THT: Threnody - released!

Finished my map.



Download Fightnancial Crisis at Enwrong. UV only so far. I limited myself to stock textures (the thing usage is from sepTYtex however) and tried my best to make an “easy-ish” E1 map with a bizarre 90s feel—filtered through my lens of course. It’s not much of an homage to Ty’s work, but I made sure to use a lot of Boom actions I was unfamiliar with as a means of honoring him. Broke my rule about no AV/manc/arach, but they’re used sparingly. Lemme know what ya think!

(Kudos to NinjaLiquidator for the sweet car in the garage—it uses two Ultimate Doom textures so I’ve included those. Would be nice if someone could make two more cars!)

Man dobu, that was one Hell of a map! Here's my extra long FDA of me running around confused out of my mind. 37 minutes is how long it took, but a good portion of that was in that damned *spoiler* maze and I ran around a bit at the end to try and find some extra stuff, but to no avail. I finished the map with 249/262 and 6/12.

Like I said, confused was the word for this monster. It was a ton of fun, though and the difficulty level felt right for a first episode map. This map is huge and most of my time was spent exploring, with killing as the secondary. That's not to say it wasn't action-packed, just that my attention was mostly focused on figuring out just where the Hell I was in relation to where I was before. I still don't think I know, but at this point I do have a fair idea of the map layout.

I thought that one kinda hidden yellow door was funny. Idk why I even pushed it in the first place, but I did a double-take when I read the message, haha.

I liked the monster placement here and hey, you didn't break one of your three rules ;p The other two were nicely placed, as were the entirety of the cast of monsters you used.

I really liked having the berserk pack early on. Also, props on no backpacks (assuming there wasn't one hiding in one of the other 6 secrets I didn't find). Even if there is one in the level, props on it not being directly given to the player.

That blue damaging floor was a sick twist.

There was some really cool-looking stuff here! That city-scape was only one of many; this map was just a beauty through-out!

You did a really good job with the mechanics of everything, too. I guess you said you were unfamiliar with some of them, but you did an excellent job executing the ones you used. I particularly loved the little hanging mid-textures you had going up and down with the sounds of the other stuff. Speaking of which, those sounds made me nervous at times.

There were a few sky errors in the city-scape section. Ceilings hanging too low causing the buildings to get cut off. I went back and looked at it and I couldn't see any reason for them to be there, so I'm a bit confused over that, unless it's just an oversight.

Health and ammo were both very forgiving in this map, which is nice. I have bad habits of ammo conservation, so I was almost full at all times on bullets and shells, but rockets were nice and tight; I didn't find a plasma gun or a SSG.

All-in-all, fun map man! I'm really surprised I made it through on what was basically a blind run. I say basically because you didn't really specify what iWad it was for (though you did say stock textures and SepTytex things, so maybe it's just my own stupidity), so I loaded it up before the demo and IDCLIP'd through some of the level to check for HOM's and such. For others: Doom 2 iWad + SepTytex.wad

Great job once again dobu! It's gonna be a shame when you duck out of the community for a while after this while you work on your next big thing, but I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end! I can't wait to see what it's gonna be :)

Doomkid said:

Chris is right on the money - Antares has a knack for making things that are simply beautiful and always have a very grand feeling overall. I'm gonna echo what Chris said - Keep it up Antares, I can easily envision a Cacoward in your future if you stick to your guns.

Thanks for the comment. I believe that there are lots of mappers and modders who deserve that award more than me since I still need a lot of practice to do yet. But thanks for your compliment. :)

Ashstrodamus said:

@antares031 Very impressive design. Haven't got to play it much yet, but damn it looks good.

Thanks, and please take your time to try this one.

Fonze said:

Antares, after playing your map I'm right there with Chris on what he said. What a beautiful level and what fun to play too! Here's my failure of a FDA. 15-16 minutes in I let myself get cornered... what a putz, hah. Judging by monster count I made it 'bout halfway through the map, though at the same time given the first half of the monsters were just around the main building I somehow doubt it really was halfway......

......I found that very first secret to be sweet and funny that I found it. I guess it's a 50/50 shot that inquisitive players will get it, heh. I was so happy when I came out of the gate balstin', but then I took a look outside, saw the cyber and all the baddies and just ran. Of course that didn't help, but it sure felt good. My emotions were mixed between "Holy shit I'm about to die!" and "Wow that building looks fantastic!" lol. Afterward I got inside all I thought was, "Weeellp, I f*cked up." The room full of revs with the plasma gun was one Hell of a surprise, though, but it was lots of fun. Nothing wrong with a little optional slaughter-closet with a big, fat ole reward at the end. That cyber freaked me right the f*ck out the whole time I was outside. That'd be one Hell of a way to go, blind-sided by a rocket, heh.

I really liked the trap I died in. The revs being awoken halfway through was what got me; idk how that happened, but apparently somewhere along the line I screwed up haha. Partly got too cocky letting myself get so low on health without looking for more, but I guess I just crossed a line that opened that door as I was killing the second PE. Either that or I had just crossed one-of-two sound-blocking lines there.

Couple other things, the zip and text file are named "skypillar" while the wad is named "skypilar." I know, 8-char limit and all, but that confused me for a sec when I tried to set up the demo recording. Also, I know there's not really a nice, easy way to fix it, but the sky pillar looks a bit strange at that right angle on either side of the building looking towards it because the pillar cannot be drawn above the building. I'm sure you already know about this, but is it something you plan to leave as-is? Perhaps a canopy at roof-level over the sections in question could prevent the player being able to see this. Still, not like it's a big deal; this map was absolutely beautiful and I love it! Great job, once again man!

I always appreciate your FDA feedback, along with my previous level. :) I've watched it to the end, and I'm glad that your walkthrough was close to my intention. This level is dedicated to Ty's single player level called Induction, with a fortress at the middle of map and an island with a Cyberdemon at the ocean. I took that concept to this level with different circulation of my own. About the Cyberdemon you mentioned, don't worry about him shooting rockets from distance since the method to deal with that beast is similar to the original level, although I added one more "challenge".

About the corridor section that you died, the revenent ambush is triggered if you step into the end of corridor with lower ceiling. The best way to deal with them will be shooting plasma gun after you killed all of cacos and PE. And you may use those candelabras to block their rockets. Alternatively, you may also jump out to the window to escape if you're surrounded by monsters.

The name of wad and txt will be changed in the next release, similar to my previous contribution. And yes, 8-char limit made me to get rid of one L, but I "mistyped" for my text file. :S About the sky pillar, currently I know two spots where have a graphical issue you mentioned; one is in front of yellow key door, and the other one is the exact opposite section of yellow key door. I know the majority areas of the ocean also has that problem, but I'll leave it since nobody wants to stay at that deadly floor. I may edit the yellow key door by adding structures around to block the sight. Again, thanks for the FDA and feedback, and I'll update this level soon.



@dobu gabu maru: What an awesome level with fantastic details. My first exit scored 83% kills with three deaths. I love how you decorated the level beautifully with vanilla textures, and boom level design techniques. The monster placements are all acceptable, even for arch-viles. But the best thing about this level is the overall non-linear layout which I have tons of areas to explore and I do admire that. Explorable environment with exquisite archtectural details made this level absolutely phenomenal.

The only downside to my taste is the maze section with teleporters. At first, I thought they were for a single-use(W1) to take me to the trap or something like that. But they just take me to anywhere without clear reasons. After several minutes that I nearly felt 3D motion sickness, I realized that there are actually visual notification for those teleporter lines that I hardly noticed, and I managed to solve that maze puzzle in the end. It could be better if there are more hints to notify the teleporter lines, but It's may not a problems to other players. Plus, I noticed that there's a slime trail around Line 2065 while I play this level with ZDoom. I tried to check it out with Nodes Viewer with DB2, but for some reason, DB2 just crashed whenever I tried Nodes Viewer for this level. Finally, I thought Line 131 has texture issue with no lower unpegged, but soon I realized the reason of it so it doesn't matter.

Despite of maze section, the rest of level was just fantastic, and I loved it. Thank you for your contribution. :)

Thanks for the feedback guys. And yeah, the maze is really "love it or hate it", but I have a soft spot for obtuse puzzles and knew I had to try my hand at making one here. I also figure it's fair play since there's two other ways to access the yellow key. And thanks for the FDA Fonze—I was completely oblivious to that low sky ceiling problem on my test in PrBoom so I'll have to tinker with that. I also laughed when you went back into the maze, got lost, and then said "screw it" and just exited the level. I'm glad you survived the map on your first go!

I'll have to get back you later, dobu, 'cause I'm not doing too good atm!

The hilarity of my demos continues in full force! :D

But the 5% I have managed to experience of the level sure does look sweet!

My pleasure antares! What an awesome map to play, too! Thank you for both of your awesome submissions!

I never played Induction, so we'll have to see if I can figure it out from this map alone on my next run ;)

Ah, yeah I figured there was a line that had just opened that door. I don't think the encounter was difficult, I just screwed it up haha. Good to know those little tips though.

Yeah, I think we're talking about the same spots. Idk what you want to do there, but I'm sure it'll look great by the time you're done!



Dobu: you're also welcome! I usually enjoy playing your maps. I'm glad I survived too, heh. How is anyone's guess, but I'm guessing that deal with the Devil is finally starting to pay off...

I had a feeling that there was more than one way to go to get the yellow key. As for the maze, I tend to love stuff like that, though I shared antares' mindset at first of really hoping that those were W1 lines rather than WR. I think I got the maze mostly figured out minus a couple spots I never reached. That maze was more obtuse than the Warden, though; Andy Dufresne would be proud. I actually said screw it twice to the maze, the first time was after the AV when I saw an armor bonus outside the door and decided screw that because teleporting maze and the second was what you mentioned.

I was highly confused over that IoS mouth... That was prolly the only reason I revisited the maze at the end, aside from trying to get to the one little room in the middle of it, which I didn't get to.

I forgot to mention it, but I loved the room with the manc in general. Great job with all the detailing and the design of it and of course the executive's room was hilarious.



Great job, once again y'all!

Chris Hansen said:

I'll have to get back you later, dobu, 'cause I'm not doing too good atm!

Hah, the map still isn't balanced on HMP, as most of the UV monster placement is still there. Don't worry, I assure you it gets easier once you're not struggling for ammo/weapons!

Pheew, that's nice to know. Gonna fire it up again and give it another go. I noticed afterwards that you haven't implemented difficulties yet. That's bad news for a UV noob like me, but I'm glad to hear that I can use it as an excuse! ;)

EDIT:
Finished it, and I gotta say, that you've really got a knack for creating wonderful, weird and whacky levels! There's just one problem: I like it, but I don't know if I love it. This level fills me with ambivalent feelings. On one hand, I really respect the immense creativity behind this level and I can't recall seeing anything quite like this for many years. On the other hand, I curse you for making me fight my way through blue damaging floors and placing me in a maze, that I just could not figure out how to get out of! There has to be a logic in a level and some clear goals and this level sometimes lack those completely. At least for me. Someone with better skills at playing the game or someone with a better sense of logic might fare way better than I did. But I cursed you deep into the fiery pits of Hell sometimes for doing these things to me! And yet, at the same time I get all fuzzy and warm inside when I stop to stare in awe at all the fantastic scenery and amazing creative use of the the stock textures and Boom features!

But never mind all that, because what's so brilliant about this project is, that we're all doing levels that are solidly founded in Ty's approach to making Doom levels. And his levels always had a whacky and sometimes illogical approach to things like looks and progression. All our levels are very conceptual and that will always stir up our conventional way of looking at gameplay. And your map does this in abundance, and while it may not be to everyone's liking - including myself - you have to respect it for what it is: A damned solid, highly creative and actually, a very entertaining level!

Finished the level in approx. 43 minutes. Used PrBoom+ and didn't notice any bugs. I managed to kill 93% and only found a couple of secrets. I had to IDDQD the area with the blue damaging floor and all those metal boxes. I was simply being pushed beyond my limits in that area and was constantly being hurt be either snipers or the floor. But after that I did fine and only died a couple of times, which was nice as I had really almost given up the level after that horrible beginning ;)

This is the only bug I noticed, where the sky clips into a tall building (1) (2)

Last thing: What's the name and author of the midi track?

Sky textures. What are our options?

Since Doomkid included a custom sky texture in his map Cut Throat, I started wondering what we are going to do in terms of different sky textures. I always assumed that we would "just" be using the ones from sepTYtex, but we might as well look into our options a little closer before we make any decisions.

So, what kind of sky texture would you prefer for your level? We might not be able to accomodate all wishes, as the size, style (i.e. tech or gothich/hell) and difficulty of each individual level has precedence when selecting the order of the levels. But it would still be nice to get an idea of what kind of sky people would prefer. And if I don't hear anything, I'll just take that as a "I don't really care, just pick one for me" :)

If we get a whole bunch of requests that goes beyond the game's default three skies per episode, I would like to look into the option of using the sky transfer option, which I believe would do the trick for us. I would like to have someone confirm that it is indeed a Boom feature that we might be able to use, as I'm not 100% sure it's a Boom feature or something like MBF.

Here are the sky textures we have so far:

If you have another request besides the ones above, please let me know. Personally, I'd be a little hesitant to use too many different skies and would like to keep it at a number around 3-5 if it's possible for use to use the sky transfer feature.

Anyway, let me know what you think :)

I like the retres.wad orange sky, but only because the color theme fits well with the textures I used in my map :-P

Sky transfers are a MBF feature, so they won't work in the original Boom port. But you can still run the maps in Boom with MBF sky transfer line actions, the sky just won't show up. The default sky will be used instead. I think the general consensus for Boom projects that use MBF sky transfers is to just make a note of it in the readme since most people playing the maps won't be using the original Boom port. And then as a backup, pick three skies for defaults that work well enough.

If you guys want some skies, I'd be happy to toss some of mine up for use. You guys can pick any of them you like. I can also make some too.

I'm on mobile right now and away from my computer, but I'll post some up for you guys to pick through when I'm back home :)

That's interesting Mech! I never knew that sky transfers were not an original Book feature, though our map uses all 3 default skies from the TNT iWad through the sky transfer action.

I cant speak for Z0k, but I like the skies we used and wouldn't like for them to be changed, but if any are changed I'd rather it be only the default sky that we use, which likely will happen anyway when this thing meshes with D2 and SepTytex. I wouldn't mind the orange sky as a default and a new Hell sky, but the space one is absolutely necessary for our Ty tribute room.

Chris, about dobu's map; I don't think the blue damaging floor is ever necessary to step on, barring one secret and maybe a few accidental slips on the platforms above.

That level is highly non-linear, so perhaps it was just the path you chose that gave you problems. I'm no Doom master and I somehow made it through on the first, blind try (which I feel is not a testament to any skills I have but to the man's difficulty level and overall balancing), but that was also likely due to the path I took, which of course I can no longer remember. Wouldn't have it any other way, haha. If I remember correctly I ran into the blue room, then ran away when I discovered the floor was damaging, which kinda sucked because I feel like even after completion there was more to that room that I missed, though I did go back and visit it later on. I also got lucky and found the megasphere secret leading up to the yellow key which is likely the only real reason I survived. It was certainly a tough map! But I think it would fit well as an E1 map.

Angry Saint said:

I like the retres.wad orange sky, but only because the color theme fits well with the textures I used in my map :-P

I fully understand and I'm pretty sure that this map and the ones similar in style will be using the orange sky. Those maps are Fallen Steward - Eternal Archieve, Sky Pillar, Parallel Dimension and TY45-15. And there might be others too that I forgot. The fact is, that the orange sky is very versatile and goes well together with many levels as long as they aren't too dark.

Mechadon said:

Sky transfers are a MBF feature, so they won't work in the original Boom port. But you can still run the maps in Boom with MBF sky transfer line actions, the sky just won't show up. The default sky will be used instead. I think the general consensus for Boom projects that use MBF sky transfers is to just make a note of it in the readme since most people playing the maps won't be using the original Boom port. And then as a backup, pick three skies for defaults that work well enough.

If you guys want some skies, I'd be happy to toss some of mine up for use. You guys can pick any of them you like. I can also make some too.

I'm on mobile right now and away from my computer, but I'll post some up for you guys to pick through when I'm back home :)

Thanks for answering my question. Feel free to link some of your sky textures and see what kind of interest people have in them and we'll take it from there. Otherwise, I still feel that me might be well covered with the orange, gray and space sky from sepTYtex.wad.

Fonze said:

That's interesting Mech! I never knew that sky transfers were not an original Book feature, though our map uses all 3 default skies from the TNT iWad through the sky transfer action.

I cant speak for Z0k, but I like the skies we used and wouldn't like for them to be changed, but if any are changed I'd rather it be only the default sky that we use, which likely will happen anyway when this thing meshes with D2 and SepTytex. I wouldn't mind the orange sky as a default and a new Hell sky, but the space one is absolutely necessary for our Ty tribute room.

Chris, about dobu's map; I don't think the blue damaging floor is ever necessary to step on, barring one secret and maybe a few accidental slips on the platforms above.

That level is highly non-linear, so perhaps it was just the path you chose that gave you problems. I'm no Doom master and I somehow made it through on the first, blind try (which I feel is not a testament to any skills I have but to the man's difficulty level and overall balancing), but that was also likely due to the path I took, which of course I can no longer remember. Wouldn't have it any other way, haha. If I remember correctly I ran into the blue room, then ran away when I discovered the floor was damaging, which kinda sucked because I feel like even after completion there was more to that room that I missed, though I did go back and visit it later on. I also got lucky and found the megasphere secret leading up to the yellow key which is likely the only real reason I survived. It was certainly a tough map! But I think it would fit well as an E1 map.

As I mentioned above, I still feel that the skies from sepTYtex.wad are pretty good and will cover the needs for most of our levels, so I think your level is pretty safe and we won't be forcing you guys to change them :)

Regarding the blue damaging floor in dobu's level, I still feel it's unfair. The reason for this is, that I have no knowledge about the level before I go into it and I can't possibly know whether or not it's required of me or not to search the blue floor for weapons, keys or switches etc. There is no way for me to know this unless I finish searching through the rest of the level first. And yes, I'm guilty of doing this too in my levels and I've even made it obligatory for the players to go through damaging floors in order to progress. And I've learned my lesson! That was a bad call and I won't be making that mistake again sometime soon. So, I'll at least provide the player with a radiation suit so he can at least get a look at some of it before his feet start melting off ;)

Progress. I went back and redid a few triggers and effects (this is the version with the fixed conveyor belt), added in some additional stuff, changed a few "things" and rebalanced the map. Ammo is now much more plentiful and I've added in some more health kits, especially in the tougher parts and towards the ends of the map, since death at that point sucks.

While I still encourage people to try the map first on a lesser difficulty to get the gist and feel of the map, UV is now much easier with a better-equipped player and a couple monsters changed/removed; same goes for the lesser difficulties as well. HMP is still a more traditional UV experience.

Monster counts are currently as follows: HNTR: 233, HMP: 275, and 289 on UV in the same-sized area, though the total is 485 with the final realm. The counts are much higher than I would have liked at the outset of this thing, but that's just how it worked out. There are no slaughter elements to this map.

Estimated time for full completion is around 30 minutes for HNTR and HMP, 'bout an hour for UV, though if it's a first run you should probably tack 30 more minutes on top of that because this map is highly non-linear and involves a lot of exploration for the real benefits.

Being so non-linear, a speed run is possible in under 40 seconds. So basically all that extra time you spend past one minute is all your choice ;p But I think you'll find it to be worth it.

This map is 1.69 MB zipped and 7.45 MB unzipped, and that's without any custom or additional resources (no custom song yet, either). Sorry for the large download file, but it's literally all map. I could knock out maybe 200 lines with a lot of extra work, but I don't think it's worth it at this point as that'd just be a drop in the bucket.

If you play on UV, save often. Some encounters on all difficulties require a small bit of strategy, but on UV strategy becomes more important as the pressure (and types of pressure) change. Nothing is unfair and most encounters give you a second to take it all in because there are a few surprises here and there, but that second goes fast so be on your toes!

Still being a BETA, this map still needs much more feedback. I've gotten very little thus far, aside from Chris and my partner Z0k, so the balancing and everything still might not be perfect. Any additional feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for all of the hard work put in by all the members of this project to make this as good a tribute as it can possibly be! I think that all the maps, songs and other work put in by everyone has turned out great so far and I can't wait to see what's to come!

WormHell BETA version 2:



Download WAD in zip file

IWad Required: TNT
Map Slot: MAP04
SepTytex has not been incorporated yet.



Have fun and thanks in advance for any feedback!



To Chris:
The more I think about it, this map may be appropriate for a final map, given the size, difficulty, and ending of it. Idk what the current plans are for a final battle of the entire mapset, whether it be a boss or something else, but this map could possibly accommodate that as well. I'm not sure if I like this idea or not, but it could also be a secret level, or a random E3 level, given its Hellish end, though a final E2 slot might be the way to go.

WormHell:
Thanks Fonze (and Z0k)! I definitely recommend people - especially those of you who haven't voiced yourself yet in this thread - to give this level a go! It's really creative and innovative and deserves some feedback to make it even more smooth :) Give it go, folks! You won't be disappointed!

I'm pretty sure that this level will be right at the end of what we call episode 2 for lack of a better description. I'll give it a go again and edit this post if I have any additional feedback for you.

Skies:
Since there hasn't been a lot of feedback on my sky texture question, I'm gonna go for the standard sepTYtex skies for now and switch the orange and gray skies, so that episode 1 levels will feature the gray sky and episode 3 will feature the orange. Episode 2 will be the space/night sky. I'm currently experimenting with the levels to see how how the individual maps look with the skies. But again, nothing's set in stone and is still up for debate if the right argument comes along ;)

Ressource / sepTYtex.wad:
If your map is currently only compatible with Doom2.wad or TNT.wad, I'd like you to check how it looks with sepTYtex.wad to see if there are any problems. This is especially true in regards to sprites. There are many new sprites and especially the new trees can cause some problems i.e. the original "5 skulls shish kebab" which is replaced with a tree or the "skull on a pole" which is now a black column. Please check your map and edit if nessecary.

On a related note, I checked my first map and rooted out these type of things. Here is the latest version (I don't expect feedback, but would appreciate it ofc).

@Chris: got a 404 on that url nevermind, works now. Playing...

Okay, so coming into the project pretty fresh, so don't really know the rules, so I'll just mention my impressions of this map off-the-cuff.

port: zdoom >_>
idwad: doom2
difficulty: hmp
completed: no

Good lighting, detailing; fun, tricky encounters; good secrets; memorable settings (don't really even need the automap, despite the spaghetti-bowl layout); rewarding difficulty, although ultimately too much for me on HMP (died around where the Baron comes out); detail level seems to be about Ty+, but I mostly only remember the older stuff by heart - still gotta catch up!

Some missing textures (boxes, doorstops, etc), but I'm probably just missing a resource. My fault for not reading the thread. :p

@Fonze: I am currently at 1.20MB and I thought I was doing bad... Can't wait to play it in the final compilation!

Alright, here's an update to Fightnancial Crisis at Enwrong. Download here. I added difficulties, removed some problematic enemies, added a bit more health, made it easier to find the second switch in the northwest area, and—most importantly!—made the teleporter maze shorter. Hopefully HMP will be more your style Chris; I added an additional radsuit some ways into the level for the lower difficulties (there's always been a secret one hidden in the map). Should be the final version unless some egregious bugs pop up (there's a couple of slime trails but whatever). MIDI is "Run For Your Life" by Paul D.

As for the sky, whatever you guys decide on I'm cool with.

Thanks Surreily! I hope you enjoy it! Lol, yeah I always looked at being the size of a typical mp3 song as a bad thing, but this map's size could easily fit 2 mp3s plus another Doom map, haha. What have we done? Haha.

To Chris: I agree with you on the skies. For WormHell we can (and already do) just transfer skies anyway, but idk if the TNT skies are included in SepTytex. If they aren't, could we get them added so we don't have to change our skies?

*Edit*
Took a further look at the skies, this is what our map looks like with the SepTytex skies:



This space sky texture will not work for this area.




This just doesn't look right...




But I think that this does look pretty darn cool. Sudden purgatory twist, anyone?




I don't like this orange sky here,




But it does look pretty cool here.




I'm ambivalent on its place here.



Chris, if it's not too much to ask, can the TNT skies be added in to the texture pack? Everything else is present, animated walls included. Some were tough to find amidst the 1,600 textures already present, but all are accounted for, minus those skies. The couple of things that are different will be a small hoop to jump through, so I'm not worried about those; just the skies.



Original skies for quick reference:

I've been getting GIMP and all of my palette stuff re-setup since moving to an upgraded machine (that I did months ago :P), and I'm wondering...maybe I could update the three skies that your looking to use as defaults? So basically that would be a cleaned up TNT space sky, an E4-ish orange sky, and a grey cloudy sky. I could make new versions of the brown/mountain sky and the red hell sky too. They would be 1024x240 and the space skies could wrap vertically for those trippy void-like areas.

Lemme see what I can whip up and I'll post it. Then you guys can decide.

schwerpunk said:

@Chris: got a 404 on that url nevermind, works now. Playing...

Okay, so coming into the project pretty fresh, so don't really know the rules, so I'll just mention my impressions of this map off-the-cuff.

port: zdoom >_>
idwad: doom2
difficulty: hmp
completed: no

Good lighting, detailing; fun, tricky encounters; good secrets; memorable settings (don't really even need the automap, despite the spaghetti-bowl layout); rewarding difficulty, although ultimately too much for me on HMP (died around where the Baron comes out); detail level seems to be about Ty+, but I mostly only remember the older stuff by heart - still gotta catch up!

Some missing textures (boxes, doorstops, etc), but I'm probably just missing a resource. My fault for not reading the thread. :p

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked it, despite the missing textures *cough* ;)

dobu gabu maru said:

Alright, here's an update to Fightnancial Crisis at Enwrong. Download here. I added difficulties, removed some problematic enemies, added a bit more health, made it easier to find the second switch in the northwest area, and—most importantly!—made the teleporter maze shorter. Hopefully HMP will be more your style Chris; I added an additional radsuit some ways into the level for the lower difficulties (there's always been a secret one hidden in the map). Should be the final version unless some egregious bugs pop up (there's a couple of slime trails but whatever). MIDI is "Run For Your Life" by Paul D.

As for the sky, whatever you guys decide on I'm cool with.

Thanks for the new version! Will check it out asap! I'm running a bit behind, as I also need to play the latest version of Z0k and Fonze's WormHell. Sigh, real life with babies and education and shit! :D Btw. the midi: Who's Paul D? Do you mean Paul C(orfiatis)?

Fonze said:

To Chris: I agree with you on the skies. For WormHell we can (and already do) just transfer skies anyway, but idk if the TNT skies are included in SepTytex. If they aren't, could we get them added so we don't have to change our skies?


Chris, if it's not too much to ask, can the TNT skies be added in to the texture pack? Everything else is present, animated walls included. Some were tough to find amidst the 1,600 textures already present, but all are accounted for, minus those skies. The couple of things that are different will be a small hoop to jump through, so I'm not worried about those; just the skies.

I agree. Your map looks better with the TNT skies. And if it wasn't for Mech's post (see below), I'd have let you use them instantly. But let's see what he comes up with first.

Mechadon said:

I've been getting GIMP and all of my palette stuff re-setup since moving to an upgraded machine (that I did months ago :P), and I'm wondering...maybe I could update the three skies that your looking to use as defaults? So basically that would be a cleaned up TNT space sky, an E4-ish orange sky, and a grey cloudy sky. I could make new versions of the brown/mountain sky and the red hell sky too. They would be 1024x256 and the space skies could wrap vertically for those trippy void-like areas.

Lemme see what I can whip up and I'll post it. Then you guys can decide.

Awesome! That would be really nice, if you could work some magic. Also, on a somewhat related note; could you perhaps work some magic on the 3rd picture in this post? I'd like to use it as title screen. I know we're not set on a title yet, but I would love it if someone could at least do some wizardry and remove the text from the the image for a start.

Chris Hansen said:

Thanks for the new version! Will check it out asap! I'm running a bit behind, as I also need to play the latest version of Z0k and Fonze's WormHell. Sigh, real life with babies and education and shit! :D Btw. the midi: Who's Paul D? Do you mean Paul C(orfiatis)?

No problem, you don't have to get around to it any time soon—playtesting it during the beta-testing phase is all it really needs (IMO). And this is Paul D.

Chris Hansen said:

I agree. Your map looks better with the TNT skies. And if it wasn't for Mech's post (see below), I'd have let you use them instantly. But let's see what he comes up with first.

Agreed.

To Mech:
I'd love to see what you can come up with; I think custom skies for this entire project would be awesome! Looking forward to your map as well.

Thanks for clearing that out for me, dobu. You'd think, that after having been part of this community for as long as I have, I should know who most persons are :P Maybe it's an age thing ;)

Here are the fruits of my late-night labors. 3 sky sets with a few different colors to pick from.

This is meant to be a replacement for the grey, hazy sky. These are always hard for me to do because I generally want to avoid large, blotchy colors, and hazy skies are low-contrast. It seems to have come out ok from my quick test, and they will wrap vertically as well as horizontally (in case that is important). One clean variant and one slightly dirty variant because why not.



This one is sort of a dusk, sunset sky. I originally made it with that orange/grey palette in mind, but the pink and red/yellow variants looked pretty cool too. I suppose this was meant to be a replacement for the orange sky, though they aren't quite the same as the one it was meant to be modeled after (not as much orange or E4-ish vibes). By the way, I forgot to include the pink variant in the test wad.




And this generic cloudy sky is meant to be a replacement for the hellish cloudy sky. The red variant is pretty straightforward, although I think I'll redo it to remove the black bits in the dark areas since they stick out too much. I made the weird yellow/orange/grey variant while playing around with some color swatches :P. Note that I have another base sky that I might use for the red sky in place of this one since it might look more interesting than the generic ole 'cloudy sky'.



It is really hard to tell how new sky textures will look in-game without actually testing them out in-game :P. I just finished these up so I'm not entirely sure if I'm happy with them yet or not. Please let me know what you think and I'll keep working; the TNT space sky and mountain skies will come next barring me redoing these entirely (generally making sky textures can be an exercise in frustration...so its certain I'll be tweaking or maybe redoing these). You can run around in the vanilla maps and use the 'changesky' command in ZDoom to get a better idea of what they might look like in a normal setting. Also note I can do other colors pretty easily, so let me know if there's something you guys want!

Chris Hansen said:

Awesome! That would be really nice, if you could work some magic. Also, on a somewhat related note; could you perhaps work some magic on the 3rd picture in this post? I'd like to use it as title screen. I know we're not set on a title yet, but I would love it if someone could at least do some wizardry and remove the text from the the image for a start.

Yea I can give that a stab for you!

Here's a resized, cleaned up version that full-color. Resizing it to 320x200 makes a much easier to remove the texty bits. I could try to do a full-res version without the text too though.



Also I took a stab at making it palettized as well. This is harder than it looks because there aren't many fade-to-black colors in Doom's palette, and this is a pretty dark image. I tried going for a desaturated green/brown with some positioned dithering. It kind of gives it an old-school vibe. I also did a non-dithered version, which I can upload too, but I thought it didn't look nearly as good.



Aaaand here's a test wad with all of the skies, a test map, and the test titlepic for you guys to look at: http://mekworx.the-powerhouse.net/mekastuff/wads/ty/newskytest1.wad

Thank you so much, Mech! They look fantastic! Especially because they were made on such short notice. I'll test them within a day or two and get back to you with my final verdict :) In the meantime I urge people to test them out in their own levels, if they got more time than me.

And thanks for the titlepic! Very, very nice!

Looking good Mech! I'll definitely give these an in-game look later on and get back with you on my thoughts.

No problem guys, I'm happy to contribute :D. I'll keep working and I may end up making updates to those skies, but please do let me know what you guys think. Remember that I can recolor them pretty easily, so if you want something more akin to the old skies (like pure orange, etc), let me know.

Hey Chris, so I had a drunk idea last night, talked it over with Z0k, and we may put it into the map if we can get it to work properly. Being a drunk idea, it's a bit stupid, but it might just be stupid enough to be good.

The idea is to put a couple worms in the graveyard section of the Hell realm (since it is after all Worm Hell ;p ) and I'm trying to think of ways to implement it. Z0k had a great idea that we might use, but I was talking with a co-worker about it and her idea was to put them on the walls. Thinking about this, I could probably make an animated texture that would look like a wall already used for the area with a worm or two crawling around on it. I think itd add a bit more to the creepy ambience of the area.

Not sure if I want to go the route of the animated texture, but if I do can that be added to the texture pack as well (assuming it doesn't look like crap, in which case I wouldn't post it anyway)?

Our original thought was to have them on the ground, though. Not sure if I can find a way to animate them down there (without being cheesy) but I love tinkering with mechanics so if there's a way I'll miss it-- I mean, find it; whatever, I won't lose any sleep if this idea falls through.

Those skyboxes look great, Mechadon!
(BRB stealing Mek's sky textures to use for my future wads)