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Tarnsman

Final Doom The Way id Did

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The Casalis often borrowed from each other and if you look at Milo's TNT map you can see he did not always stick to the clean rounded architecture that dominates 90% of his maps, deviating to the messy "Darioisms" that can be found in '8', '13' and '25' while Dario sometimes adopted Milo's curves in other places besides '28'. One thing that is worth pointing out about Maps '8' and '13' is that they both reuse shit from Dario maps, such as the Well of Souls lowering water, the Caged button across the gap on the ledge and the Baron's Lair water fountain, but again the brothers frequently ripped each other off across maps, so that might not lend credence to Dario actually being the author of those maps.

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A perfect example of brothers ripping each others off: Go 2 It is by Milo, but take a look at a PWAD on the idgames archive called Punisher... Basically the same concept (Entryway filled with tough monsters) but authored by Dario.

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Tarnsman said:

  • Plutonia and TNT used increments of 10 for their sector heights and light levels, not the increments of 8 that us modern mappers are used to. Not every sector was some odd increments of 10 height and light level, they did clearly know things like doors were 128 high, but the majority of sectors and light levels in Plutonia and TNT (and really any project made in that era up to and including stuff as recent as Alien Vendetta) used increments of 10 for a lot of their stuff. So manually edit your sector heights and light levels to reflect this do not just use Doombuilder's base 8 for everything.


A brief glance shows this isn't entirely true; TNT map01 is mostly 10-height increments except staircases and doors, but 02 has a fair bit of 8-height stuff with some odd (literally) sector values scattered around. Map03 has the central bit with the red key at 55 height, the teleporter huts at 35, and the compblue tiny walls at 25 height. Map04's sidehall staircases use 12-height step increments, and Plutonia map01 has 13-height stairs immediately on map01. I haven't looked much further, but height values might be another per-author sort of thing.

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ClonedPickle said:

A brief glance shows this isn't entirely true; TNT map01 is mostly 10-height increments except staircases and doors, but 02 has a fair bit of 8-height stuff with some odd (literally) sector values scattered around. Map03 has the central bit with the red key at 55 height, the teleporter huts at 35, and the compblue tiny walls at 25 height. Map04's sidehall staircases use 12-height step increments, and Plutonia map01 has 13-height stairs immediately on map01. I haven't looked much further, but height values might be another per-author sort of thing.


They were clearly able to edit the height of things, as evidenced by changing doors to be a proper height/whatever but at least for Mustaine and the Casalis they used increments of 10 for most of their stuff, so either it was the default for their editor they didn't want to do math and made everything 10s outside of when they needed it to be another value, I haven't checked the one off authors in TNT as I've only just started looking at the people who could be emulated.

Edit: Redacted Sieben, but I did look at light levels and that's all multiples of ten across the board.

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Tarnsman's Plutonia Write Up #1: Layouts

One of the most noticeable thing about Plutonia layouts is the Tom Hall/Economic "compactness" of the design. Much like Tom Hall's E2 maps, many Plutonia maps enjoy a outermost bounding box in which the entire map is contained, with room shapes often bending and contorting to fit into said box. Rooms are often shoved into a map as nothing more than an excuse to have "blank space" within that box filled, these rooms often make up the majority of Plutonia's optional content.

On top of this layouts are extremely good at using space for multiple things. I'd say Plutonia is a great example of how to do a hub map correctly as pretty much every map is based around a central location that you often revisit, while not literally being a box with four doors (although let's be honest Baron's Lair is pretty close).

Plutonia is definitely not stringy or linear in movement direction, while very few maps are non-linear in progression you do not spend very much time heading in one direction and only one direction.

Here are a few examples of the "economic" layouts that dominate Plutonia.

http://doomwiki.org/w/images/8/82/Plutonia_MAP17_map.png
http://doomwiki.org/w/images/2/20/Plutonia_MAP03_map.png
http://doomwiki.org/w/images/3/3b/Plutonia_MAP19_map.png
http://doomwiki.org/w/images/e/e4/Plutonia_MAP12_map.png
http://doomwiki.org/w/images/e/eb/Plutonia_MAP20_map.png
http://doomwiki.org/w/images/3/35/Plutonia_MAP26_map.png

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Tarnsman, just wondering if you missed my earlier post with questions. Have a huge craving to make a '96 style map with bullshit progression/confusion, big/small areas, optional areas, and am wondering if it would fit in this project.

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Take a stab at it, worst case scenario is that it doesn't fit, in which case you can still revise it or release it separately.

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Oh yeah Time sorry I forgot to respond to that. Yes by all means make something but please temper it to the standards of TNT. Remember TNT rejected maps for being too big, so big massive horde filled maps will be similarly rejected, but a 1996 ToD map toned down to TNT levels would be something I'd be more than happy to see.

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This just in: If you're adding zombiemen to your E1 Plutonia map, chances are strong that you're doing it wrong. Plutonia E1 hates zombiemen, and until MAP13: The Crypt only 5 have appeared in total. After MAP25: The Temple of Darkness they appear to pack up and leave the game. Here's a breakdown for you on UV:

MAP07 has 4
MAP10 has 1
MAP13 has 15
MAP15 has 1
MAP17 has 2
MAP18 has 12
MAP19 has 14
MAP20 has 3
MAP21 has 8
MAP22 has 5
MAP23 has 16
MAP25 has 5

TOTAL: 86 Zombiemen

EDIT: The Crypt actually has 15, according to the wiki. One can guess at why maps like 18 or 23 have so many zombiemen. I'd be willing to bet that in the case of Tombstone it's because of Milo's attempt to emulate Tom Hall's design - specifically the way in which he smatters lower tier monsters across the map. Refuelling Base, for example. The Inmost Dens, which is the inspiration for Neurosphere, also features a notable zombie horde with the introdcution of the game's second archvile, and I would be willing to bet that this was at the back (or front!) of Milo's mind at the time.

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Were there special uses for zombiemen or were they just placed as cannon fodder? What about difficulty settings?

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Plutonia's monster totals on UV.

Zombiemen - 86
Shotgunners - 315
Chaingunners - 704
Imps - 436
Demons - 139
Spectres - 111
Lost Souls - 47
Cacodemons - 123
Pain Elementals - 74
Hell Knights - 151
Revenants - 422
Arachnotrons - 94
Mancubi - 140
Barons - 90
Archviles - 99
Cyberdemons - 5 outside of 31 and 32.
Spider Masterminds - 4

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TNT's Monster Totals on UV

Zombiemen - 443
Shotgunners - 1,041
Chaingunners - 601
Imps - 1,357
Demons - 219
Spectres - 224
Lost Souls - 264
Cacodemons - 99
Pain Elementals - 40
Hell Knights - 110
Revenants - 233
Arachnotrons - 57
Mancubi - 84
Barons - 61
Archviles - 38
Cyberdemons - 6
Spider Masterminds - 3

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Tarnsman said:

Updated the OP to contain this little tidbit of information.

"Plutonia and TNT used increments of 10 for their sector heights and light levels, not the increments of 8 that us modern mappers are used to. Not every sector was some odd increments of 10 height and light level, they did clearly know things like doors were 128 high, but the majority of sectors and light levels in Plutonia and TNT (and really any project made in that era up to and including stuff as recent as Alien Vendetta) used increments of 10 for a lot of their stuff. So manually edit your sector heights and light levels to reflect this do not just use Doombuilder's base 8 for everything."

Well at least now I know why the Plutonia brick textures have such odd brick heights (like 20) instead of 16/32 like most other Doom brick textures.


This is simply not true for TNT, except for Tom Mustaine no no one used increments of 10 for sector heights in mass quantity. Now there are some maps that do use height increments of 10, such as Map 18, MAP 24, Map 26 , Map 27 , Map 28, Map 31, & Map 32, but they are use quite sparingly in those maps. For Plutonia there is more use of height increments of 10, but still I would say it is only used for about 25% of the sectors on each map.

As for light levels this is a bit more correct. Plutonia does use light increments of 5 or 10 on all of it's map, while Evilution does this on only about half of the maps.

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[03:07] <ClonedPickle> i think a clarification of "everything is a power of 10" is "sometimes they also did 5"
[03:08] <ClonedPickle> yeah i don't think they had an increment counter of any sort
[03:08] <ClonedPickle> they just guesstimated mostly
[03:08] <ClonedPickle> and 10s / 5s are easiest

So basically sector heights and light levels are something to keep in mind on a per-author basis, and just completely ignore Doom Builder's convenient "move sector up/down by 8" arrow buttons/scroll wheel function.

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[05:06] <Marnetmar> I'm thinking of doing a TNT map01, should I use the berserk in the same way the original did?
[05:07] <ClonedPickle> well. doomguy in the comic shouts "DYNAMITE" while berserked and this is TNT. sounds like yes
[05:08] <Marnetmar> fair enough


If anyone wants to dispute my logic, go for it. And by "go for it" I mean "you're wrong."

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I'm not really liking the whole "stick to really weird height and light units" suggestions, as this translates to "throw a monkey wrench in your entire workflow in order to do something no player would never notice." D:

Touchups after-the-fact to make it "rougher" is always a thing, of course, and maybe that would make sense then, but that's certainly a thing that's going to turn some folks off if interpreted strictly.

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I'll agree on the lights, but unusual height values have a tendency to alter how a map builds upon itself as you work. That said, it seems only a couple of the authors used SPECIFIC values, and the rest just kinda did whatever.

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ArmouredBlood said:


FDA

In short
- damaging floors shouldn't be damaging
- all barons should be hks
- less infight possibilities, you are rarely thrown into situations where infights can happen immediately without any initiative from player in plutonia
- get rid of the tunnelsy part with 3 chainers, something else should be there in its place
- less in-your-face chainers, plutonia doesn't do that too often, they are much more likely to be in great distances or on unreachable places
- something should guard exit when it becomes enterable
- less scattered items, plutonia doesn't do that all that often
- some freely moving monsters could be placed onto some stationary parts like alcoves on walls, columns or such, use your imagination

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Looking at TNT in more depth it appears as though Ty Halderman knew that Doom's textures were supposed to work with 8/16 multiples as things like Mill have correct heights in all but a few areas, despite Dario using multiples of 10 for his Plutonia stuff. They clearly did understand that sectors were "designed" around stuff like 128 being standard room height as 0/128 rooms exist all over the place as do values like 256 and -128 but it's pretty clear that either whatever editor they were using didn't have incremental values it automatically changed like with doom builder, or it did and those were based on 5/10. There is a room in Aztec for example where Milo bothered to make it 64/192 and then put a slime pit in the room and that pit's floor is at 54 floor height, then down the haul from that you have a 0/192 room with another pit and that pit is -10. Also tons of heights that are just 128 + 10, like 138 and 148 sector heights. Or 128 - 10, like 118.

Edit: Looking at the master levels there is also this kind of stuff in many maps along with the 10 based lighting. Checking Momento Mori, Momento Mori 2 and Requiem there also is the whole light based on 10 shit, though they got the sector heights down more, except when they didn't and you get lovely 93 high sectors or whatever. So it had to be something in their editor, because it seems a really, really, really weird thing for the community to just collectively agree with on the whole.

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[14:43:42] <vorpal> random theory about plutonia: perhaps the excessive symmetry stems from their editor of choice, some editors wouldn't/couldn't do individual linedefs
[14:44:08] <vorpal> and you had to create a sector in order to create anything, usually a square
[14:45:01] <vorpal> so they probably always started with a perfect square, and were obsessed with splitting linedefs right down the middle
[14:45:44] <vorpal> and by editor I mean application, not the human behind the tool

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Here's a TNT map in the style of Jim Lowell

Newest version 2/24/14: TNT FATTENING
Made the blue key walkways wider
enlarged the teleporter area leading to the blue key walkway
expanded the exit room
VARIOUS SMALL CHANGES

EDIT: i've decided to call this map "Foundry"

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qg4zoz27xoe11os/tntrott-1c.wad

----- Old Version -----
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m5l02r1nztdh9br/tntrott-1a.wad

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Yeah, this is a sweet map Rott. I haven't investigated Crater or either of Lowell's Icarus maps in detail, but it definitely feels like a Lowell map before any of the technicalities are concerned. The barrel obsession and blocking decorations are precisely the kinds of quirky little bits that make it feel authentic beyond sound layout, lighting and theme etc.

I'd kind of like to see The BK chasm ballooned outward to Crater proportions. TNT's tendency to go from smaller interiors (larger by Lowell's standards) to "suddenly, Kansas!" is true for many of its maps.

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