Mappers needed for a WAD of completely new textures

[Sigvatr]

EDIT: TO GET THE LATEST GRAPHICS WAD, GO HERE --> http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=909107#post909107



Hi guys,

I don't have very much time for mapping these days, but as a graphics designer I really enjoy creating textures for Doom that have an authentic 90's style to them, so much so that I've actually written some of my own software to assist me in creating Doom textures, sort of like the tools the original Doom guys used.

I wrote some of my helper software as photoshop scripts and some of it in C++. Effectively it allows me to work on textures and see what they look like in the Doom palette real time. There's a lot of functionality in there, mainly it's a case of placing down fake three-dimensional shapes and then painting them with color or another texture later on. There are also some functions that allow me to effectively blend together some textures in various ways until it comes out looking the way I want. The Doom palette shifting can either be calculated based on a normal RGB color spectrum or manually shifted within the Doom palette.

I've got a lot of textures I've finished over the past few months but I have only tiny tiny pieces of maps I've put together just to test them. I was wondering if anyone would like to throw together some maps using the textures I've made? I'd like to put an emphasis on the new textures along with clever lighting and map design rather than details, so the Romero would be great. Since all of the textures are new, I don't want to use any of the original Doom textures at all. In fact, I think I will probably create new obstacle and decoration sprites as well.

Just as a reminder:

- Conscious use of contrast everywhere in a level between light and dark areas, cramped and open areas.
- Creating easily recognizable landmarks in several places for easier navigation.
- Being strict about designing several secret areas on every level.
- Making sure that if a player could see outside that they should be able to somehow get there.
- Making my levels flow so the player will revisit areas several times so they will better understand the 3D space of the level.
- Always changing floor height when I wanted to change floor textures.
- Using special border textures between different wall segments and doorways.
- Being strict about texture alignment.

I've found that working indirectly with one another on forums is relatively inefficient and projects tend to slide off into oblivion quickly if there isn't enough participation or feedback. Because of that, I would appreciate it if we could communicate on AIM or MSN.

If you want to contribute to this project, then add me to AIM or MSN (or we can do it by email). My details are:

MSN: msn@sigvatr.com
AIM: SigvatrAIM
EMAIL: sigvatr@gmail.com

Collaboration in this thread will be secondary to direct communication. We can use it to post screenshots.

I will be happy to allow you to use any of the content I have created for this project freely in your own projects as long as you have finished at least one map. Hell, I might even make you some just for you as a way of saying thanks :)

Here's a few previews of the things I've managed to cough up so far:















And yes, it does use a new palette.

Some of you will recall me contacting you in the previous days about this project, just consider yourself special ;)

Hope to hear some good C+C!

Cheers!
- Sig

[Use]

*yoink*

[Sigvatr]

Naughty naughty!

[Sigvatr]

A quick addition:

[10:44:35] <Yagisan> what is the licensing on the textures ?
[10:45:09] <Sigvatr> well i specified in the thread that if you contribute a map to this project then you can use the textures in your personal projects
[10:45:16] <Sigvatr> not community projects or freedoom or anything though

[Mechadon]

Wow, I love some of those textures! Especially the tech-ish ones...those are really amazing looking.

I would love to contribute a map...if only I had the time to do so. Maybe sometime in the future though.

[magicsofa]

I'd like to contribute, but I refuse to use MSN or AIM...is this a problem? I can email you :P

[Sigvatr]

Well this project will be going on indefinitely, or until it has 32 maps. I will release betas regularly, however.

[Sigvatr]

Mechadon said:

Wow, I love some of those textures! Especially the tech-ish ones...those are really amazing looking.

I would love to contribute a map...if only I had the time to do so. Maybe sometime in the future though.

Sure, my email address is sigvatr@gmail.com

[Insane_Gazebo]

I'm tempted to take a break from my Sunder project (as I'm about finished with my latest map in the set) to contribute to this. If I'm not too busy, I'll message you in the next few days.

[stewboy]

So, are you going to make the textures freely available to everyone, or just give it out to certain people?
I'd sure enjoy making a map for this, but I've said that phrase many times before, and I rarely complete maps... still, no harm would be done, right?
I'm also available to make music if anyone wants it!

[40oz]

I'd be interested if this wasn't really a project open to everybody rather than a small collection of people. Usually community projects tend to have a few great maps and the rest are really skippable.

The pallete is pretty neat. The tech textures look EXTREMELY gritty though.

Also what happened to Annhilator?

[Sigvatr]

40oz said:Also what happened to Annhilator? [/B]

This is more or less the leftovers of that.

[pcorf]

So you are wanting E1 style layouts with these new textures. Best of luck.

[Sigvatr]

pcorf said:

So you are wanting E1 style layouts with these new textures. Best of luck.

Detail wise, E1 has the perfect amount of detail and is the sort of detailing we should use. John Romero's maps were always the best designed in my opinion and the rules he layed down are law :)

When someone is ready to begin mapping then say so and I can upload the wad of content I have done thus far.

[stewboy]

I'm ready :)

[Sigvatr]

stewboy said:

I'm ready :)

... ok I'll do it later on today, I still need to pack a few things in there.

[Twinzen]

Insane_Gazebo said:

I'm tempted to take a break from my Sunder project (as I'm about finished with my latest map in the set) to contribute to this. If I'm not too busy, I'll message you in the next few days.

You're not allowed to do anything else before we have a delicious 32 level Sunder megawad! :p

[PRIMEVAL]

Dark. Eerie. Post-apocalyptic. Cyber-Gothic. Love it.

Too bad I don't map... If, however, this little project takes off, I may be able to contribute some music. I really like the looks of the textures and that screenshot, seems to be up my alley.

[valkiriforce]

I would love to contribute to this, I absolutely feel with you on the detail part. Especially since you posted those John Romero guidelines. I myself have started work on a brand new megawad, and I am about 6 maps away from completing my other one. I'll have to post a topic sometime about it to show you how strict I'm trying to be with my new project. So we can both benefit from this I feel. :)

[Dutch Doomer]

I like the textures alot. Sucks that I don't have alot of time to map lately.

[Insane_Gazebo]

Sigvatr said:

Detail wise, E1 has the perfect amount of detail and is the sort of detailing we should use. John Romero's maps were always the best designed in my opinion and the rules he layed down are law :)

When someone is ready to begin mapping then say so and I can upload the wad of content I have done thus far.

Is it okay, detail wise, if we go a bit beyond that?

Knowing me, I will... (My latest map is almost 50k sidedefs, lol.)

[myk]

Sounds like the opposite of what he's requesting :p

What you could do is submit one or two maps in the specs hes demanding, and then use the resources to make all the gigantic maps you want with them, since he's giving any authors that participate the right to use the textures elsewhere.

[Insane_Gazebo]

myk said:

Sounds like the opposite of what he's requesting :p

What you could do is submit one or two maps in the specs hes demanding, and then use the resources to make all the gigantic maps you want with them, since he's giving any authors that participate the right to use the textures elsewhere.

I'm not saying I'm going to make a map that complex; quite the opposite. However, I'd like to give him something regardless, even if it is a little more complex than he'd like. I mean, the way I see it, we have more space than Romero did to play with, so why not use it? :)

Anyhow. I can see what he wants, and that my usual mapping style doesn't go together well with this, but hey, maybe I'll be able to restrain myself this time :)

[Sigvatr]

Insane_Gazebo said:

I'm not saying I'm going to make a map that complex; quite the opposite. However, I'd like to give him something regardless, even if it is a little more complex than he'd like. I mean, the way I see it, we have more space than Romero did to play with, so why not use it? :)

Anyhow. I can see what he wants, and that my usual mapping style doesn't go together well with this, but hey, maybe I'll be able to restrain myself this time :)

I think I will be able to tolerate a little bit more detail in this. I like the amount of detail in CHORDG by Malcolm Sailor; if you are unfamiliar with that map then check it out, it is my favorite map ever made.

[Sigvatr]

This project took off a little faster than I expected, so I might have to spend a few days making some more textures due to the amount of people who want to work on it already.

That being said, how do we want to handle level progression in this? Start off with tech base, move on to something different, then move on to hell?

[Walter confetti]

maybe i'll give to this a shot... if you don't want something like esselfortium \ tormentor667 standard mapping, i think i will make a little work for this...

[Insane_Gazebo]

Sigvatr said:

I think I will be able to tolerate a little bit more detail in this. I like the amount of detail in CHORDG by Malcolm Sailor; if you are unfamiliar with that map then check it out, it is my favorite map ever made.

Just checked it out (turned out I'd downloaded it ages ago, but never played it.) I quite liked it.

Detail wise, that's roughly what I had in mind too - I'd only consider going higher than that if the map I end up making grows larger than that.

[Sigvatr]

Ok, this is something that I have been needing some feedback on for a while. I'm interested to know what people think about "improving" the enemy sprites. I have developed a technique which both smoothens the transitions between shades of color and slightly improves the detail. It's difficult to explain, but I will tinker with it in the coming weeks and show you guys.

Some of the hand drawn sprites, such as the shotgun guy and chaingun guy, desperately need some improvements.

Don't worry, I am making some textures right now :)

[UnholyMessias]

Insane_Gazebo said:

Just checked it out (turned out I'd downloaded it ages ago, but never played it.) I quite liked it.

Detail wise, that's roughly what I had in mind too - I'd only consider going higher than that if the map I end up making grows larger than that.

In my mind sigvatr would be insane to not let gazebo make a map, the author of sunder having a map in your megawad, it doesnt get any better then that :).

[Sigvatr]

Ok guys, we are ready to begin!

Here is the download containing the wad with all of the graphics you need: http://www.braindamage.vg/doom/hellsup.rar

There is a crappy test map in there. Disregard that.

I will be periodically creating new textures for the wad. Right now, we have mostly techbase stuff and a little bit of dungeon type stuff. The dungeon brick wall by itself and without any skulls or stuff will make for a nice concrete brick wall to go with the techbase theme.

You are free to make any map number that you want. Whatever happens, try and make it have comparable difficulty to the original Doom II, and at most Plutonia. The emphasis on this mod is not detail or difficulty, but creating a new and captivating atmosphere.

Remember to read the guide I posted at the top of the thread.

If there is some sort of texture you want for your map but I haven't made yet, simply use the best matching original Doom texture. I do not want to use any of the original doom textures in this wad (aside from liquids), so I will get around to making a counter-part to each of the original Doom textures more or less. That way, you can use an original Doom texture, but I will make a new one that is sort of/kind of like the one you have used eventually.

Keep in mind that this is STRICT VANILLA styling, with Doom II map settings. If you feel the need to carve a statue, then this project is not for you. Malcolm Sailor's map CHORD sets the benchmark for what this wad should look like.

Have fun!