The Age of Hell: FPS game for GZDoom - DEMO OUT

[Bridgeburner56]

10 minutes ago, kb1 said:

Oh my, I want it! Absolutely stunning work! I am jealous of your skill, and of the fact that this is sitting on your hard drive as we speak :)

Patience my friend. You will not have long to wait. End of June is looking very achievable for the first Hellish foray into the public domain 

[Ribo Zurai]

That's some outstanding work! It will be worth the wait in the very end.

[Pure Hellspawn]

On 5/7/2018 at 7:27 AM, jointritual said:

Some people would complain about the symmetry in some of the shots but I’m not one of them, it’s great to see a black and red hell map done so well, the best colour scheme imo.

 

I'd be very hardpressed to find anyone who'd complain about that in these maps.  In fact, the quality seems to be right on par with Deus Vult - which is known for it's level of detail.

[jerrysheppy]

5 hours ago, Pure Hellspawn said:

 

I'd be very hardpressed to find anyone who'd complain about that in these maps.  In fact, the quality seems to be right on par with Deus Vult - which is known for it's level of detail.

 

And also for not being fucking finished (DVII, anyway), which hopefully will not be the case here. ;)

[Bridgeburner56]

5 hours ago, Pure Hellspawn said:

 

I'd be very hardpressed to find anyone who'd complain about that in these maps.  In fact, the quality seems to be right on par with Deus Vult - which is known for it's level of detail.

Mmmm, love Deus Vult. Epic level.

17 minutes ago, jerrysheppy said:

 

And also for not being fucking finished (DVII, anyway), which hopefully will not be the case here. ;)

Fortunately the stuff the was released is awesome. That cathedral level in particular is one of my all time favourites

[Bridgeburner56]

Main page release time line has been updated:

 

"This date is looking good for first release! Level 4 very close to finished which I plan on getting done this weekend. Plan is to back onto completing map 3 before the end of the week and then have that done by the end of the month. I will then be giving myself 1 full week for each of the first 4 maps for balancing, tweaking, troubleshooting and generally 2nd guessing myself. Hopefully I don't make anything worse. And then my baby leaves the nest (or spawning vat)."

[kb1]

On 5/7/2018 at 8:08 PM, Bridgeburner56 said:

Patience my friend. You will not have long to wait. End of June is looking very achievable for the first Hellish foray into the public domain 

I think I can hold my breath that long. It's gonna be tough, though!

[Bridgeburner56]

Ok, I lied. I said I was going back to map 3. I tried. Not feeling it at the moment. I still believe in the end of June alpha release but I will tackle finishing map 3 next week (I need to map out the ending sequence of events). But fear not! This does not mean that I am not mapping at the moment. Working on map 5 and I will post some preliminary shots this weekend. It's looking good 😜

 

 

[Bridgeburner56]

See. Progress. I promised. Never doubt me

[Bridgeburner56]

As promised, a sexy montage (cue montage music)

[CrazyDoomguy]

Awersome work!!

 

Just brainstorming for you - violett hell. It from game "torchlight level black palace"

 

Spoiler

 

 

You can watch video and collect interesting places :))

 

[Ribo Zurai]

Wonderful pics! Also, I was wondering if you're gonna make a more vanilla compatible version, noticed that you have custom weapons and monsters.

[Bridgeburner56]

9 hours ago, CrazyDoomguy said:

Awersome work!!

 

Just brainstorming for you - violett hell. It from game "torchlight level black palace"

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

You can watch video and collect interesting places :))

 

Oooh I like torchlight (only played 2 though). Thanks for that, I can see some cool ideas coming from those shots 😉 I'll need to get more purple textures though

3 hours ago, Ribo Zurai said:

Wonderful pics! Also, I was wondering if you're gonna make a more vanilla compatible version, noticed that you have custom weapons and monsters.

It's gzdoom only at the moment. Too much udmf, 3dfloor and dynamic light trickery. I will be looking for feedback on the custom assets though. One upon a time i was obsessed with putting in as much new stuff as possible but my opinion is changing on that one. If enough people advise to drop the new mobs and guns then I probably will. 

I do want to make some boom compatible maps at some point though but that will most likely be a separate project. 

[Snikle]

5 hours ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

Oooh I like torchlight (only played 2 though). Thanks for that, I can see some cool ideas coming from those shots 😉 I'll need to get more purple textures though

 

You could ask Ribbiks about using the Stardate textures.

[DeadAstronaut]

 

WOW these screenshots look amazing. I love your aesthetic work with the hell details. Cannot wait to play these maps!

[amackert]

This is looking really damn good. Definitely looking forward to trying it out when it's released.

[Gideon020]

Hm, I think I'm gonna like this but yeah, I kinda like using my own weapon mods and monster packs so I'm leery of any custom assets...

[Bridgeburner56]

Screen shot volley time

[CptGoodtimes]

Hell yeah man, looking really good so far! Looking forward to it as it completes, gon annihilate all the bloody hellspawn!

[jerrysheppy]

That's looking like one of my favorite maps of the ones you've shown off so far.  Heavy single-color saturation and excessive use of darkness start to hurt my eyes, so I really appreciate Hell maps that mix up the palette and bring in the yellows, oranges and lighter grays (among others) to mix with the reds and blacks.  Having a bright, but still otherworldly, sky is huge in particular-- I don't think that stark red sky from your previous map would work nearly as well here.

[Bridgeburner56]

4 minutes ago, jerrysheppy said:

That's looking like one of my favorite maps of the ones you've shown off so far.  Heavy single-color saturation and excessive use of darkness start to hurt my eyes, so I really appreciate Hell maps that mix up the palette and bring in the yellows, oranges and lighter grays (among others) to mix with the reds and blacks.  Having a bright, but still otherworldly, sky is huge in particular-- I don't think that stark red sky from your previous map would work nearly as well here.

I'm definitely trying to mix up colour schemes and lighting patterns. Level 2 and 3 are quite dark (and if people complain I can raise the brightness), and the screenshots tend to present things a bit darker than what they do IRL. Red/black is a classic that will never go out of style but it would get a bit dull after a while. I quite enjoy the challenge of setting a colour scheme that is a bit different and staying true to the hell theme. I've recently downloaded some more texture packs to give me some more variety (which is the spice of life) and keep things interesting. I have quite a few skies to play with too

 

And if anyone has any ideas/colours they want me to try let me know! @CrazyDoomguy has already given me a good inspiration (which I've been thinking about).

[Gideon020]

blue and purple is a color combo I've not seen in a Hellscape, same with Green.

[Pure Hellspawn]

4 hours ago, Gideon020 said:

blue and purple is a color combo I've not seen in a Hellscape, same with Green.

 

purple is a wonderful color in a hell map. it can resemble necromancy, death, and the void.

 

green can resemble poison, or a green flame. and seriously, have you not seen marble textures in hell maps?

 

blue torches, blue skull keys, cacodemon blood, even ice. 

 

Come on man, you need to have a little creativity!

[Bridgeburner56]

6 hours ago, Gideon020 said:

blue and purple is a color combo I've not seen in a Hellscape, same with Green.

Purple is on the list courtesy of Crazydoomguy and thanks to the ancient aliens texture pack I have plenty of crafting material now. I've been thinking about green hell map too, and not from a slime/sewer perspective (generally not a fan of sewer maps). Green typifies death/unholiness/sickness in a few fantasy novels I've read so I'll be taking it down that path

2 hours ago, Pure Hellspawn said:

 

purple is a wonderful color in a hell map. it can resemble necromancy, death, and the void.

 

green can resemble poison, or a green flame. and seriously, have you not seen marble textures in hell maps?

 

blue torches, blue skull keys, cacodemon blood, even ice. 

 

Come on man, you need to have a little creativity!

To be fair, they are not common hellmap colours. Agree with your colour associations though.

[jerrysheppy]

7 hours ago, Gideon020 said:

blue and purple is a color combo I've not seen in a Hellscape, same with Green.

 

Depends what you consider a hellscape.  I've seen plenty of blue, purple, and/or green color gimmicks in Doom maps, including otherwordly/unrealistic ones.  But very few of them strike me as trying to be 'hell' rather than just some bizarre alternate dimension or abstract structure, and to be perfectly honest, what I see of those colors in this mapset so far-- MAP03, to be specific-- seems like it's following in that tradition.  That doesn't make it bad or unskilled mapping, of course.  It's just that when I look at the screenshots so far, I think weird artistic dimension, not Hell in any sort of Doomy sense.

 

 

This brings up the question of whether it is possible to make an effective blue Hell in Doom, at least from my own perspective.  I think I might crack open the editor in a bit and give it a go of my own.

[Bridgeburner56]

57 minutes ago, jerrysheppy said:

 

Depends what you consider a hellscape.  I've seen plenty of blue, purple, and/or green color gimmicks in Doom maps, including otherwordly/unrealistic ones.  But very few of them strike me as trying to be 'hell' rather than just some bizarre alternate dimension or abstract structure, and to be perfectly honest, what I see of those colors in this mapset so far-- MAP03, to be specific-- seems like it's following in that tradition.  That doesn't make it bad or unskilled mapping, of course.  It's just that when I look at the screenshots so far, I think weird artistic dimension, not Hell in any sort of Doomy sense.

 

 

This brings up the question of whether it is possible to make an effective blue Hell in Doom, at least from my own perspective.  I think I might crack open the editor in a bit and give it a go of my own.

Interesting points regarding hell vs alternate realities.I"ll definitely keep that in mind as I progress. I am trying to increases the "hell level" as the wad progresses. You may notice that I have avoided any flesh textures and had limited use of corpse decorations which has been deliberate on my part. I'm trying to have some sense of build up in aesthetics as well as difficulty as the player moves through the wad. Whether I achieve this remains to be seen.

 

Keep the comments coming too. This is all useful conversation

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

1 hour ago, jerrysheppy said:

This brings up the question of whether it is possible to make an effective blue Hell in Doom, at least from my own perspective.

An iced-over hell looks really nice if it's done properly. It's just a shame it's not often done.

Now I want to make one.

[jerrysheppy]

Been sketching ideas in GZDB and it's an interesting exercise so far, at least with a relatively generic set of textures as opposed to one specifically made or curated to offer options for a blue hell.  

 

The theory that seems to be developing in my mind is this: The problem arises because in stock Doom textures, nearly all the blue textures (and I would argue even the blue range on Doom's palette) are associated with terrestrial or technological settings.  Fresh water (as opposed to dirty or foul water), computers and power conduits, et cetera.  This is why, for example, simply palette-shifting the various marble textures into Doom's default blues doesn't work for me, hellishly speaking.  The skulls, faces, and marble texture may say "hell", but the chroma is so strongly associated in my mind with COMPBLUE, LITEBLU1, FLAT22 etc., that it drowns those out with association of tech, and the dissonance between the two produces what I referred to as a weird alienness. 

 

As for how one might ameliorate the problem, there are a few possibilities.  One would be to change the palette to use different blues.  So you'd end up with something like Quake's blue textures, or maybe something turquoise-y like you might find in Ancient Aliens.  Ancient Aliens's colorful textures might have their own challenges when it comes to creating a hellish feel, but the point is that at least you'll have unmoored the color blue from the techbase associations that have been imprinted on me for the past 20 years.

 

Which brings me to this:

 

17 minutes ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

An iced-over hell looks really nice if it's done properly. It's just a shame it's not often done.

Now I want to make one.

 

For sure, but here again I think one's going to need to go outside the default Doom color palette to enable something more like Hexen's ice, at least if one wants blue-tinged ice.  Something bright like Heretic's ice... ehh, you could try it, but I have a hunch it'd have the same issue as above.  Most good-looking ice and snow I've seen in the default Doom palette has just been gray.

 

57 minutes ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

Interesting points regarding hell vs alternate realities.I"ll definitely keep that in mind as I progress. I am trying to increases the "hell level" as the wad progresses. You may notice that I have avoided any flesh textures and had limited use of corpse decorations which has been deliberate on my part. I'm trying to have some sense of build up in aesthetics as well as difficulty as the player moves through the wad. Whether I achieve this remains to be seen.

 

Keep the comments coming too. This is all useful conversation

 

I seriously appreciate this-- there's a ton of variety possible in Hell environments and I appreciate that you're trying to push the envelope.  It makes sense for there to be different regions of Hell and that, e.g., the underground red marble catacombs look different from the lava palaces look different from the fleshy abattoirs that might still be coming if we're lucky!  

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

2 minutes ago, jerrysheppy said:

For sure, but here again I think one's going to need to go outside the default Doom color palette to enable something more like Hexen's ice, at least if one wants blue-tinged ice.  Something bright like Heretic's ice... ehh, you could try it, but I have a hunch it'd have the same issue as above.  Most good-looking ice and snow I've seen in the default Doom palette has just been gray.

Agreed, and grey is boring.

As it happens, some of Xaser's mods (Zen Dynamics is the first to come to mind) had some, uh, more vibrant, I suppose, variations of green and blue, resulting in a brighter green and a more aquamarine blue.

This shot from the third map demonstrates the wide array of the colors in Zen's playpal. It's still narrow, of course, and truecolor is probably the way to go, but these colors could make for some truly interesting settings, wintery or brimstone.

The point is that any color can work, even within an extremely limited 8-bit palette, if it's used properly, it just limits the range you can use without going to truecolor, which, as far as I know, isn't supported by Boom, for example, not that this is a problem here, I'm pretty sure this is for GZDoom.

[jerrysheppy]

Also, I should probably expand a bit more what I mean by "alienness" and "alternate realities" since those are terms with multiple potential meanings as far as mapping for Doom is concerned.  The alienness I refer to is, as I said, a sort of dissonance that makes me resist the texture usage's effort to create a sense of place as Hell.  It's a place where the color coding breaks down and makes me start seeing the level structure as some sort of eye-hurting abstract sculpture rather than as having any sort of verisimilitude of place.  Which, I mean, could be seen as being Hell on some sort of meta level, but so could an entire level made of FIREBLU with strobing lights in every sector, and I think we all agree that nobody wants that.

 

This notwithstanding, and as I said above, I think something like Quake's blues-- as seen in The Wizard's Manse or Azure Agony -- could be very effectively slotted into Doom's hell somewhere, even though they could certainly be described as 'alien' (in the Lovecraftian sense) or 'alternate reality'.