FreeDM is underway!

[Catoptromancy]

First off we need new logo graphics, something more fancy and suitable.

Full monsters from the doom2.wad target are being added for coop/singleplayer pwads.

I am fixing up the old maps just enough to make them vanilla and more polished. I have a handful of my own maps that will be added. They will be gameplay tested by the best deathmatch players to ensure awesomeness.

**If anyone has unreleased vanilla DM maps, please send em in!
Remember all maps need 4 coop starts and exits.

I think people will agree that totally new maps(and fixed current maps) are a better idea than just using already released projects for a mapbase. There are 15 maps currently in FreeDM, with 5-6 more nearly ready.

[skib]

COOL!!!
I really want to map for that!
So obvious rule: no monsters
What level can I do?

[hex11]

Well, it could have monsters. Just depends on whether or not you want to support DM and SP modes in the same IWAD. Or for that matter, the possibility of deathmatch with monsters. :)

[fraggle]

The whole point of FreeDM is that it's a deathmatch IWAD. How or why would you have a single player mode?

[hex11]

Actually that's a valid question: is this vanilla IWAD that you're currently calling "FreeDM" (because that's what it was originally named) only going to be for pure DM?

In the other thread, it was confirmed that there will be support for running PWADs, so it must contain all the regular Freedoom resources for at least one of the games (Doom or Doom II, or perhaps both?)

With all resources present, it doesn't take much to support all game styles (SP, DM, coop), which although it may seem silly to do on some of the current maps (like MAP03...) may actually make sense if this IWAD eventually evolves into something more like the current Boom IWADs for Freedoom.

In other words, do you consider these maps as set in stone, or more like the other resources in the IWAD (sprites, textures, sounds...) which often get replaced as people create and submit better versions over the course of time?

And if the maps aren't set in stone, would any replacements need to be pure DM levels? (i.e. SP maps go into a separate IWAD, if they're even considered at all)

[Catoptromancy]

It will be the official FreeDM. It will only have DM maps. SP maps are for doom2.wad or doom.wad target. It will have all the resources of Freedoom's doom2.wad, except different maps. There are dozen open map spaces available. Also fixes to current maps can be done.

Do need someone to make new logo graphics.

[hex11]

OK, then it sounds like FreeDM will be able to run Doom II PWADs but not Doom PWADs.

Please give me an empty map slot... I'm going to take this short SP map and deathmatchify it (he gave permissions):
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/55051-a-first-small-map-after-many-years/

[skib]

Now, do we start with all weapons?
Because in MAP01 we do?

[Mechadon]

I'm not sure if I have any maps that could be used for this, but I'll dig around and gladly donate any if so.

[skib]

Made MAP04, hope it's good enough.

Please fix BBCode/vBcode

[Catoptromancy]

skib said:

[url=http://www.sendspace.com/file/b7wg22]Made MAP04, hope it's good enough.[\url]

Remember there is no rush, you can take your time and work on something awesome. Good maps can take a long time to perfect.

[Mechadon]

I dug around but I don't have any scrap maps that are vanilla compatible :/. If you ever accept limit removing maps then your free to use any of my maps from this, this, this, this, and/or this. If I get the DM map itch, I might contribute something from scratch though :)

[Catoptromancy]

Most excellent! I will see what I can do to make them vanilla. I will not touch gameplay at all. Mostly I will just carefully remove enough detail for it to be vanilla.

[Mechadon]

Cool, sounds good to me!

[Catoptromancy]

Tried really hard on mech1 but it is way too open. There are many places in the map that can see to other side. Only way to cure the massive HOM was to make those 4 ledges to be walls to block sight. A few other areas were also slightly gameplay touched to get rid of tons of linedefs.

Mech7 was much more closed and I could leave much more detail. Still had to get rid of ceiling lights or simplify them. Mostly just squared corners and got rid of step borders.

Mech maps should be committed starting at dm16.
http://ftpusers.coffeenet.org/~cato/freedoom/maps/mech1.wad
http://ftpusers.coffeenet.org/~cato/freedoom/maps/mech7.wad

Probably some bugs left, will be worked out sometime. Also forgot exits.

Initial fixes: 4 player starts, no telespawns, exits, all things have all skill levels.
http://ftpusers.coffeenet.org/~cato/freedoom/maps/dm07.wad
http://ftpusers.coffeenet.org/~cato/freedoom/maps/dm10.wad
http://ftpusers.coffeenet.org/~cato/freedoom/maps/dm11.wad
http://ftpusers.coffeenet.org/~cato/freedoom/maps/dm15.wad

[Mechadon]

Looks pretty good to me! Feel free to change whatever you'd like in any of those maps in order to get them to work. Layout, detail, thing placements...I don't mind in the least.

[hex11]

Here's my initial attempt to modify 2ndwatch.wad for deathmatch:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/11gp1n

I removed all the monsters, removed all doors/switches except two, added a couple extra paths between sectors, distributed the weapons & ammo more evenly.

The small yellow door reveals a switch that opens up the teleport exit. The big door is fake, and might eventually go somewhere or just get replaced with another texture.

[Mithran Denizen]

I think that version of 2ndwatch is much better now, but as said elsewhere, I'm not much of a deathmatch player.

There are two things that you might want to consider changing:

-The mega armor is kind of tough to reach in the heat of battle when the floor lamp actor is set infinitely tall (as it is in vanilla). Maybe I just suck at getting the right straferunning angle, but I'd suggest changing it around somehow so that a player can get into the ledge more easily without bouncing off of the lamp.

-The doors that you raised (sectors 33, 42, and 51) still have the basic door action (line action 1) on their lines, so it's possible to close them as you run past. Closing the door on an opponent might be cool in combat, but the problem is that they then default to the 'closed' state. This can bog down the pace because it means that they have to be opened again each time.

I was going to recommend changing the lines to use a 'close-wait-open' action, but vanilla Doom has no such switchable door actions. You could probably come up with something similar by using walkover actions that force the door to open on approach, but I feel that it'd just be better to keep them open all the time and remove the door actions altogether.

[Catoptromancy]

hex11 said:

modify 2ndwatch.wad

Did you originally make it? Where is it from?

[hex11]

It was made originally by nivha:
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/55051-a-first-small-map-after-many-years/

He never officially released it, so it's not in idgames or anything. At the end of his second message in that thread, he said anybody can modify it if they want. Since it's small in size and has interesting architecture, I thought it might make a decent DM level.

Here's a newer version that has the changes suggested by Mithran Denizen:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/rf9j7t

All the extra door tags are gone, and the lamp was moved up against the wall (it's a lot easier to reach the ledge now).

I'm not too sure if the berserker pack is in a good place, because it will "blind" anybody who tries to run through that narrow corridor, and force a weapon change to fists. Maybe I should replace it with a soul sphere?

[Catoptromancy]

hex11 said:

he said anybody can modify it if they want.

It probably does not matter, but it would be cool if he posted in thread with approval.


Also, all maps are vanilla, have exits, 4 coop starts, things tagged as all skills, no telespawns, tested on Choco.
http://ftpusers.coffeenet.org/~cato/freedoom/maps/fdm_01-11_01.wad
http://ftpusers.coffeenet.org/~cato/freedoom/maps/fdm_12-17_01.wad
There are still some bugs to sort, but they are very playable.

[Mithran Denizen]

Catoptromancy said:

First off we need new logo graphics, something more fancy and suitable.

I whipped up a couple of variations of LOGO quickly in Photoshop. I didn't bother with LOGO3, LOGO4, or LOGO5 yet, though. Both are in the Doom palette as shown here:





The first is just the current graphic with some added letter bordering and background noise. The second is an attempt at a rough metallic surface with "FreeDM" etched into it. I'm not an amazing artist, and the border looks woodier than I had intended, but it's alright for a start. I tried a couple of other ideas, like thick, 'meaty' characters, and the "FreeDM" logo displayed on a large computer screen, but the execution isn't very convincing at this point.

Anyway, any feedback or other design ideas would be great. I'm not really sure how 'fancy' the logo should be, or how closely the different LOGO* images should be in relation to each other. I will try to work on these intermittently, as they could probably use some improvement. The etched letters in the second image are actually based on Comic Sans MS, which should probably be changed.

No promises though, as my spare time is running kind of low lately. If anyone wants to improve these two images themselves, that'd be cool, and I'll share the source PSD files, if requested.

[fraggle]

This is looking pretty good already!

Some criticisms:

• The FreeDM sign needs the URL updating
  
• The Vanilla-ified versions from my comp-dm.deh experiments need to have the monsters removed and the signs changed back to the FreeDM signs.
  
• Not all levels appear to have exits?
  
• I think I remember getting visplane overflows in MAP14 during my comp-dm.deh experiments
  
• Freedoom's TEXTURE1 generates some ugly warnings on startup in Chocolate/Vanilla Doom.
  

[hex11]

That second logo could use some color to make the letters stand out. Maybe superimposing it over top of the REDROCK3 texture (sort of like a template) to get reddish-textured letters might do the trick.

Is comp-dm.deh going to be included with FreeDM to allow playing with bots?

[magicsofa]

I'm a little confused...is this going to be a DM IWAD? If not, wouldn't they just be DM maps made "for freedoom" but also compatible with the original IWADs? I mean, freedoomers should be able to play other DM maps as well, right?

In any case, maybe I'll try making some maps...haven't done DM in a while (course this would be after I finish my progressive fiction map...months overdue)

[Catoptromancy]

Logo is fairly awesome. Can make a few fonts on transparent backgrounds, so they can be added onto current textures with the tex1 lmp. There does need to be a single solid big billboard and flag style too. Been googling, cant quite find the font I am thinking of.


I kind of like the monsters, they do not hurt. I could adjust the player starts and add more for a quick sp mode. Later maps I could make into tiny slaughter maps. Layout will still be 100% DM, just with careful monster placement.

Some maps have exit rooms, some have wall switches.

I think there are tex1 errors, will sort.

[nivha]

Since Hex1 asked me,

I approve the use of http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/8b05d41b98_0.07MB
as a base of a deathmatch map.

[fraggle]

hex11 said:

Is comp-dm.deh going to be included with FreeDM to allow playing with bots?

No. I was just experimenting with the patch a few months ago (getting it to work with Chocolate Doom), and I made modified versions of some of the FreeDM levels to work with it. As part of that I had to make the levels work with Vanilla. As FreeDM is now being converted to Vanilla I offered up my modified versions for use as the conversion work has already been done. Now they just need the monsters removed again.

[Catoptromancy]

Ya I take back my monsters, Ill just remove them all.

[RjY]

Catoptromancy said:

Ya I take back my monsters, Ill just remove them all.

Already done :-)

Fraggle said:
Freedoom's TEXTURE1 generates some ugly warnings on startup in Chocolate/Vanilla Doom.

This is kind of vague for a bug report but I assume you mean "R_GenerateLookup: column without a patch" for several textures named like GRID* ?

It seems when chocolate doom looks up the lump numbers of the patch names, it gets the identically-named flats instead of the patches, because it doesn't do lump namespacing. So it's trying to parse a plain 64x64 bitmap as a patch. I'm surprised it didn't immediately I_Error, but you seem to have reduced that error to a warning (isn't that against your design philosophy?)

Anyway, upon further reflection I think we should just get rid of those GRID* textures and flats.

1. They're not used in any map
2. The source graphics don't even have the correct palette (!)

I think they're probably UDMX textures and are in UDMX's palette. I believe FreeUDMX is cancelled and replaced by Vanilla FreeDM, so I think we should just delete them before someone goes and depends on them.