Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
JPL

album wad - The Fragile

Recommended Posts

I made a post about this idea last month. Since then I've been trying to prove out the concept for the album I've chosen.

NIN's The Fragile isn't my favorite artist/album, but I kept coming back to it when thinking about music that has a very wide tonal range, is atmospheric, Doom action-appropriate, and many of the songs have interesting "pacing", eg loud-soft dynamics, that translate to level pacing. Also appropriate given the id-NIN connection with Quake 1.

Lüt put it well in my first thread:

It seems like you could do this a number of ways.

1) Follow the lyrical content of the songs
2) Do a general interpretation of the song titles
3) Focus strictly on matching the music while disregarding lyrics (if any)


Doing only one of these for an entire album seems very restrictive (but may work great for certain albums), so I'm doing a mix. The first level I've done is definitely option 3, which I've found has pros and cons depending on how slavishly you adhere to it.

I've got some video capture of a playthrough of the first level/track. Disclaimers:
- It's a very ugly rough work in progress. Almost no work yet on interesting geometry, texturing, lighting and the gameplay is very unrefined.
- Please don't link it outside of this forum. It's very WIP, plus it's a big video and my host bandwidth is limited.
- You'll need Firefox 4 or Chrome to view the video (it's in the new webm format) - sorry, this is all my current desktop recording software can output.
- The first song contains some NSFW language.

The video:
http://vectorpoem.com/etc/damaged5.webm

The audiovisual synchronicity with this first track is probably more tight than any subsequent level I have planned. It was a lot of work to get each and every room to match each phase of the song, and it forced the level into a super linear shape - which works for an intro level, but will get boring and contrived later on.

The contrivance issue looms large in my mind. In the video, it's the dreaded "designer playing his own level" situation - I know exactly how to play to get the "optimal" experience, but the whole point of interactivity is that players can experience things in their own way! Still, I've structured the level to allow a straightforward rail shooter experience that matches up well without too much player confusion. And like I said, this level is at the far extreme of audiovisual sync; later levels will be more loosely structured around the music.

Really curious as to what people think so far!

Share this post


Link to post

I was a bit thrown off at first by the incomplete texturing, but man, map01's layout is cool as hell. The amount of moving structures really surprised me; I don't think I've ever seen a map where the playing field was so constantly in flux. I'm really looking forward to seeing where else you go with this!

Also, it's awesome to have you back and working on Doom stuff again :>

Share this post


Link to post

Interesting level indeed! I can only imagine what this will look like once fully textured. I liked how the light levels got slowly darker, added a lot to the "descent" feeling. And yeah the dynamic nature of all the areas will likely keep the player from noticing the linearity, I certainly didn't notice it. One thing I didn't like was the cyber/archvile telefrags (or were they actually telefragged? Couldn't quite tell). IMO such a boss killing technique should require some sort of puzzle first, before the player is allowed to telefrag them, but of course this song isn't exactly a puzzle solving theme ;-)

So yeah, that brings up the idea of the project... synchronizing music to gameplay. Well first there is the copyright issue (though Reznor would probably support the effort e.g. Ghosts album) - actually, speaking of the Ghosts album, I think he released that one under some sort of license which promoted public non profit usage of the songs.

But then there are two other glaring issues I can think of, though I doubt I'm adding anything that you haven't thought of. Song length, and player style. These two issues are sortof married together, in that the many slow and methodical players will explore every nook, kill every enemy, collect every item etc. and the song will end thus ruining the whole experience for them. So then what happens, the song repeats? Silence? Force the player to die after song end? The only solution I can think of you have already employed, which is to have the player basically on a "ride" like a lift or series of them. Or perhaps some sort of "pressure" constantly steering the player forward, like arch viles chasing the player and there's not enough ammo to kill them, only way to go is forward etc.

edit: oh ok, seeing in your other thread, the intent is that the user has the CD on hand. This is going to severely limit the audience, hmm...

Share this post


Link to post

I was quite impressed, although I think that level/music combo was better to watch in your video than it would be to play. That highly dynamic sort of level structure would be interesting to see implemented in a "normal" level though. I may give that a go myself at some point... although if I were using ZDoom it'd be a bit too easy.

Share this post


Link to post

Thanks a ton for the feedback, folks. This will definitely keep me going... albeit slowly, as these labors of love tend to go.

For testing, I have a music-only WAD with an OGG rip of each CD track so I can easily play along with the music, but obviously I can't distribute that without Reznor's blessing - if I manage to finish this monster, I'll cross that bridge then.

The biggest conundrum I'm running into as I try to plan and make more of these levels is how to "keep things moving along", without making things as overwhelmingly linear as they are in that first level all the time (tiring and monotonous), but also without feeling like the audio-visual sync is grinding to a halt as the player deals with combat. I've been replaying a lot of the all-time great WADs with fantastic combat and I'm noticing that that often means slowing the player down, or at least putting them into situations where slowing down is a good tactical option.

To me, a key part of this project is the feeling of moving through new spaces that match new parts of the music - the moment-to-moment of combat is too dynamic/unscripted to sync, though it clearly creates waypoints in the overall pacing. But combat gets the player to remain in a space. In that first level shown in the video, I defer this issue by making every combat last 1-3 seconds tops... but I can't maintain that against the full roster of enemies in less linear levels.

Can anyone recommend levels or sections of levels where the player feels compelled to keep moving and mowing through combats quickly? All the ones I've found have been "intro" levels in the grand tradition of E1M1 and MAP01, and I've already done my version of that. Or maybe I'm overthinking all this? I tend to do that.

Share this post


Link to post
JPL said:

For testing, I have a music-only WAD with an OGG rip of each CD track so I can easily play along with the music, but obviously I can't distribute that without Reznor's blessing - if I manage to finish this monster, I'll cross that bridge then.


It may be too late for this, but his album The Slip is free to (re)distribute, and you can start with FLACs as your base.

[edit] on the signup page is posted:

the slip is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.

we encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc.

Share this post


Link to post
Vorpal said:

So yeah, that brings up the idea of the project... synchronizing music to gameplay. Well first there is the copyright issue (though Reznor would probably support the effort e.g. Ghosts album) - actually, speaking of the Ghosts album, I think he released that one under some sort of license which promoted public non profit usage of the songs.

When I first heard of this idea, the Ghosts album was the first thing I thought of. If I were to attempt that, though, I likely wouldn't do the entire album - only specific segments of it. And I'd probably also alter the songs slightly to make them loop a bit more seamlessly.

Share this post


Link to post
JPL said:

Can anyone recommend levels or sections of levels where the player feels compelled to keep moving and mowing through combats quickly? All the ones I've found have been "intro" levels in the grand tradition of E1M1 and MAP01, and I've already done my version of that. Or maybe I'm overthinking all this? I tend to do that.


When I was a new player, Doom2 map10 used to compel me to move forward quickly, those many open and unlocked rooms with swaths of enemies that I was bad at killing, compelled me to just keep running and opening doors.

On that principle, of "compelled to move forward, because your current situation is too dangerous", slayer.wad map04 comes to mind (at least the start of it). Then there are many many examples of maps that take this to a ridiculous extreme, like hr.wad map24, av.wad map26, possiblye pl2.wad map21?, but I doubt you're looking for that type of gameplay (slaughter)...

Share this post


Link to post

I roughed out another level for this last weekend. Here's some video:

http://vectorpoem.com/etc/jlyi1.webm

(you'll need Chrome or Firefox 4 to view it)

The basic idea was to use "cages" that open at different points during the track to throw more monsters into the fray, following the quiet/loud dynamics of the music. Rather than being a traditional teleport ambush battle, I liked the idea of showing the player 100% of what they'll be up against during the ominous buildup at the beginning.

Two obvious issues:

1. I'm using a "lower floor" linedef to "open" the cages with variable floor/ceiling heights to provide the timing, but the lower texture on the cage walls sinks into the floor within a few seconds, and at that point the only way you know when it's open is when (if) you see the monster start moving. Is there any way to pull this concept off using vanilla (or Boom-compatible) functionality? - specifically, a cage that you can see into, but that blocks monster visibility and weapon fire, that can somehow "open" to let the monsters out after a very specific interval.

2. For some reason, the wall with tag 666 that's supposed to lower when the last mancubus dies (this being map07) doesn't lower. Strangely, it does when I take out all the other Things in the map besides the mancubi, so I seem to have the sector set up properly. I searched around for various tag 666 problems people were having and none of them seemed to fit this pattern.

Here's the version of the WAD used to record that video:

http://vectorpoem.com/etc/07jlyi.zip

The music is not included, of course.

Share this post


Link to post

This is... pretty much what I've envisioned making Doom levels as. The music and level is perfectly synchronised with eachother, where the music is what drives the gameplay, the progression, the atmosphere, the level, forward...

I love you. This is absolutely awesome.

Share this post


Link to post
JPL said:

2. For some reason, the wall with tag 666 that's supposed to lower when the last mancubus dies (this being map07) doesn't lower. Strangely, it does when I take out all the other Things in the map besides the mancubi, so I seem to have the sector set up properly. I searched around for various tag 666 problems people were having and none of them seemed to fit this pattern.

What port are you using? In both prboom+2.5.0.9test and gzdoom 1.5.06 the wall lowers for me. And how many times does this happen - it could be you're just missing the last manc.

1. I'm using a "lower floor" linedef to "open" the cages with variable floor/ceiling heights to provide the timing, but the lower texture on the cage walls sinks into the floor within a few seconds, and at that point the only way you know when it's open is when (if) you see the monster start moving. Is there any way to pull this concept off using vanilla (or Boom-compatible) functionality? - specifically, a cage that you can see into, but that blocks monster visibility and weapon fire, that can somehow "open" to let the monsters out after a very specific interval.

There are 2, maybe 3 ways you can do this, but they're either straight acs in zdoom, or rather hacky vanilla and boom methods. I don't know very much acs and I'm not totally sure how I'd do it in vanilla so I'll tell you how to do it in boom.

First, make a flowchart of which order the rooms will open so you don't get mixed up, and the heights the walls have to lower from so it matches the music. Now make all the walls' floors match the ceiling of the adjacent sectors, think it was 208. Adjust the height offset of the cage textures to how you want them.

Now here's the hacky part. If you place multiple player starts in doom, you get voodoo dolls, and the highest thingnumbered start will be the regular start. These voodoo dolls can activate linedefs, and when put into scrolling sectors, can make a crude form of scripting. What you want to do with this, is to make a long box sector, split that into little boxes, then have little 'gating' sectors (I like triangles, less linedefs. Make the long edge face the voodoo doll, and the point be very close, like 4 units wide) of the right height, that will all be lowering at the same time like your walls were. These gating sectors will have linedefs that activate the lowering of the actual walls. To get these to line up right, you take the heights of the walls that matches the music and match them to the gating sectors.

So now that you have your sequence set up, you need it to move. Create a right triangle of uneven side lengths, with the long non-hypotenuse line pointing in the direction you want the floor of the sequence to move. It can be a little tricky getting it to point the right direction. Put the linedef action 'scroll move things according to line vector', #252, on the longest non-hypotenuse side and tag it. Sectors tagged with this will move things in the direction of the pointy end at a speed proportional to how long the line is. This will move the voodoo dolls along the sequence box. Tag the not-gating sectors of the box.

Finally, the trigger. You start the sequence by doing a 'lower floor to x floor' linedef so the gating sectors lower. Since you want the floors to lower with the music, it'd work best to have it be a walkover linedef at the very beginning. If you want it to be exact, have the player start in a 0light teleport box, with the activating line ahead of the teleport, and scroll the floor so the player starts the sequence immediately. However this is more work than really needed, just create some free lines bounding the player start so no matter the direction he moves he will cross the start line. It may end with the music being a second or so off, especially in larger maps, but it can be more work to get the teleport box off right.

So, I kinda wrote a guide for this ... meh. TLDR, use voodoo dolls in boom or acs in zdoom. Hope this is useful.

Share this post


Link to post

Okay, I figured out question #2. It worked fine in PrBoom+, and I soon realized that for ZDoom I needed to add "map07special" to the MAPINFO definition for that map. Still not sure why it worked in ZDoom when I removed everything but the mancubi.

I'm still a little confused about the wad concept itself. How well will the map sync with the music when someone else plays it? The releases are timed well, but it looks like you could go "off script" quite easily.


I'm not fully sure of that myself. In the case of this map, it's definitely reasonable to expect players of an appropriate skill level to be able to kill each wave of monsters within the time allotted, but there are many things that might cause them to fall behind. Having the arena be giant and mostly-open definitely helps, as they can't hide somewhere and pick off the monsters at a more leisurely pace.

I think all of the maps I do for this will have an implied groove of progression and timing that you can settle into and play in time with the music, understanding that if you hang around not doing anything or get really bogged down in combat, you'll fall out of sync. The huge challenge I face is in trying to make that groove obvious enough that people can find it, easy enough they can stay in it, while still providing good challenge and pacing.

ArmouredBlood, thanks a lot for the detailed advice on how to do the voodoo doll conveyor thing. I need to dig into Boom's functionality, there's clearly a lot there to take advantage of.

Share this post


Link to post

Gah, completely forgot the most important part. You can create fake floors/ceilings in boom, so you can see through cages and stuff without being able to shoot at/wake up monsters. Just make a separate sector outside your map (little 4x4 triangles near the voodoo dolls works, or you can make them in a pillar near the wall they'll reference), make that sector have the floor and ceiling flats and heights of what you want the cage walls to look like (so make them the same height as adjacent sectors), then put the linedef action 'create fake ceiling and floor', #242, on any line of the sector, tag it, and tag the cage wall's sector. That makes it look like the wall is lowered but isn't. It shouldn't affect the offsets of the middle sidedef if I remember right.

For keeping the map in sync with the music, you can use the teleport boxes or the lines surrounding the player to keep all non-switch-activated stuff going on time. Otherwise you can give certain weapons and ammo for certain fights to keep them killing monsters and moving forward at the right speed, hopefully with a couple seconds leeway. I'd thought about making a map tuned to go with this insane 50 minute midi, but uh, little bit much to choreograph.

Oh and you're welcome for the advice. You can do quite a bit with some boom features, but there are still some limits on how you can do things that make zdoom much more flexible. Although I've gotten used to some boom/vanilla quirks that zdoom fixes, like wall/thingrunning, heheh.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×