshit-textures". What's its purpose? Tech. Y'know? Computers?

[gwain]

I thought it was just a generic office ceiling I use it inside buildings if it fits

[Gez]

26 minutes ago, Impeller said:

I've wondered for a while what the purpose of this texture is. I don't think it was used ever in any ID Software maps, I don't recall seeing it at least. Only official map I remember seeing it used was TNT Map 20 where it was plastered all over the floor in a room. It must've had some purpose because it's also in Doom 2. But again, I don't think I've ever seen it used in ID maps. Anyone have any idea of where else it was used or what the purpose was?

 

COMP_01

Doomworld: we ask the hard questions™

 

 

Anyways, based on the name, it's a flat texture meant to be used with computer gizmos. And given the color, I'd say it's specifically meant for the Doom 1-exclusive COMPUTE1. A bit awkward to use, though.

 

 

 

 

 

[Vermil]

In Doom1, it is used:

E2M2: The ceiling of the chaingun room.

E2M6: The ceiling of the light amp googles room.

E2M7: The top of the COMPUTE1 block in the blue area.

 

In Doom2, it is used:

Map08, As the undersides to ceiling COMPSTAx walls in the secret area bottom right.

Map13: The floor of the rocket launcher pedestal on Map13.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Vermil

[Mystic 256]

COMP01 has the same issue CEIL1_1 has, its off center

 

some of the flats in Doom/Doom 2 seem to be off center for some reason, I'm not sure why

[ViolentBeetle]

I think it looks like an oversized slot for a disk (CD, or floppy or whatever) but why is it facing up (or down) is unclear.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

14 minutes ago, Mystic 256 said:

COMP01 has the same issue CEIL1_1 has, its off center

 

some of the flats in Doom/Doom 2 seem to be off center for some reason, I'm not sure why

CEIL1_1 doesn't bother me that much because it's pretty busy, and not very obvious. I haven't used COMP01 in any of my maps yet, I think. There's something about the simplicity - when it's off centre, it feels like it stands out.  I have a laboratory themed map in the pipeline, so I'm curious if it's workable. 

[magicsofa]

28 minutes ago, Mystic 256 said:

COMP01 has the same issue CEIL1_1 has, its off center

 

some of the flats in Doom/Doom 2 seem to be off center for some reason, I'm not sure why

Maybe it's supposed to help obscure the 64x64 grid

[Ludi]

The most fascinating part is why anyone would make it purposely misaligned

[gwain]

9 minutes ago, Sr_Ludicolo said:

The most fascinating part is why anyone would make it purposely misaligned

the person who made it probably had the room in an odd spot on the grid so they misaligned it on purpose 

that's the only reason I could think I could just imagine someone having to exit out of doomed then going into a paint program and back into doom ed and into the doom executable lmao atleast nextstep was fast I couldn't imagine doing that on an ibm compatible at they probably had to do this process multiple times with the way the alignment looks

Edited April 13, 2022 by gwain

[Impeller]

1 hour ago, Vermil said:

In Doom1, it is used:

E2M2: The ceiling of the chaingun room.

E2M6: The ceiling of the light amp googles room.

E2M7: The top of the COMPUTE1 block in the blue area.

 

In Doom2, it is used:

Map08, As the undersides to ceiling COMPSTAx walls in the secret area bottom right.

Map13: The floor of the rocket launcher pedestal on Map13.

 

Man I was just playing E2M2 last night and looked at the ceiling of the Chain Gun pit. I noticed the 4 red lights above it but I didn't notice the rest of the ceiling used that texture. Looks like E2M7 is the way it was meant to be used but even then it's screwed up because it's not centered. E2M6 it's on the floor instead of the ceiling.

 

It's used in weird places. Area's it doesn't even fit. But that's Sandy's style of design I guess, out of place textures. I have used it a few times in my own maps, I always place it above, CONS1_x flats. I feel like it fits as a computer console's ceiling.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Impeller

[Gez]

23 minutes ago, magicsofa said:

Maybe it's supposed to help obscure the 64x64 grid

That is my guess. After all, the texture tiles, and the shapes are free. And we know they weren't exactly anal-retentive about texture alignment...

[yakfak]

comp01 fails at its apparent goal (computer room ceiling?) so use it impressionistically.

 

it's all over my maps, used for constrast rather than for beautification or any attempt at defining a place, so crap that it's one of those vanilla features that hasn't become a cliché

[Impeller]

I threw something quick together in Doom Builder and I'll say it actually looks alright when paired with COMPUTE1. This has to be it's intended use. I can't see any other textures it would pair this well with.

 

[Astronomical]

1 hour ago, gwain said:

the person who made it probably had the room in an odd spot on the grid so they misaligned it on purpose 

 

CC4 tex has texture variants for that goal, so it makes sense.

[Doomkid]

It's a pretty limited-use texture, and I do have to admit that it would look better if it were properly aligned. I understand the "hide the grid" reasoning if indeed that was the case (though it may have just been "good enough as-is") but I think it would be more useful when centered.

 

As for not fitting with any textures.. I could make this flat work alongside literally any grey texture in a map, of which there are plenty in Doom, lol. The grain seems to match COMPUTE1 perfectly but I couldn't possibly imagine being that picky with texture/flat pairings, but maybe that's just me. I've put blue carpet alongside marble walls, so y'know.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

3 hours ago, Impeller said:

I threw something quick together in Doom Builder and I'll say it actually looks alright when paired with COMPUTE1. This has to be it's intended use. I can't see any other textures it would pair this well with.

 

Wow, holy crab! See? It fits like a glove.

Also maybe with the CONS1 flats.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

It's a pretty limited-use texture, and I do have to admit that it would look better if it were properly aligned. I understand the "hide the grid" reasoning if indeed that was the case (though it may have just been "good enough as-is") but I think it would be more useful when centered.

 

As for not fitting with any textures.. I could make this flat work alongside literally any grey texture in a map, of which there are plenty in Doom, lol. The grain seems to match COMPUTE1 perfectly but I couldn't possibly imagine being that picky with texture/flat pairings, but maybe that's just me. I've put blue carpet alongside marble walls, so y'know.

Even hell-corrupted fortress can be comfy lol

[Xaser]

NERD TIME:

COMP01 is definitely related to COMPUTE1 -- the flat (left) is an edited version of an unused alpha patch (right) from the same general set used to create COMPUTE1:

 

   

 

The flat is pretty clearly based on the patch -- the original 56x56 patch was extended to 64x64 (rather shoddily, with repeating copy+paste artifacting on the edges), and the bottom of the "rectangles" is just the top 8px flipped vertically and copy+pasted to the bottom.

 

 

This also explains why the flat is off-center: the top-left of the flat is exactly the top-left of the patch, and whoever did the conversion didn't spend a lot of time post-editing the flat to make it look nice. Makes me wonder if a programmer or mapper hacked it together, rather than an artist. :P

 

Hooray, Texture Archaeology! :P

[Blzut3]

3 hours ago, Xaser said:

The flat is pretty clearly based on the patch -- the original 56x56 patch was extended to 64x64 (rather shoddily, with repeating copy+paste artifacting on the edges), and the bottom of the "rectangles" is just the top 8px flipped vertically and copy+pasted to the bottom. 

I guess add that to the things I'll never be able to unsee.  Fortunately it's not a popular texture.

3 hours ago, Xaser said:

Makes me wonder if a programmer or mapper hacked it together, rather than an artist. :P

My bet would be on mapper.  Since it was likely to be used to make 56x56x56 structures with the aforementioned patch, a programmer would filled it in with a solid color to let compression eat the overhead (on the floppy of course since WAD is not compressed).

[act]

9 hours ago, Vermil said:

In Doom1, it is used:

E2M2: The ceiling of the chaingun room.

E2M6: The ceiling of the light amp googles room.

E2M7: The top of the COMPUTE1 block in the blue area.

 

In Doom2, it is used:

Map08, As the undersides to ceiling COMPSTAx walls in the secret area bottom right.

Map13: The floor of the rocket launcher pedestal on Map13.

is that all

[magicsofa]

20 hours ago, Xaser said:

This also explains why the flat is off-center: the top-left of the flat is exactly the top-left of the patch, and whoever did the conversion didn't spend a lot of time post-editing the flat to make it look nice. Makes me wonder if a programmer or mapper hacked it together, rather than an artist. :P

 

Hooray, Texture Archaeology! :P

 

Wow, how many times now have we invented several interesting explanations for things in Doom only to find out they were just slapping shit together in a big hurry?

[Mystic 256]

 

I fixed it

[magicsofa]

COMP_02

[Doomkid]

11 hours ago, magicsofa said:

Wow, how many times now have we invented several interesting explanations for things in Doom only to find out they were just slapping shit together in a big hurry?

So many. I've been guilty of it before myself, so no room to talk - but I've seen people over-analyze old Doom scraps to an extent where even a Doom loonie like me says "look, I think we might be overthinking things" countless times by now.

 

I've realized some time ago, for anything odd or out-of-place in Doom, the answer is "it was done in a hurry without too much deliberation". Makes sense considering how hast the development cycle was!

[Jello]

6 hours ago, Doomkid said:

So many. I've been guilty of it before myself, so no room to talk - but I've seen people over-analyze old Doom scraps to an extent where even a Doom loonie like me says "look, I think we might be overthinking things" countless times by now.

 

I've realized some time ago, for anything odd or out-of-place in Doom, the answer is "it was done in a hurry without too much deliberation". Makes sense considering how hast the development cycle was!

For them to go from Wolfenstein to Doom in a year and a half was nothing short of amazing. And they did patch it over time, but it's still an impressive turnaround time; especially since it's a game that's still being modded to this day. I will forgive them the occasionally un-aligned texture. They were under a deadline, the texture didn't quite fit what they wanted it for, so whomever just edited it and made it work. It's part of the original iwad now, so either use it, or don't. 

 

It seems like people think the id team are God's, they aren't. They were kids putting together a videogame studio, doing what they loved, and they were under deadlines. So whatever they could put together that worked, that's good. They weren't idiots, by any means, but they weren't gurus, close to it, but not experts. Except maybe John, that guy is on another level.

[Murdoch]

9 minutes ago, Jello said:

Except maybe John, that guy is on another level.

 

<insert Civvie reference here>

 

7 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I've realized some time ago, for anything odd or out-of-place in Doom, the answer is "it was done in a hurry without too much deliberation". Makes sense considering how hast the development cycle was!

 

Yeah. I remember watching something recently about one of the gore sprites supposedly was of some dictator post hanging or something and all the ridiculous speculation about that. That turned out to be totally wrong.

[Faceman2000]

4 hours ago, Murdoch said:

Yeah. I remember watching something recently about one of the gore sprites supposedly was of some dictator post hanging or something and all the ridiculous speculation about that. That turned out to be totally wrong.

That’s actually still a contentious issue. Some, including Doomkid, will assert they were all pictures of GI Joe figures because one of those was confirmed to be. We still don’t definitively know the origin of the rest and they were clearly cobbled together from various sources, and I still think it’s quite likely one of them was a photo of Mussolini and his girlfriend.

[Thelokk]

While we're at it, I have another texture-related conundrum I can't figure out. What exactly is AASTINKY? According to the wiki it's supposed to be an empty dummy slot that is 'sacrificed' to avoid some texture related issues... except it is an actual texture, and a nice one too, used it a bunch of times. What gives? Does it appear in the IWAD at all, perhaps under a different name?

Edited April 15, 2022 by Thelokk