After the Holocaust - Updated

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=16981

http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/6789/screenshotdoom201208302.png

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/6789/screenshotdoom201208302.png

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This is a remake of Downtown, the 13rd level of Doom 2. I think Downtown is supposed to be the climax of Doom 2. You finally reach an urban area looking for an Evac, survivors, or something like that, but you find yourself alone in a cold, depressing, and desolate place with a horrible smell of death. You see bodies hanging on light posts like trophies. It's the end of humankind. Your friends, your family, everyone is dead! And now only hellspawn walks over earth. They are hungry, and they want you! Now you finally know the mean of the word "Doom". I think Downtown is where the game really starts.

I ever wanted to see a modern remake of this level for Zdoom. For this map, I decided to use some concept ideas from games like Fallout 3, Resident Evil 2, and others.
The map is huge and completely non-linear. The player is free to explore the city, find supplies, and make many strategies to engage the monsters in different ways. The map yet keeps a key positioning that resembles the routes of the original map.


The map makes heavy use of 3D floors, but if you are a Software render user, don't worry, I haven't added any Slopped 3D floors. You will able to see all 3D floors if you are using the latest version of ZDoom, or Zandronum's Software renderer.

Enjoy!

two things:

very nice screenshots. some of the best i have ever seen.

secondly, you mention zdoom and zand, i assume this will work in gzdoom as well?


On a side note:
seeing maps like these makes me want to propose an idea to allow mappers to receive some sort of honorific title or something on their forum posts/avatar/title/profile.

Review:

The good - Nice job with using slopes on the damaged building I liked this kind of architectural effect. The map also looks very city like which is not the easiest to achieve in Doom.

The Bad - It's a good layout good design but again and this seems to happen all too often the lighting is not very good which I think completely ruins the visual aspect of maps. It is usually not too much effort to improve lighting so I would think about releasing an update of this map. The problems with the lighting is I don't think there is enough light level variation in this map, no shadows and the black wall behind the player at the start doesn't match the rest of the map. The use of sprites for junk piles I don't think works out well and the collision on the large piles was very annoying.

Pottus said:

The problems with the lighting is I don't think there is enough light level variation in this map, no shadows and the black wall behind the player at the start doesn't match the rest of the map. The use of sprites for junk piles I don't think works out well and the collision on the large piles was very annoying.

First of all, thanks for your feedback, dude!

About the lightning, I really don't know how can I improve it, since its supposed to be a dark map. You know, the city was attacked, and only emergency power lines are working for elevators, and teleports. All I could do is to make the areas inside buildings darker, but I'm afraid that it would make things very hard for users of a Software render, since any sector with a lightning level under 128 is VERY dark in Software mode.

And using sloped sectors for junk piles is is something hard to do, and can cause many visual glitches, turns the main street sectors much harder to edit in case I need to, and believe me, the visual effect is very inferior.

The way to do is to make the streets darker the light level is at 160 when it would probably be better around 128, with dark areas in alleys and shadow casting architecture, keep the building interiors brighter and use light casting out the windows into the darker street. Also where you have fire enhance it with gradient lighting!

Awesome stuff, I bet it is lots of fun in multiplayer. :) Very impressive and convincing city. The only thing I didn't like was that inescapable teleporter trap. I usually play without saves so stuff like that really annoys me...

Awesome. City maps are my favorite ones, especially if the do not use the vanilla textures and rescources only.

This map was incredible. I really felt the desperation of trying to survive in a city full of monsters. Visually it was very convincing while still looking like Doom. Really great work.

I updated it to have better cars, and also fixed some stuff.

SGT, for some reason I cannot make 100% kills nor secrets: two spiders are not being brought to the map, plus I cannot normally find the secret where the plasma gun is.

in addition, cannot find all the items... :(

any hints?

Looks great. I enjoyed your Suburbs map!

unchris said:

SGT, for some reason I cannot make 100% kills nor secrets: two spiders are not being brought to the map, plus I cannot normally find the secret where the plasma gun is.

in addition, cannot find all the items... :(

any hints?

Use your rocket launcher to explode the wooden fence near the gas station.