[GZDoom] The Lost Temple

Hey,
A french mate called wereabbit is working on a project for GZDoom, and has released his first map for a public betatest.
You can get it here : http://www.megaupload.com/fr/?d=9W9WF0SJ
(well it's megaupload but the file size is only 3.3MB)

For screenshots you can see them in the original thread here : http://lacommunaute.forum2jeux.com/projets-en-cours-f52/gzdoom-le-temple-perdu-first-release-t1201-0.htm (french forum sorry).
The screens on the first post aren't updated so you'll have to look in the others pages to see (few things have been removed, like the 3D model of a monster which was out of place).

K!r4 said:

Hey,
A french mate called wereabbit is working on a project for GZDoom, and has released his first map for a public betatest.
You can get it here : http://www.megaupload.com/fr/?d=9W9WF0SJ
(well it's megaupload but the file size is only 3.3MB)

For screenshots you can see them in the original thread here : http://lacommunaute.forum2jeux.com/projets-en-cours-f52/gzdoom-le-temple-perdu-first-release-t1201-0.htm (french forum sorry).
The screens on the first post aren't updated so you'll have to look in the others pages to see (few things have been removed, like the 3D model of a monster which was out of place).

Downloading...

Nice screens, you see. Look very inmersive ambience. :-)

Although i know nothing about french, i noticed many people at that post was talking about "nice Dynamic Lightning", but, if you (or your friend) like nice lightning effects, why you using GzDoom? For real impressive lightning effects, you can use Vavoom.

Take a look at this:

http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs124&d=08065&f=cdcnew1779.jpg
http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs124&d=08065&f=cdcnew2372.jpg
http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs124&d=08065&f=cdcnew3117.jpg
http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs123&d=08040&f=new01616.jpg
http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs123&d=08040&f=new02655.jpg
http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs223&d=08040&f=new03720.jpg

Those screens were taken from an *stopped* project of mine, that i need to finish.

In fact one or two dudes were whinning about the lazy use of dynamic lighting, but the author has shut them up by his details skills.

GZDoom is the author's choice, and is his favorite sourceport anyway I believe :P

Well, I've got to say, I think that has to be one of the best uses of GZdoom that I have seen. It seamlessly integrates GZdoom features with a very Doom-like feel. There was no (or maybe very little use) of Hi-res textures or hi-color and there were only a handful of (appropriate) models. It feels like Doom+ rather than trying to be a next-generation engine mod or something. To me, that's a very good use of an advanced port of an old game.

The level has loads of lovely little touches, from the choking-looking atmosphere, to the glowing lava caves and little flames everywhere (it actually felt like it should be hot and sulphurous in those areas) to the very well executed ancient areas (complete with creepy ambient sounds). I especially loved the little touches like the crack in the floor allowing you to see through into an underground lava chamber with an impaled guy in it (that didn't affect gameplay at all, but it was a very nice use of 3D floors) and there was very good use of dead-body decorations (an almost forgotten art). Use of height and 3D space generally was excellent. Although it's a very strange place, it felt very real to me and I think the use of space was part of that. Both the base and the ancient tomb areas integrated perfectly with the natural terrain.

Complaints? Of course. ;) I found it quite, perhaps even very, confusing a lot of the time and, although I really liked the slimy brick texturing (I've always liked those textures) and the custom additions to them, the place became very "samey" and a lot of corridors could easily be confused with others. There were also a few switches which, after flicking them, it wasn't immediately apparent what they had done - never a good thing IMO, and another pet hate of mine is doors that require keys not having something to identify them with their key colour. I think only the yellow door was actually marked as such. I also spotted a model pipe that wasn't in the right place because it looked like it should be coming out of a wall and it wasn't. There was a (intentionally) broken 3D bridge that went out across a canyon. It looked good but, on looking at where the bridge would have been going had it not been broken, there was no obvious reason for the inhabitants of this base to have built the bridge in the first place. There was some quite dodgy looking texture alignment by some steps and I didn't like the very heavy use of doortrak on some of the lifts.

Something that would add to this mod (I don't think it was used - but my room wasn't quiet enough to be sure) is (G)Zdoom's handling of custom reverbs. If the caves had been given different sound handling to the open areas, to the bases, to the ancient tombs it would have been even more atmospheric. This is something I've only been aware of recently myself. It's been in Zdoom for ages but needed an EAX soundcard so mine didn't show the effect. However, recent SVN versions of Zdoom and recent official GZdoom versions use different sound code and custom reverbs work with any card.

Oh, and a nice piece of suitable music would have helped too. D_RUNNIN with its crazy scales in the background was certainly detracting from the mood until I turned it down.

Bottom line, IMO it's a great looking map with some very, very nice touches. Difficulty and ammo/health etc were absolutely fine for me - never too easy or hard or too generous or too tight and I really enjoyed playing it.

K!r4 said:

In fact one or two dudes were whinning about the lazy use of dynamic lighting, but the author has shut them up by his details skills.

GZDoom is the author's choice, and is his favorite sourceport anyway I believe :P

Hey, i never told that map was awfull or something.
I even say those screenies were very nice.

Using Vavoom was only an idea. :-)

Thanks for your feedback Enjay, I'll send him your post :)

Edit : no Karni I wasn't meaning this don't worry :P

wereabbit said:

About the sound, i have a problem( and i think that is a bug).
I have a RealtekHD chipset, and sounds don't play well.
An exemple: At the entry of the first temple, there was a little earthquake, the sound seams "choppy".

My wife's computer is a budget Dell machine which also has a RealtekHD chipset. Fortunately, it sounds reasonable most of the time. It sounded OK with your map.

wereabbit said:

For the "reverb", if you can give me more informations that will be heplfull.

The method of setting it up is both simple but potentially complicated at the same time. All you have to do is place a reverb thing in your map and set its arguments to correspond with the reverb setup number that you want in that area of the map. You can also define your own sound environments if you feel the need.

Here's the potentially complicated bit... The effect of the reverb item travels across all 2 sided lines, so a single item could potentially affect an entire map. That probably won't suit most maps so, to stop the sound altering effect travelling to areas that you don't want it to, you use line type 121 (line identify) but instead of giving the line an id like normal, you set argument 2 to "1". That stops the reverb effect going outwith that area. Doing this, you can chop your maps up into little segments. A single reverb item in each segment will affect the entire area but, provided you have enclosed the area properly, the effect will be limited to those areas. And that's where it could get complicated. If you have a map with lots of ways into and out of an area, you'd have to make sure that all those ways are blocked with a suitable line. Watch out for split sectors. If a sector is split and one part of that split sector is in contact with another area of the map, the reverb effect will leak out.

If I am putting the items into a map as I build it, I find it pretty easy to keep track of things. However, I found it a little more complicated if I'm doing it to an existing map because I've usually forgotten how I split sectors and so on. What I do is place a reverb item with a very obvious effect in my map and then go to an area that I know it shouldn't affect. Then I make a noise in that area. If it sounds normal, then I know I have correctly isolated the reverb area. If it doesn't sound normal, then I know that I have a "reverb leak" somewhere and I go back to the map editor and find it. Once I'm happy that I have correctly isolated the area, I change the arguments of the reverb item to the ones I actually want.

I'm probably making it sound more complicated than it is. Most of the time it's just a simple case of placing a thing in your map, setting it's arguments and then making a couple of lines type 121. It usually only takes a minute or two to set up an area.

http://zdoom.org/wiki/REVERBS

wereabbit said:

And, for those how wants, some screens of the other maps:

And cool looking screens they are. :)


[edit] Oh, one thing you might want to consider using to clarify what switches are doing, rather than use camera changes, you could use camera textures. If you've played KDiZD you'll know what I mean: in-game textures that show a view from a camera. It wouldn't make much sense in the ancient areas (where it tended to be less of a problem anyway) but it would be fine in the newer/more "techy" areas.

http://zdoom.org/wiki/SetCameraToTexture

[/edit]

How did they make the 3D Lion in GZdoom, as pictured here?

Yeahs that's interesting.

It might be a sprite or something.

I'm pretty sure it's a model, unless they decided to be completely masochistic with 3D slopes and flat alignments.

Yes, it'll be a model. There are a few similar models used in the map that has already been released.

[edit] In fact, it's already in the pk3 of the released map

esselfortium said:

I'm pretty sure it's a model, unless he decided to be completely masochistic with 3D slopes and flat alignments.

Fixed :P

Looks great,how did he implement Milkshape into Doombuilder or whatever he used?

Haloless0320 said:

Looks great,how did he implement Milkshape into Doombuilder or whatever he used?

For the models, i used Blender and 3dsmax for converting my models in md3 format, then i used the "modeldef" lump (only for gzdoom ).

And now, a little video to show you an update of the map 2, with a new type of gameplay (3d floors and 3d models inside ^^):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUql6OykBU0

Enjoy