Classic E1 Maps

[omegamer]

I´m currently working on a replacement for ultimate dooms E1M1,
because the Moon project is paused, for a while to get new ideas.

Now I wanted to ask you what makes a typically E1 level for you.

Get good heigh variation?,good monster placement?,good gameplay?.

What is the thing that makes E1 different of the other eps.

[printz]

Lots of STAR* walls, BROWN* walls, lots of COMP* and TEKWALL* (Doom 1 only; Doom 2's versions don't count!), large electric BIGDOORs. Nearly every level has stupid elevators with PLAT1 sides and STEPx floors, which operate by going near them, pushing them or walking off them (or on them but with you falling). Virtually no use of GRAY walls. Occasional use of STONE, STONE2, PIPE* (no blood). Only use NUKAGE as the damaging floor. The finer details are: use SUPPORT2 to separate different wall textures. Many knee-deep maps use hexagonal metal floors and rectangular brick-like plastic ceilings (as in E1M1). For floors, any flat that isn't CEIL* and doesn't look anything E2 or E3ish will work. For ceilings it's slightly more restrictive to CEIL* and a few others.

Gameplay has to make use of many weak monsters, no Hell Revealed, no Plutonia. No teleporters allowed, unless they're some dark or weird secrets like in E1M5, E1M9, E1M8. In no way should you use GATE* teleporters. Avoid 90-degree walls unless you can't help it, this is not E4. Don't make things cramped! Make sure outside areas are accessible from inside, through elaborate secrets (Romero suggested this). Do add inaccessible outsides, so that no-clip cheaters may feel gratified. Avoid same floor/ceiling heights for different flats (Romero again) -- only E2 and E3 had such things, so consider them more hellish. Layout has to be better than crossroad with locked doors motif. Make sure the map isn't a succession of hallways, instead that every place has a personality.

[omegamer]

printz said:

Lots of STAR* walls, BROWN* walls, lots of COMP* and TEKWALL* (Doom 1 only; Doom 2's versions don't count!), large electric BIGDOORs. Nearly every level has stupid elevators with PLAT1 sides and STEPx floors, which operate by going near them, pushing them or walking off them (or on them but with you falling). Virtually no use of GRAY walls. Occasional use of STONE, STONE2, PIPE* (no blood). Only use NUKAGE as the damaging floor. The finer details are: use SUPPORT2 to separate different wall textures. Many knee-deep maps use hexagonal metal floors and rectangular brick-like plastic ceilings (as in E1M1). For floors, any flat that isn't CEIL* and doesn't look anything E2 or E3ish will work. For ceilings it's slightly more restrictive to CEIL* and a few others.

Gameplay has to make use of many weak monsters, no Hell Revealed, no Plutonia. No teleporters allowed, unless they're some dark or weird secrets like in E1M5, E1M9, E1M8. In no way should you use GATE* teleporters. Avoid 90-degree walls unless you can't help it, this is not E4. Don't make things cramped! Make sure outside areas are accessible from inside, through elaborate secrets (Romero suggested this). Do add inaccessible outsides, so that no-clip cheaters may feel gratified. Avoid same floor/ceiling heights for different flats (Romero again) -- only E2 and E3 had such things, so consider them more hellish. Layout has to be better than crossroad with locked doors motif. Make sure the map isn't a succession of hallways, instead that every place has a personality.

Oh man, thx for the awesome description.
I will play E1 myself again now, so I can see what you mean.

[omegamer]

Here is a pic of the center of the starting room.
Looks that classic?



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[omegamer]

Screens of another room:


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There is also a secret passage, leads to the outside:


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[Alfonzo]

Now that looks half decent! Good work. I can't say I know what the hell's going on the last screen though. You need to stop irregularly posting dark/invisible/otherwise uninteresting screenshots that, as I've noticed from your other project Moon, is something you have a tendency to do.

Good luck though. Try not to overburden yourself.

[omegamer]

st.alfonzo said:

I can't say I know what the hell's going on the last screen though.

Thats the secret passage.
You can´t see very much I know.
I just wanted to post it.

[40oz]

you wanna make sure textures aren't getting cut off. See how the green SLADWALL in the third screenshot has 4 layers of bricks going down from the ceiling, and then one half?

You might want to lower the height of that sector from 144 to 128 so that the bricks fit properly between the floor and the ceiling. It looks much more "clean" that way when parts of a texture aren't getting abruptly cut short. A lot of experienced mappers know to do that and will greatly improve on the appearance of your map.

[printz]

First screenshot looks like a remake of E1M1's starting room. You need to separate the TEKWALL from the brown pillars and computer panel, by using SUPPORT2, at least. The two nearby pillars look peculiar. Either they don't touch the ceiling, or their corners go beyond their sustained ceiling. You should make them look proper. Also, if I were you I'd raise those barrels on an 8-unit tall platform, of brown hexagons and similarly brown step. I'd also remove that TEKWALL completely and transform it into a way forward. But that's me.

[omegamer]

Yeah you´re right, I will delete the TEKWALL and make the sector height to 128.
Thank you for the tips.
I´m still searching for a name.
Maybe something that contains "classic" or "nostalgic".
Maybe I will make a full E1 replacement, but first of this starts as a single map.

[The_MártonJános]

Heh, just the same as Moon.wad, huh?
"I wanted to do only a single level, but... ...now, it's a Megawad!"
Inspiration for sequels always come from single works. Keep it up!

[Marnetmar]

My tip for making E1-style maps is that symmetry is not your friend. Try to make rooms that catch the eye and look interesting.

[omegamer]

New screenies of the Map:



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[Alfonzo]

The door track texture in the 2nd screenshot is notably cut off due to the line it's on not having enough length (or too much!). Also, as printz said, SUPPORT2 is probably a better choice in such circumstances if you're looking to keep it strictly classic. Your BROWN96 textures in the last two shots are also horizontally misaligned, though that's easily fixed.

A few more negligible pointers: Screenshot 1 shows different stair heights. 8 units for the top step, and 16 for the subsequent steps.

The 3rd screenshot is an interesting affair, looking particularly odd thanks to the staircase/window grates. If you're wanting to keep it in, widen/lengthen it out a little bit (especially the staircase), give it some light variation, and generally make it a bit more spatially interesting to look at. Also, the front most ceiling texture in the same shot looks a little out of place, possibly because of the wall textures, whereas it complements the surroundings more so in the previous and final shots.

[printz]

st.alfonzo said:

The door track texture in the 2nd screenshot is notably cut off due to the line it's on not having enough length (or too much!). Also, as printz said, SUPPORT2 is probably a better choice in such circumstances if you're looking to keep it strictly classic.

Note that I'm not sure if offset SUPPORT2 will look alright if two DOORSTOPs don't fit. Speaking of, I'm not too bothered by the cut-off. When looking at Doom levels I have the original maps as reference, and in that case, DOORSTOPs did happen in diagonal places, and often cut-off.

[omegamer]

printz said:

Note that I'm not sure if offset SUPPORT2 will look alright if two DOORSTOPs don't fit. Speaking of, I'm not too bothered by the cut-off. When looking at Doom levels I have the original maps as reference, and in that case, DOORSTOPs did happen in diagonal places, and often cut-off.

Yeah I also saw that.
The thing is, I use support2 and the doortrack texture, but both for various things.

[Alfonzo]

Righto, then. I often wind up panicking then violently deploying METAL and SUPPORT3 between every texture anyway (kind of like tourettes for doom texture editing), so it would be wise of you to take that sort of advise with a pinch, nay, a handful of salt.

omegamer said:

I´m still searching for a name.

"Not another E1 replacement". Tongue in cheek, of course.

[omegamer]

st.alfonzo said:

Righto, then. I often wind up panicking then violently deploying METAL and SUPPORT3 between every texture anyway (kind of like tourettes for doom texture editing), so it would be wise of you to take that sort of advise with a pinch, nay, a handful of salt."Not another E1 replacement". Tongue in cheek, of course.

Whats with "Nostalgica E1" ???

[Alfonzo]

Go for it. Go crazy.

[omegamer]

st.alfonzo said:

Go for it. Go crazy.

Why crazy?

[The_MártonJános]

DOORSTOP is 8 units wide, while SUPPORT2 can easily be used as a 16 units wide (with the offset of 4) or a 24 units wide texture (with the offset of 0).
I'm interested in why you place floor lamps and ceiling lights in the same place. Otherwise it's flawless.

[omegamer]

Anyone has an idea for a good ending of this map?

Its a very short map, but ey its E1M1.
I also search for ideas for a e1m2.

[printz]

st.alfonzo said:

Righto, then. I often wind up panicking then violently deploying METAL and SUPPORT3 between every texture anyway (kind of like tourettes for doom texture editing),

Yeah, but for me as a player that kind of detail is really innocuous...

[omegamer]

Found an ending.
Its like the original E1M1 ending.
Post screenies soon.

[Foodles]

omegamer said:

Found an ending.
Its like the original E1M1 ending.

A room with a switch in?

[omegamer]

Yeah and the room before.
But its just like the room, not just copy n paste.

[Vegeta]

There's a patch Enjay made that let's you use DOOM unique textures in DOOM 2. If interested I can post a download link.
BTW shots look nice! :) Yet some of them look more like E2 (which isn't a bad thing).

Perhaps is not a bad idea to make maps inspired in Deimos base without the hell influence, and maps inspired in Phobos corrupted by hell.

[omegamer]

Vegeta said:

There's a patch Enjay made that let's you use DOOM unique textures in DOOM 2. If interested I can post a download link.
BTW shots look nice! :) Yet some of them look more like E2 (which isn't a bad thing).

Perhaps is not a bad idea to make maps inspired in Deimos base without the hell influence, and maps inspired in Phobos corrupted by hell.

Sorry I dont understand, bad english (-of me)

[omegamer]

Here are the shots of the two ending rooms:



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I need a playtester to look for bugs that I may have forgot.
If I´m finished with solving bugs I´ll release it, and maybe make a E1M2,E1M3...

[printz]

Vegeta said:

Perhaps is not a bad idea to make maps inspired in Deimos base without the hell influence,

I think those will look like the Doom alpha levels. Relevant thread.

and maps inspired in Phobos corrupted by hell.

And those will look kinda like KDiZD Z1M8.