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Lippeth

UNHEIL - A Wolfenstyle WIP

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I'll just get this out of the way: I've only clawed my way into the Doom editing community since October of 2012. I've learned a lot, but I'm sure any seasoned mapper will be able to spot the flaws from a mile away.

Any whey, I've been working my ass of to make a Wolf 3D styled mod for ZDoom, but obviously my inexperience will keep it from being on par with most out there. I'm just having fun with it anyway, and I'd like to know if anyone would be interested in helping, giving advice, taking over, or playing it when it's done. I'm too green to go for gold with a megawad, so my goal is to get some feedback and make a small mapset at around 5 to 10 levels.

Even if you think that it's terrible and I should stop polluting the internet with shit wads, you should tell me so that I'm not wandering in a naive cloud of ignorance. I've worked really hard to get this far, so even bad criticism is good.

Anyway, the download.

http://i.imgur.com/VFx3fpZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ncAq8Um.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/boJDKjp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/NqHcbkW.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sFgcWlL.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2Tb11XV.jpg

Here are a few more screenshots in 16:9

http://i.imgur.com/oFTtN4B.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6xAsSJP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ma7C9aV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pyjxdqU.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/QrHe8DU.jpg

Update 04/02/2013: After putting this off for a while, I have finally done some retexturing, added the treasure from Wolfenstein, as well as a few other sprites including a rottweiler, and reworked some of the weapons (yet again). I also wrote a very short "story" in the text file to add a little lore to this mod. I'm now having issues with brightmaps for GZdoom, and gave up for the time being.
alpha_map01

Updated screens:

http://i.imgur.com/gnfoGRx.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6lEJzYv.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4pHtNFS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/SYJuRrO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/hIr1p2m.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/UteD2qy.jpg

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just taking a quick glance at the map itself in the editor...

the layout reminds me a bit of kaiser's maps, which is a good thing. it's nice to see that you're not afraid to make things other than squares. for a beginner it looks like you're at a real good point in terms of creating interesting shapes, so if you can learn to refine that and i guess "optimize" that, you'll be set. my point is, don't ever get into the habit of making a bunch of squares and hallways because what you've got now is something i've jealous of :p

it's also neat to see you playing with shadows. imo that's an aspect of visuals that usually goes unexplored, so if that's something you can continue to do (even if it's relatively simple) i think that can go a long way towards establishing your maps' atmosphere

i also see you attempting some detail that's more "structural" rather than simply adding borders to everything (i'm looking at you torm!!!!!). an example would be in the chainsaw room, where you take the wood from the chainsaw pedastal and start to wrap it around the top of the surrounding brick near the green switch. imo the best kind of "detail" is detail whose shape/location is determined by the larger structral elements and not the other way around. a lot of tormentor's older stuff (nothing against him personally lolz) is just a collection of hallways/generic rooms with really thin borders lining the entire room. what i think someone should be doing instead is making all the larger, structral componenents first and adding detail *around* those elements. i think i'm repeating myself heh. good examples of what i'm talking about would be just about anything made by esselfortium, mechadon, skillsaw or vader, etc. episode 1 of back to saturn x should have plenty of examples :p

if you're having fun with what you're doing then keep doing it and don't let yourself be discouraged. wanting to improve is good, but wanting to improve so unrealistically quickly is bad because you'll get discouraged and quit (or i do, anyway). personally i've never been a fan of wolfen-themed stuff but what you are using is much better than the regular wolf textures in doom 2 heh. still, i find shooting demons much more satisfying

sorry i didn't give any feedback about the actual gameplay itself :p

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Funny enough, you helped whip me into shape with some well needed criticism a month or so ago with a map I called 'Livid' that used some trivial Hexen format stuff. I took your advice and went back to Doom2 format, learn to walk before I run. Thank you for your feedback this time as well!

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Sorry for being a grammar nazi but what do you want to express with the additional "s" in the title of the Map? "Unheil" would be more correct I guess ;) Screenies look good, though ;)

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Fenriswolf said:

Sorry for being a grammar nazi but what do you want to express with the additional "s" in the title of the Map? "Unheil" would be more correct I guess ;) Screenies look good, though ;)


I guess you're right. Unheils only works if it's OF something like "Shloß des Unheils" which means "Castle of Doom" but when it's by itself then 'Unheil' is more appropriate. My German is terrible. Thanks for being a Nazi. When I finish this thing I'll leave the 's' at home.

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I read "Wolfenstyle WIP" and thought this was going to be about boxy Wold3D-ish maps. I was pleasantly surprised by the first screenshot. :P

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Xaser said:

I read "Wolfenstyle WIP" and thought this was going to be about boxy Wold3D-ish maps. I was pleasantly surprised by the first screenshot. :P


Hell naw, if I was gonna make room, hall, room I would've made a Doom mod for the Wolf engine, which would be no fun to play at all. ;)

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Yeah the first screenshot was quite epic, the following ones that use the wolf3d textures are not as appealing for some reason. Great work though :) Looking forward to this

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If anyone is interested in improving this map or starting another in a similar fashion, or into the whole collaboration thing, pm me. It will take me years to do this on my own at the rate I go. I'd like to work with a real mapper and maybe make something worth playing.

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Da Werecat said:

A little rough on edges, but nice. Luger was really overpowered.


I wanted the luger to gib on occasion, and make it less accurate. I'm still working on that. I'd also like it to kick the player back as it fires. The MP40 was my first weapon mod ever, and DECORATE (as simple as it is comparatively) takes some getting used to for someone who has never done coding, ever. I'm still experimenting with what can be done. I wanted to make the pistol fun, but if it's too powerful, then that makes the threat not as fun. I haven't even started on the chaingun, it sounds lame now because it uses the custom pistol fire I put in, and it's all experimental at this point.

It exists, by the way. :)


Nice, I just downloaded it so I'll check it out in a bit, the possibilities seem limited, but it could be novel enough to be fun!

UPDATE: It is actually really fun and hilarious.

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Okay, here's an update. I fixed a few broken things, added a few new things, scaled down the pistol, and added a minigun. No new maps, I spent too long in Decorate with the minigun, and haven't even begun to change the sprites for the hand like I wanted to. Thanks to Sergeant Mark IV for the minigun sprites and some of the sounds. I hope I didn't break anything with this one.

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Some screenshots look really promising, but the Wolf3D textures don't belong there at all. It generally looks more in the vein of RTCW rather than classic Wolfenstein, and that's pretty cool. There are too many Wolfendoom projects that didn't succeed. However, you need to pay close attention to texturing.

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Feniks said:

Some screenshots look really promising, but the Wolf3D textures don't belong there at all. It generally looks more in the vein of RTCW rather than classic Wolfenstein, and that's pretty cool. There are too many Wolfendoom projects that didn't succeed. However, you need to pay close attention to texturing.


The Wolf Textures are more place-holders than anything, I plan to recreate them in a more fitting manner. As far as paying attention to texturing, do you mean alignemt? I do my best, but it's easy to overlook things, and the main brick and stone textures I use are a NIGHTMARE to align proplerly. I'm still green to mapping, but suggestions like yours help me pinpoint my weak spots and focus on improving them.

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Hey there, just went through your map and thought it was excellent, and not just in a "pretty good for your first map attempt" kind of way but, I think it stands on its own as a solid map regardless of your editing skill. Took me about 19 minutes on the successful run, with a few false starts.

It wasn't perfect though, some things that bothered me:

*dogs hard to hit when shooting right at them, maybe increase their radius a bit?

*too many new guns maybe, felt a bit gimmicky
*new sounds often very cliche / very loud, especially pistol.
*In wolf3d, I liked how the mutants were often sectioned off in dungeons, and the humans mostly placed in the bunker/offices/etc. So it felt weird in some fights where demons fight alongside the soldiers.
*hovering crosses look weird to me
*some grainy textures (the brick and stone textures mainly ). It makes a strange contrast to the smooth and cartoonish doom/wolf textures. Quake has some dark and appropriately paletted textures (via q1tex.wad that Afterglow put together).
*blue key door area with the green stone is too bright, that green stone slab texture looks very bad on a good day IMO, but if you change the light level to be more in line with the nearby dungeon it may look better
*some of the soldiers are very durable - IMO the spirit of wolf3d was weak but dangerous soldiers. For example they often reacted very quickly, and did not have any idle chat sound effects to reveal their position.

Things I liked and want to see more of in the future!

*enemies in secrets (very wolfenstein-ish!)
*secrets in secrets (ditto)
*old wolf sounds - picking up that chicken leg dish is satisfying haha
*old wolf treasure items - something about collecting shiny gold bits is a lot more fun than Doom's potions and helmets
*new black garb nazi sprites
*lighting - while the light source is not always obvious or existent, most of the level looks a lot more interesting than it would otherwise. I am jealous (I'm quite bad at devising interesting lighting).

The negative comments are just my opinions, and I only made so many because I liked the map so much (and thus want to see more)! The castle/wood-mansion style stuff, despite not liking those stone textures, had a grin plastered on my face - I'd love to have a wolfenstein romp through something other than 90-degree angle bunkers.

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Hey Vorpal, thanks for the input! While I've fixed a few points you touched on, like getting rid of the pistol and its loud sound, and having the officer drop a clip instead, the other suggestions are perfect and will be implemented or fixed. I've spent the last few days just doing weapons, and I'm having issues with the shotgun in decorate, but other than that the weapons department is nearly good to go. I'll check out the Quake textures as well, the brick I'm using is nearly impossible to align. You should have seen the whole level before I stumbled onto Afterglow, it was nearly all green stone.

I want to post another update, but this damn trenchgun problem has me perplexed. It's reloadable (might be on the gimmicky side, but it should work if done right) but it always loads five shells, even when there's no more ammo, resulting in infinite ammo, plus it would be nice to automatically reload after hitting the zero mark instead of going to zero and pressing fire, only to reload, which can really take away from the game.

Anyway, I'm glad you liked some of what you saw so far! I'll take your suggestions and hopefully make something better!

Also: Would the treasure chests be more suited for armor bonuses?

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Yeah the weapons can be quite a time sink to get to function the way you want them, and tend to detract from the balanced vanilla gameplay in a lot of mods. That said, the automatic was implemented well I think, the minigun I was indifferent about (the vanilla Doom chaingun is lackluster, admittedly) - but the others may be more effort to implement/tweak than they're really worth.

Re: treasure chests versus crosses or whatever, makes no difference to me! As long as they're shiny and have the old PC speaker sound effect on pickup ;-P

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Well here's another update. I didn't get to the treasure yet, I plan to make a glimmer animation, which I don't have time for today. I did however get rid of the pistol you pick up from an SS and replaced it with a totally different and less powerful gun that you start out with. The panzerfaust(Rlauncher) isn't available until later in the level, aside from secrets so you're not forced to deal with it so early. I did change the shotgun a bit, but it should hardly detract from anything. It shoots faster and after five shots, it reloads a single shell which in turn you can shoot five more times (it takes about the same amount of time as the regular in between animation). The single shell animation is meant to take less time than reloading five shells so it doesn't get in the way of the game. Not realistic, but this is a game. You can also reload by pressing your assigned reload key just to make sure you're not reloading when you want to be shooting. Basically its a Duke3D style reload.

The dogs now have a radius of 30 instead of 12 (I don't know what I was thinking with that) and they drop dogfood when they die, which gives three points of health.

The entire SS take a few less shots to frag.

I tried to separate Monsters from soldiers a little better, there are still moments where they are all nearby, but never side-by-side unless you're in the beginning of the dungeon.

I did nothing with the textures, I'm saving that for another day, I have a bit going on today, but I'm excited to get on that.

Lastly, as far as more levels are concerned, I'll get started ASAP but if anyone wants to collaborate, I'd prefer that.

Someone let me know if I ruined this update!

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It does play better in this version, not ruined at all. The panzerfaust being harder to get is good too. Speaking of which, it can be awkwardly obtained by jumping from the health sphere platform, which has some impassable linedefs so I assume this is unintended.

Still took me 18 minutes, even knowing the layout, and 2 secrets continue to elude me. Reasons to play again ;-)

Paying closer attention to textures this time around, I think it is only that black brick texture that I hate. The rest seem ok. The cobblestone wall texture used in the NW room is overkill maybe? It's a good texture, but I think that was the only place it was used.. I think you should go with one of the other textures there, for a more unified/consistent theme.

God this is making me want to go on a wolf binge soon...

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Guest

I think this has plenty of potential awesomeness. I really liked the way this played. (I played the updated version btw)

A couple of suggestions.

-If you must have the shotty reload after every 5 shots, perhaps put an ammo counter or something. It took me a while to realise it was anything other than random, and reloading at the wrong moments did detract from the gameplay.

-The minigun is a good weapon. Really good in fact. But perhaps it would be better if the chaingunners that used it were also using that minigun. It is a little odd to have the chaingunners use the regular chaingun, and then it magically transforms into a minigun when you pick it up.

-I liked the weapons in general though. Very satisfying to use.

The level was really good too. Keep it up. Down the track I may help out with this, though I have other projects to finish before I start on this. My head is full of ideas for this though! Keep up the good work.

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Thanks a lot! I have yet to see a Wolfendoom mod that really captures the essence of both games, so I thought I try my hand and see how far I can go. I'd like to invite anyone who has ideas or skills to join this project and help make something really fun.

The ideas and criticism mentioned so far have been excellent and well needed energy for this project to keep going.

KiiiYiiiKiiiA said:

If you must have the shotty reload after every 5 shots, perhaps put an ammo counter or something.

I have a version that has a counter, but there's something off in the reload state in decorate that makes it always load the max number of shells into the gun, even when there's no more ammo. I've tried so many things to get it to work, but for now I opted for the Duke3D reload style. You can actually press your assigned reload key to reset the counter in between fire fights. I posted in another thread inquiring how it's done. Also, when initially picking up the shotgun you had to load the shells first which really got in the way for me.

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Vorpal said:

it [panzerfaust] can be awkwardly obtained by jumping from the health sphere platform, which has some impassable linedefs so I assume this is unintended.

That is definitely unintended to do that way. I just looked at it and need to make the outside of the platform impassible as well, or at least around the stairwell entrance. I wanted to leave it partially passable so the player isn't jittering around when trying to go up and down those narrow steps. It'll be no problem to fix it, thanks for finding that!

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Added a new update. After putting this off for a while, I have finally done some retexturing, added the treasure from Wolfenstein, as well as a few other sprites including a rottweiler, and reworked some of the weapons (yet again). I also wrote a very short "story" in the text file to add a little lore to this mod. I'm now having issues with brightmaps for GZdoom, and gave up for the time being.

alpha_map01

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Okay, it seems that every time I do an update, I find like five things wrong with it. all links are now updated, sorry to everyone who already downloaded it.

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Just chipping in to say that I really enjoyed this map too. I don't have much to say about it because Vorpal's views on it and mine are just about the same.

I had fun playing it. Thanks for making it.

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Yay! I've been checking this forum daily just for this update ;-)

The pk3 wouldn't load in zdoom for some reason, so I manually unpacked it and it went fine...

I like pretty much all the changes. This is a rather spectacular map right now! I still don't like the Stone2/3 usage outside the "dungeon" but it's a minor issue. The difficulty is also toned down it seems, and there's TONS of ammo now (I finished 100% kills with 400 bullets, 100 shells). I think maybe a few bullet boxes can be taken out, and most of the shotgun ammo (since it is so plentiful as it drops off the SS)

Truly one of my favorite maps in a long time

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I lazily tossed it into a pk3 to shave off a few megabytes, but I finally took the time to organize it into a proper pk3 format to make it easier for people to grab what they want for their own wads if they wish.

I've tried so many different textures for the dungeon area and can't find or modify anything that fits. All this time it took to clean up this single map and I could have been halfway done with map02 by now! I added the treasure like you said, and I'm now working on correlating brightmaps to make them really pop in GZDoom. I'll be sure to strategically remove ammo for my next update, as well as perhaps adding at least a skeleton of another map. At some point I'd like to round up a few mappers and modders to make this a group project, it takes so long on my own, mainly because I've never done most of this stuff before and I spend more time researching and problem-solving, but at the same time I love the process as well as a good revelation now and again.

Thanks again for taking the time to play and critique this project, it means a lot and gives me incentive to keep this as my number one hobby!

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Here is yet another long overdue update:unheil

I did my best to flesh out some new textures, and in doing so made the last area a little more hazardous.

Map02 is now in progress, and included. There are no items, health, or even an exit, but it's a start. Maybe someone can add to it. I hope I added all of the needed textures.

I have once again redone the MP40 because I'm never happy with it. It now has a Duke Nukem style reload cycle after 30 rounds and can be reset with your default reload key.

Added a title screen and a new sky.

This file is now in full zip format with a pk3 extension to keep things organized.

Also gave the first map a name, which WILL be changed once I think of something better.

I don't get around to this as much as I should, because I'm indebted to other projects as well. Thanks for giving this a try!

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