Vile Flesh [demopack thread]

[Grazza]

A target, not a limit.

[Volte]

I like the sound of that.

[Schneelocke]

Grazza said:

A target, not a limit.

OK. Still, I'd propose a somewhat longer time - 3 months, maybe.

[Angus Thermopyle]

The rules (best time counts/no limits) are nice.

I'll have a look at both WADs, but long runs are not my speciality. VF Map02 was long enough to start recording again.

[Grazza]

Angus: If you're looking for short ones, feel very free to beat up on my times for maps 03, 04 and 05. :) And a sub-20 second Vi30 (with a strafe-50 jump) would be nice too.

As for Fragport, I suspect there aren't many left that would be less than five minutes. Ask in that thread though; maybe UD could suggest which would be shortest.

[DEMOn]

Schneelocke said:

For those fed up with WinZip, there's a free alternative called 7-Zip - I think it's worth checking out.

Are you saying that this program can open several zipfiles at the same time like pkzip can?

[VinceDSS]

Grazza said:

OK, time to open a forum demopack? Yes/No?
Of course, people are urged to consider recording Fragport demos too, since it would be nice to get that one finished pretty soon.

I'd be for finishing Fragport 1st before really attacking Vileflesh.
It's been waiting for too long now.

Rules? Boom-compatible and Doom2.exe-compatible demos OK? (Doom2.exe compatible demos may not be possible on all maps.) Best time gets in? No limits on number by any particular player?

Boom/PrBoom compatible is a must. Is there a list of VPO free maps ?
I can easily check that anyway :)

Aim to have it finished within, say, two months?

sounds good.

[Volte]

kwic.com/~junior/demos/VI08-418.ZIP

Map 08: Gateway
4:18

Oh god, how frustrating this map is. I came close to throwing my monitor against the wall a few times.

The Arch Vile room is sloppy. Very sloppy. The lsat room could use some work too, but the Cyberdemon was a piece of cake. Chaingunners are the main problem in this level, I think (aside from those Arch Viles).

[Grazza]

Vince: I agree that getting Fragport finished is the top priority. Even if we open a Vile Flesh demopack now (which I do think is a good idea, since the interest is clearly there), I'll be focusing mainly on Fragport until it is finished.

VinceDSS said:

Boom/PrBoom compatible is a must.

I presume you mean "demos should play back with PrBoom", rather than excluding Doom2.exe demos?

Is there a list of VPO free maps? I can easily check that anyway :)

I don't have a list a maps with VPO issues, and the wad's text-file doesn't give details. It also doesn't give details about what, if any, Boom features are used. However, if it was never tested with a Doom2.exe-compatible port, then there might be problems anyway (e.g. LOH2 map10 and CChest map25 use no Boom specials but nevertheless have serious issues with "prboom -complevel 0").

We can ask the author, of course. He's GMan in these forums.

[Schneelocke]

VolteFace said:

Map 08: Gateway
4:18

Oh god, how frustrating this map is. I came close to throwing my monitor against the wall a few times.

The Arch Vile room is sloppy. Very sloppy. The lsat room could use some work too, but the Cyberdemon was a piece of cake. Chaingunners are the main problem in this level, I think (aside from those Arch Viles).

Neat, though. :) Including this one, we already have one quarter of the whole pack done!

[Grazza]

VolteFace said:

Oh god, how frustrating this map is. I came close to throwing my monitor against the wall a few times.

The archie room doesn't have to be that bad. There's a much safer (and quicker) strategy that seems to me to have a very good success rate. Rather than describe it in words, I thought it simplest to record a demo. The only danger comes when an archie teleports to one of the alcoves behind you (this doesn't happen too many times), in which case you can take cover easily enough, or just allow it to blast you if you can spare the health.

I'm sure using this strategy you can get this well under 3 minutes without a great deal of effort. At any rate, it should make recording on this map less of a pain.

[Volte]

That's what I had been doing all along and not once did it succeed (nor did it succeed in the 15 tries I just gave it now). :\ Either you got very lucky, or I'm not doing it properly. The problem seems to be that they constantly teleport into one of the ones on either side of me, and since I can't tell which one it is, I have to run behind one of the walls and hope it's the right one.

Anyway, I give up for now. Best I can do without that strategy is 3:17.

[Grazza]

I find it fairly repeatable (using both Boom and Doom2.exe compatibility) - better than a 50-50 chance when you don't foul up. The main idea is to stay near one corner the whole time (and, I think, one of the corners nearer the exit from the room, given the direction the archies face when they teleport in). That way, the archies are far more likely to teleport harmlessly to one of the further alcoves (take a look in an editor to see why), where they can't do you any damage. When they teleport to one of the two "dangerous" alcoves (or maybe only one of them is dangerous - I'm not sure), I think you're safe either way if you nip behind the cover. The main thing is not to panic.

[Volte]

kwic.com/~junior/demos/VI08-248.ZIP

Thanks, I finally mastered it. :) The hardest part now is perfecting the end room... I managed to do it in 2:43, but PRBoom desynched during the Cyberdemon battle.

[Grazza]

Nice job. Gotta feel a bit sorry for that cyberdemon. :)

VolteFace said:

I managed to do it in 2:43, but PRBoom desynched during the Cyberdemon battle.

Did it play back OK with Eternity itself?

[Volte]

Yes, it did (though I don't have it any more; recorded over it many times since them). It shouldn't be hard to reconstruct it.

[Volte]

Just attempted it again with Prboom and got kwic.com/~junior/demos/VI08-240.ZIP]2:40. Probably much more optimization possible, but someone else can do it if they wish. :)

[Grazza]

I notice that Gwyn Williams has made a set of nomonsters walkthroughs available on his site.

[Altima]

Alrighty, someone fill me in here. I noticed a list of map numbers/times completed/players/blah blah blah, so, I'm guessing that there is one.

We doing this one doom2.exe or some sort of port or what? I have PRBoom/GLBoom, so if we're doing ports, I'll record them on there, unless this is specific to another port... o.O make any sense or did I only confuse myself?

[Grazza]

We're still in the discussion stage, but several demos have already been recorded.

I proposed some rules in an earlier post in this thread.

Rules? Boom-compatible and Doom2.exe-compatible demos OK? (Doom2.exe compatible demos may not be possible on all maps.) Best time gets in? No limits on number by any particular player?

Feel free to comment on this, or suggest alternatives if you feel it could be done better in some other way.

I have e-mailed Gywn Williams (the wad's creator) asking if he can provide some information on which maps will work with Doom2.exe, and which use Boom features.

I'm sure that I shall soon be opening a new thread and a formal forum demopack. Meanwhile, the demos so far on this wad can be found here. Recording with Boom compatibility would certainly be safest, since everything should definitely work then. I've been using Prboom 2.02, and I notice that Gwyn Williams has also been doing so. The equivalent in prboom/glboom 2.2.4 is -complevel 3, and as far as I know, this should work OK (I've used -complevel 3 a few times, and it has been fine).

It would be nice if we could get a public upload area sorted out, but ftp://competn.doom2.net:8002/incoming/sda/dwdemo/ is still not working. :(
(ftp://competn.doom2.net:8002/incoming/sda/ works fine, but that's really meant to be for DSDA stuff.)

So far we have:
Map01 1:03 (VolteFace)
Map02 3:31 (Angus)
Map03 3:22 (Grazza)
Map04 2:54 (Grazza)
Map05 10:04 (Grazza)
Map08 2:40 (VolteFace)
Map25 18:43 (Grazza)
Map30 0:39 (Grazza)

PS: There are still six unclaimed maps in the Fragport demopack. Help there would be much appreciated.

[GMan]

Grazza said:

Vince: I agree that getting Fragport finished is the top priority. Even if we open a Vile Flesh demopack now (which I do think is a good idea, since the interest is clearly there), I'll be focusing mainly on Fragport until it is finished.I presume you mean "demos should play back with PrBoom", rather than excluding Doom2.exe demos?I don't have a list a maps with VPO issues, and the wad's text-file doesn't give details. It also doesn't give details about what, if any, Boom features are used.

I know that all maps up to Map14 worked fine in the original Doom2. At this point I started getting visplane overflows so stopped using Doom 2 altogether - just plain overambition, I guess:-).
There are NO Boom specific tags or tricks in any map, just the limit removal. This was my first project, so I thought I'd get my vanilla map building up to scratch.

I had planned to put out some of my own UV demo's, but to be honest looking at some of your times makes me think again. Perhaps I should leave it to the professionals, so to speak.
There's a pack of NM demos up on the VF web site
http://mysite.freeserve.com/vileflesh/index.html
and I was going to put the others up there too. Perhaps I'll do that anyway so anyone wanting to check them out can do.
They're almost ready, actually. Just Map10 and Map25 to do. I'd even started on a few speed runs.

[Volte]

I got a visplane error in Map 08, right at the start.

[Grazza]

GMan said:

and I was going to put the others up there too. Perhaps I'll do that anyway so anyone wanting to check them out can do.

Please do so. It would be a terrible shame if the interest here led to you not releasing something you've spent a lot of time working on. Demos showing how the maps are done are very useful, even if they are not very optimized from a time viewpoint. And it's always interesting to see someone playing their own maps - it shows how they were intended to work, amongst other things. For instance, from your nomonsters demo on map05, I now understand what the intended route to get the soulsphere was, and why you had made a nearby sector a secret. :)

Thanks for the information regarding Doom2.exe compatibility. I think it is still possible for there to be problems (other than VPOs) even without Boom features being used, due to, e.g., some bugs in stair building and whatnot. But at least we now know that there aren't any maps guaranteed not to work with in Doom2.exe-compatibility mode (i.e. "prboom -complevel 0" or "eternity -comphack").

BTW, I thought your nomo demos showed pretty good movement skills.

[GMan]

VolteFace said:

I got a visplane error in Map 08, right at the start.

Yeah, sorry about that. I had remade a few of the maps since originally testing them in Doom 2. However, I've been busy. I've made a note of levels that have VPO's below, as well as some other notes on errors I came across in the Doom2 engine.
I was using the V1.9 exe that came with Final Doom. I don't know if this makes any difference, but it's the only 1.9 exe I've got.

VPO's on
Map06 Map07 Map08 Map09 Map11 Map14 Map15
Map24 Map25 Map26 Map27 Map28

There are strange 'long distance' HOM'S (where the sky becomes a giant HOM - not sure what the technical name for this is) on the following Maps;
Map 02 Map10 Map12 Map16 Map20 Map29 Map30
Map 32

These long distance HOM's don't stop the level running, but can be quite disorientating if you don't know wehre they are.

Lastly, there are a couple of errors I found on Map 16 and Map 17.
On Map 16 I found I couldn't exit (the teleporters into the death room wouldn't work). However, I've tried it again and it worked fine. Might just have been something I did (I had iddqd and idkfa on at the time but that shouldn't stop teleporters working, should it?)
On Map 17 the blue key is at floor level at the start. This is obviously down to the sprite size. I've had this problem in Doomsday too. This obviously is no good for demo's as it cuts out most of the level.

In short, the best bet is to use PrBoom, but there are plenty of levels that work with vanilla Doom2 (more than I originally thought).

[The Ultimate DooMer]

GMan said:

I was using the V1.9 exe that came with Final Doom. I don't know if this makes any difference, but it's the only 1.9 exe I've got.

If you have Ultimate DooM, you can use the doom.exe there in DooM 2. (sounds strange, but true - the commercial doom2.exe 1.666 works in DooM 1)

[Grazza]

myk has all the version 1.9 exes available for download here.

Using the Final Doom exes shouldn't make any difference w.r.t. VPOs and HOMs though, AFAIK. I think the biggest difference gameplay-wise is a teleporter issue.

[GMan]

I've posted my UV demo pack on the Vile Flesh website.
http://mysite.freeserve.com/vileflesh/index.html

There's a few speed runs in there as well, if you're interested.

[Schneelocke]

GMan said:

I've posted my UV demo pack on the Vile Flesh website.
http://mysite.freeserve.com/vileflesh/index.html

There's a few speed runs in there as well, if you're interested.

Impressive! :)

[Volte]

Argh, there is a bug in MAP18 which ruined a run which was going otherwise flawlessly. The pillar with the rising platforms around it containing the red key is set up so that you can activate the second platform from the first platform, while it is still rising (to save time). However, if you do this, the second platform only rises to the height that the first one was at when you hit the switch. I hit the switch for the second platform when the first was fairly low off the ground, so it rendered the red key unattainable, and the run worthless.

Sigh. Oh well, I need to work on my ammo conservation in that map anyway. The first dry run I did (in 16:22) I was down to a fist at the final revenant battle and had to scrounge what I could from around the battlefield.

[Grazza]

GMan said:

On Map 17 the blue key is at floor level at the start. This is obviously down to the sprite size. I've had this problem in Doomsday too. This obviously is no good for demo's as it cuts out most of the level.

This map also exhibits a problem of the type I feared. There is a switch (tag 17) that is meant to cause two sets of stairs to build. With Boom compatibility it works fine, but with Doom2.exe compatibility, only one of the sets of stairs is built. Edit: On closer inspection, that only appears to happen using eternity-comphack. It's OK with Doom2.exe or "prboom -complevel 0". The same goes for the start of Map32.

I've watched quite a few of your UV demos. It's a hell of a lot of work to produce a set of Max demos for a whole megawad on your own. The quality looks pretty good to me too, especially if these are among the first demos you have recorded.

VolteFace said:

Argh, there is a bug in MAP18 which ruined a run which was going otherwise flawlessly. ... I hit the switch for the second platform when the first was fairly low off the ground, so it rendered the red key unattainable, and the run worthless.

You can still get the red key though - jump down to the teleporter, and then press the switch again. (I tested that with both Boom and Doom2.exe compatibility.) It costs a little bit of time, but there's no need to abandon a good run just because of it.