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Massive Maps

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yay! map10 of my tc is 3/4 finished and it's HUGE. so far i'm at 5,450 Linedefs and 927 sectors.

i estimate when it's finished I'll have around 1100+ sectors. It's amazing my old editor can still open the beast.

Has anyone ever pushed the sector/linedef count to its limits? Map20 in Alien Vendetta is big, but mostly in details within small spaces. I seem to remember there being a cap on the coordinates that a map can span. What are some of the biggest maps you guys have made?

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Click on the A in my sig.

1740 sectors.
8280 linedefs.
13579 sidedefs.

There's bigger out there, check out some of Fred's maps (Vrack), and Erik's maps (Europa 3) but that one's decently big. And it's realistic too.

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holy shit that is big
i just loaded the game and looked at it on idbehold. the design looks great! i gonna play it now

i guess i'm going to have to try harder...oh well, plenty of maps left in the tc, the bigger the better :D

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Note that gigantic sprawling maps aren't always the greatest thing. First of all, those of us with slower computers will have a hard time running it. Plus, you need source ports to run those types of wads cause they'll give a visplane overflow (play my level in ZDoom -- it's E1M3). Also, a whole TC full of those maps would be a monstrosity to download. Finally, sometimes too much attention is given to detail and not enough to gameplay. Make sure your level plays great as well as looks great.

(Yes, I'm being a hypocrite. Do as I say, not as I do :P)

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Well, my biggest map is map32 in Fragport. It took 3 weeks to make, and has 965 sectors, although many of those were made identical to each other in order to fix the savegame buffer problem, there's actually well over 1000 in there. And there are no visplane or savegame buffer problems either! (mostly due to the low number of things and identical sectors being given the same number)

I made another big one (e5m6 in Shadowcaster) which has 865 sectors, but I wasn't as lucky with the bugs that time...(no vpo's though)

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A level I'm making for my TC, Paradox, currently only has one big room and an L-shaped corridor. Here are the current stats:

Vertices 1757
Linedefs 2118
Sidedefs 3630
Sectors 174

The sectors are actually bit misleading as I've been manually merging identical sectors in each room.

Suffice it to say that there's a LOT of detail in this level ;)

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Hey, look. I've got a work-in-progress map by some weird swede. The version I have has 1.5 rooms. Stats:

Sidedefs: 3519
Vertices: 1377
Sectors: 517
Linedefs: 1897

In an totally unrelated note, the stats of Vrack2:

Sidedefs: 21433
Vertices: 10421
Sectors: 2482
Linedefs: 12411

:)

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Use3D said:

yay! map10 of my tc is 3/4 finished and it's HUGE. so far i'm at 5,450 Linedefs and 927 sectors.

i estimate when it's finished I'll have around 1100+ sectors. It's amazing my old editor can still open the beast.

Has anyone ever pushed the sector/linedef count to its limits? Map20 in Alien Vendetta is big, but mostly in details within small spaces. I seem to remember there being a cap on the coordinates that a map can span. What are some of the biggest maps you guys have made?


Oh Really? Plutonia II has like 10000-12000 linedefs in it's maps but a dunno about sectors.

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NiGHTMARE said:

The sectors are actually bit misleading as I've been manually merging identical sectors in each room.


What source port does Paradox run with? The reason I'm asking is because, although I got away with merging sectors in map32 of Fragport, whenever I tried it anywhere else (eg. in Heretic), the level totally screwed up when saved for the 2nd time afterwards (heights change, 1000 bugs etc.). I was wondering if source ports do that to levels as well, or is it just with vanilla DooM/Heretic?

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boris said:

Hey, look. I've got a work-in-progress map by some weird Swede. The version I have has 1.5 rooms. Stats:

Sidedefs: 3519
Vertices: 1377
Sectors: 517
Linedefs: 1897

In an totally unrelated note, the stats of Vrack2:

Sidedefs: 21433
Vertices: 10421
Sectors: 2482
Linedefs: 12411

:)

some weird Swede

Wouldn't be Fredrik, would it? :)

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Ultimate DooMer: I assume you're talking about automatic merging of sectors? I've never heard of it screwing things up like you describe.

It does have its problems though: if merged sectors are in more than one room, and there are monsters in at least one of those rooms, if you fire in one room the monsters in the other room will here it.

The other problem is only present with ZDoom: it messes up sloped sectors.

Anyway, When I said I've been manually merging sectors, what I mean is that I select the relevant linedefs and change the sector number myself. I've got fairly good memorization skills, so it isn't too difficult :)

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NiGHTMARE said:

Ultimate DooMer: I assume you're talking about automatic merging of sectors? I've never heard of it screwing things up like you describe.

It does have its problems though: if merged sectors are in more than one room, and there are monsters in at least one of those rooms, if you fire in one room the monsters in the other room will here it.

The other problem is only present with ZDoom: it messes up sloped sectors.

Anyway, When I said I've been manually merging sectors, what I mean is that I select the relevant linedefs and change the sector number myself. I've got fairly good memorization skills, so it isn't too difficult :)


i don't normally merge sectors. i mean other than saving a little space, it does nothing for you. when i do merge sectors is in pole doors like in MAP02, which insures they're synchronized if they're the kind that close again, and makes them not soo damn loud. also when special effects require merged sectors i do them there too.

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My maps average between 300 and 600 sectors, with 3000+ linedefs. I won't even start on the vertices.

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NiGHTMARE said:

Ultimate DooMer: I assume you're talking about automatic merging of sectors? I've never heard of it screwing things up like you describe.

I think what he means is that some nodes builders merge sectors and throw the rest of the sector counts off.

For example, if you have four rooms, numbered sectors 1, 2, 3, and 4, and two are identical, let's say 1 and 2, and they get merged and each become sector 1. Then, sector 3 would take on sector two's ceiling/floor height, lighting, etc, and sector 4 would take on sector 3's...this has happened to me on a couple of occaisions.

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Spike said:

My maps average between 300 and 600 sectors, with 3000+ linedefs. I won't even start on the vertices.


let me guess: ~5000.

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NiGHTMARE said:

Ultimate DooMer: I assume you're talking about automatic merging of sectors? I've never heard of it screwing things up like you describe.

It does have its problems though: if merged sectors are in more than one room, and there are monsters in at least one of those rooms, if you fire in one room the monsters in the other room will here it.

The other problem is only present with ZDoom: it messes up sloped sectors.

Anyway, When I said I've been manually merging sectors, what I mean is that I select the relevant linedefs and change the sector number myself. I've got fairly good memorization skills, so it isn't too difficult :)


I'm talking about the manual mathod, like you've been doing. It is quite dangerous, I find. It did screw up my Fragport map 32 a couple of times, but it worked mostly. When I tried with Shadowcaster map 6, it screwed it up every time. I use WadAuthor's internal nodebuilder, I don't know if that's to blame or not.

Archvile 46: I think what you described is what I'm talking about, as the sectors heights all change. When I looked at it more closely, it was indeed as if the sectors changed properties with others. The only difference is that I do it manually.

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I've been doing it for years to create sectors "in the void" for special effects and stuff, and have never had any problems. Like you said, it must be the nodesbuilder.

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Merging sectors huh? is that like splitting sectors into multiple sectors all with the same hieght/floor and flats? i've seen that technique used a few times. One of my editors blows it everytime on those. Like esayeek, i rarely use split sectors.

isn't that how some (all?) of the maps during the 10 sectors contest were made? By splitting the sectors the actual sector count stays the same.

So far i have not had any major errors other than the limits of doom2.exe show up in my huge levels. I have found however, that the node builder that comes with wadauthor stinks. it's made several goofs, especiallys on map where i've cloned voids/sectors. maybe its just cause i using too many editors and wadauthor is getting some whacked information from one of them.

i played vrack2 a while ago, but didn't check out its stats. that level was insane!

thanks for all the input guys it helps alot.

oh yeah RailGunner, i sure the maps in Plutonia II are going to be awesome

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Ultimate DooMer said:

I use WadAuthor's internal nodebuilder, I don't know if that's to blame or not.

I don't think it is. WA's built in nodesbuilder is pretty crappy, but that's only because it allows unbuilt nodes to slip through and cause the "invisible barrier" bug. However, I never got all the sectors switching properties until I used BSP to fix the nodes that WA let slip through.

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Hmm, I think I've have figured out what could be causing the problem. If you make all the sidedefs in your level that currently refer to, for example, sector 2 refer to sector 1 instead, then there will obviously no longer be sidedefs using sector 2. However, this sector still exists until you delete it.

The Wadauthor nodesbuilder might detect that no sidedefs use this sector, and so deletes it, and perhaps due to an oversight by the author/because it's crap (delete as applicable), it doesn't actually renumber any of the sidefs, meaning that all sidedefs using sectors numbered above 2 are off by one. This would obviously totally screw up your level.

I don't know if Wadauthor has option to delete unused sectors, but DeepSea certainly does. Then again, DeepBSP doesn't automatically delete unused sectors anyway ;)

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I use Deepsea for all my editing purposes and after I've made changes to my map I run the error checker and also check for unused sectors and linedefs and delete them. Your node builder has alot to do with it. I normally use DeepBSP using type 3 nodes and a split option of 32, it builds a very good BSP tree at this setting. As my map gets larger I switch to type 1 nodes with a split factor of 8 for speed. For the final node build I switch back to type 3 nodes and a split factor of 32. The problem comes when you use polyobjects in your level...ala ZDoom/Hexen type of format. Most node builders have a problem recognizing the polys so you have to manually tell it to ignore the area around the polys. If you don't do this the node builder will split the area around the polyobjects and you'll get some nasty polybleeds! If I create a map and use polyobjects I use the latest version of Zennode, it's one of the best node builders out there and it's free. My maps become free of polybleeds as long as I've designed the area enclosing the polyobjects squared off...angled sectors are bad for polyobjects.

Cadman - Member TeamTNT

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Archvile64 said:

So what's TNT up to nowadays?

They are waiting for ZDoom 1.23 final. But that's just one tiny part of a big conspiracy :)

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Ok that seals it, as soon as i get to the bank, i ordering Deepsea.

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Use3D said:

What are some of the biggest maps you guys have made?

Map04 (Mos Denra Spaceport) of The Darkest Hour has:

Sectors: 2563
Linedefs: 9812
Vertices: 7247

The node-building process takes forever.

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NiGHTMARE said:

I've been doing it for years to create sectors "in the void" for special effects and stuff, and have never had any problems. Like you said, it must be the nodesbuilder.


The process works fine for me as long as the sectors started out as one, and were split naturally (eg. putting a bridge across a pit that splits the pit sector in two). It's only when the sector started out as a different sector, and then changing the references to match those of another sector with identical properties that it starts to screw up.

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It's only when the sector started out as a different sector, and then changing the references to match those of another sector with identical properties that it starts to screw up.

It definitely sounds like the nodesbuilder is deleting sectors (and thefore renumbering higher ones), but not changing the references on the sidedefs.

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NiGHTMARE said:

It definitely sounds like the nodesbuilder is deleting sectors (and thefore renumbering higher ones), but not changing the references on the sidedefs.


if your editor has an unused sector check (i know deepsea does), try using it. also, BSP isn't phased by nonused sectors (there are about 6 in my map in progress at the moment and it nodes fine)

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Frack (C) specs:

Sidedefs: 23121
Linedefs: 12517
Vertexes: 10000
Sectors: 3128

Frack (B) specs:

Sidedefs: 16483
Linedefs: 8905
Vertexes: 7520
Sectors: 1803

Frack total specs so far:

Sidedefs: 39604
Linedefs: 21422
Vertexes: 17520
Sectors: 4931

:)

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