New Eternity wad (Currently unnamed)

[the iron hitman]

Hello all.

I've decided to make this little project count (for once, as I'm quite lazy).

This wad is for (suprise suprise!) Eternity, and you will need the CC4-texture pack and the Useful Flats texture pack from Realm667 to run this wad.

Although it's currently unfinished, I would prefer to hear what feedback/criticisms you may have about the wad.

Download (Wad):
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KX0QD8S6

CC4-texture pack:
http://sl4.poned.com/wasd/cc4-tex-15.zip

Useful Flats pack (bottom of page):
http://www.realm667.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=29&Itemid=152&limit=20&limitstart=20

Have fun!

[printz]

I loaded the wad, together with CC4-TEX.WAD, but when I start the level, I get this! :(

[the iron hitman]

printz said:

I loaded the wad, together with CC4-TEX.WAD, but when I start the level, I get this! :(

My apologies. It seems that you will also need the "useful flats texture pack" from realm667 printz (it's at the bottom of the page!)

Have fun!

[printz]

Here's the demo, recorded with Eternity SVN Build r980: portals-printz-lmp.zip

I saw the portals only at the beginning, and they weren't populated. Cool that there are slopes in your map though.

I did use jump in my demo, because I assume you allowed it, because Team Eternity didn't implement any compatibility flag against jumping!

Finally, I didn't know that Eternity copied / reuses the "invalid thing" sign from ZDoom.

[Xtroose]

Looks good so far.

I noticed that in the room, before you get the red key, you can jump through the window without ever getting the red key. Is this intentional?

In the console it still says that texture YLIGHT-Y can not be found.

[Gez]

printz said:

Finally, I didn't know that Eternity copied / reuses the "invalid thing" sign from ZDoom.

You should try to see what it looks like in Heretic. :p

[the iron hitman]

Xtroose said:

Looks good so far.

I noticed that in the room, before you get the red key, you can jump through the window without ever getting the red key. Is this intentional?

In the console it still says that texture YLIGHT-Y can not be found.

No, that is unintentional. The lines for those windows are meant to be tagged as impassible, thanks for pointing that one out!

printz said:

Here's the demo, recorded with Eternity SVN Build r980: portals-printz-lmp.zip

I saw the portals only at the beginning, and they weren't populated. Cool that there are slopes in your map though.

I did use jump in my demo, because I assume you allowed it, because Team Eternity didn't implement any compatibility flag against jumping!

Finally, I didn't know that Eternity copied / reuses the "invalid thing" sign from ZDoom.

Don't worry, these portals will be more populated, and there is a portal in the red key door room on the ceiling, which I think you can see...

[esselfortium]

Neat!

A couple things I'd advise working on:

- i ran out of ammo a bunch of times while playing this; not sure if tight ammo was intended, but i figured i'd mention it.

- texture/flat matching doesn't always make sense (different-looking materials on different sides of a structure) and texture alignment are rather odd at points. careful use of textures will make your map look cleaner and better-detailed, even if some "detail" is actually removed in the process of making textures fit better.

- lighting doesn't always make sense, with parts of light gradients actually being darker than the surrounding sector, and some sections had a ton of lighting contrast (like the outdoor areas) while others were basically all one, dim level. good use of lighting contrast will contribute hugely to the appearance of your map.

- reduce the amount of bumpy floor detail significantly, and focus more on ceiling detail instead: you can generally do a lot more interesting stuff with ceilings, without interfering with gameplay. personally, i'm a big fan of creating ceiling trims that visually split up a room's ceiling into this sort of shape: http://sl4.poned.com/screens/tutorial/compartmentdemo.jpg threes and other odd numbers are nice to use, but if some other count fits better, go with it. in the mspaint-doodled example, the small bright bit represents a ceiling light, the outer white lines represent the walls/shape of the room or corridor, and the light/dark gray lines represent trims. by splitting a room into smaller "compartments" like this via ceiling trim and other visual structures, you can make your map feel less flat and more structurally interesting. the shapes i used as examples aren't the only way to do this, of course, i was just trying to get the basic idea across.

[printz]

esselfortium said:

- reduce the amount of bumpy floor detail significantly, and focus more on ceiling detail instead

I'd say the map is too flat, by layout. How about editing that bumpy floor detail, changing it to trapdoors to cellars?

[Gez]

Some doors are D1 types, they should rather be DR...
The window bay with the demons and shotgun guys behind lets bullets pass through.

[esselfortium]

printz said:

I'd say the map is too flat, by layout. How about editing that bumpy floor detail, changing it to trapdoors to cellars?

Heh, well, being a flat-ish layout isn't in any way fixed or helped by having an irritating number of 8px bumps in the floor :P

[printz]

esselfortium said:

Heh, well, being a flat-ish layout isn't in any way fixed or helped by having an irritating number of 8px bumps in the floor :P

And I meant cellars, which are way beyond 8px in depth and breadth :P

[the iron hitman]

UPDATE!! (Sorry for the bump people)

Weird hallway:
http://img231.imageshack.us/i/imag001d.jpg/

Underground area:
http://img204.imageshack.us/i/imag002f.jpg/

Outside area (oh dear, you're in trouble...)
http://img14.imageshack.us/i/imag003hm.jpg/

Even more trouble here:
http://img179.imageshack.us/i/imag004s.jpg/

OH MAH GAWD PORTALZ AI AM TEH WINZOR!!!1:
http://img638.imageshack.us/i/imag005f.jpg/

Checkpoint (currently under major construction):
http://img594.imageshack.us/i/imag006.jpg/

New Demo:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wwpn6t

Any feedback is appreciated :)

[Malinku]

outside area looks like it could use some creats

[esselfortium]

Looks pretty interesting. A couple of suggestions:

Most of your indoor scenes look extremely dimly lit and drab, even moreso considering that you're using a high gamma setting for your screenshots and they still look dark. Wall lamps, ceiling lights, and such should generally be really BRIGHT (honestly, I'd say 255 brightness is preferable, for the lights themselves at least) unless some of them are specifically supposed to look like they've been turned off or damaged.

Your outdoor shot, on the other hand, looks a bit *too* high-contrast. The main area beneath the sky ceiling is pretty bright, but the raised walkway with an overhang over it is just about pitch-black. I'd generally use something like 176 or 192 for areas under sky, and probably never go below 160 or 144 at the lowest for areas reasonably nearby them.

Also, I'd go a bit easier on the 8-wide support3. In moderation it can be perfectly fine, but a lot of your usage of it here just feels a bit blocky and yuck to me. The texture in general is rather flat-looking with the plain inside and sharp outlines, so IMO you have to be a bit careful with it.

For stuff like the crane in your ceiling portal (lol z1m1?) where the corners of the vertical and horizontal versions don't really match up properly, I'd either create custom left/right corner textures or just use a plain metal texture with no rivets or outlines on it.

Here I'd probably replace the SUPP308B trim along the main ceiling with a 16-tall trim using METLN_29 or a 24-tall trim using the bottom of BRONZEB1, or something else like one of those that'd fit the theme nicely. I'd also take the upper SUPP308B trim you have surrounding your wall support beams, and lower it down so that the trim is something like 32 or 64 units tall, using a different texture, and possibly use a different texture on the floor trim around those supports as well. This would avoid "8-wide support3 overload" and also make the scene less vertically symmetrical, because the ceiling heights and floor heights of the structures wouldn't inversely match each other as much.

Here I'd avoid having the step up over the trim and then immediately back down, because it looks a bit unnatural and feels annoying to run over ingame. Also could raise up the main ceiling a bit more in that octagonal area, use different textures for ceiling trims, and put some nice lights up there.

[the iron hitman]

Thank you very much for your feedback Essel. I have taken these into account and will be implemented ASAP.

I have a question. Is it possible to make Elevators travel from lower to upper (and vice versa) as if the player was going through the portal? If it's possible, how may it be achieved?]

Thanks in advance, your help has been extremely appreciated :)

[esselfortium]

Yes, it is possible to make a lift or elevator travel through a portal. :)

...actually, I've never done it with an elevator, only lifts, so I'm not sure. It might be possible, though! If it's not, though, and you don't want to have just a lift, you *could* of course use line-to-line portals, but you'd then have to have separate doorways for the upper and lower floors' exits/entrances of your elevator. (i.e. one on each side, or whatever)



To do a lift that goes between two portals, though:

What you need to do is build your lift connected to one of your portal layers, then copy and paste it to create another lift at the matching position on the other portal layer. Don't tag it as a lift; we'll take care of making that work soon. Just give it the same tags needed for regular upper and lower sectors of a portal.

Then, set the ceiling of the bottom layer's lift to the height of the surrounding portal ceiling. This should result in that sector actually having a negative height, with its floor being somewhat higher than its ceiling. The floors of both lifts should be at the same height.



You'll now use the magic of an EE feature called "Attached Surfaces" to force your two lifts to move together as if they were one sector.

Attached Surface control lines work by affecting the sector that the line's front side is facing. I believe this is mainly so that they don't interfere with tagging used for lifts and portals and such!

Make a dummy sector somewhere in the void, and set its floor height to match that of your lifts. Make another dummy sector that's directly connected to that one, and set its floor height to what you want your lifts to lower to. Tag the lift-height sector, and set the appropriate linedef specials in your map where needed to move that dummy sector as a lift.

On one of the lines facing your dummy lift sector, apply line special 380: "Attach Set Front Sector Floor as Control". Give that line a new tag.

Now, on a line facing each of your two ingame lifts, apply line special 381: "Attach Front Sector Floor to Tagged Controls", and give that line the same tag that you gave the control.



If you did it right and I didn't somehow forget a step, that should be it! I should note that currently sectors moving with attached surfaces don't make any sound. You can probably avoid this issue by putting your dummy control sector nearby so you can hear it, but that shouldn't really be necessary, so I highly recommend pestering SoM or Quasar to add an ability to define sound sequences for them, like they promised they would :)

With this setup, you can also pretty effortlessly create detailed multi-sector lifts, doors, elevators, crushers, and any other sort of moving floor or ceiling action, without the risk of the structure "breaking" if one sector's movement is blocked.

[the iron hitman]

Thank you! I'll try this out and let you know if something goes wrong (which is a 95% chance of happening). I'm actually looking forward to the next Eternity update and the new features it will contain! :)

Thanks for the help, it's much appreciated!