Watch out for dopes ("work" in "progress")

[bimshwel]

less than up to date example

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screenshoots, incidental and less than ideal, but if there is a point to get across they should probably suffice.

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dopes

cube level, meant for testing 3d sectors. the test succeeded but it turned out to be better for showing rogue sprites.

color cycling rainbow sky that is actually broken and I mean to get around to checking if it is a bug and that I should report or isn't. also featuring several SHAWN-series textures that will not be there if you see this level again.

static but still frightfully colored sky, plus the pixelated 5 angle of a creature that has already been redrawn larger and arguably better

click below to see a door escaping

2006 view of, I believe, the last time I ran DCK before putting my faith in ZETH and Doombuilder, both of which are also by now long past obsolete, and zeth not working at all much like dck on subsequent computers I have had, in the event you do not already have a sense of what a quackmire this has been.

and that level is still unfinished! However it is more coherent than it was in 2006. The pixely fiend on the right is being redrawn at present.

test level that isn't designed to be presentable but nonetheless has produced some of the more remotely usable screenshots I have right this moment.

same place

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videos: I don't have the best habits for capturing or editing video, and the sights are very rarely of finalized material so it doesn't often strike me as a good use of time. consequently there is not much to look at here

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unfinished "cartoon" of me trying to convey the introductory level in another form


bowling ball imp


pink forest beast that isn't actually meant to be in this level


a minute with dopes


terrible dope video. there is a reason this is "unlisted!"


green goop demonstration


slappable WAH imp


pog demonstration (yes I KNOW the flatsprites have to go, and I expect that they shall)


most recent: every graphic i made for this last year, more or less
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmFKXIRFV2Y&t=80s
it doesn't work with the youtube tag (that I can tell) because you need to jump to 80 seconds in for that part

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features?

- there will be at least ten levels, all original, even if they are crammed with ideas stolen from other ones.

- numerous new monsters, with generally more than one way of attacking, being attacked and flopping over. Some may wear different types of hats as situations require it.

- all graphics will be high resolution, and none will be derived from other people's artwork. ones that still are won't be later!

- more will be drawn from 5. 8, or 16 angles than may seem advisable, including some "death" sequences.

- It may be more like an eccentric, debatably tolerable art exhibit than a proper game; I am not good at first-person shooting games that came out after Hexen, so I doubt in the end the difficulty will be very great.

- I put "death" in quotation marks as there shall be no blood shed by in-game characters, or not much, though other stuff may come out of them. I am not personally averse to blood, but I don't think "serious" doom people will like this anyway and I can reach more people outside that group if I avoid attempting to depict conventionally violent injuries.

-numerous unusual sound and voice effects that I will attempt to keep from being an annoying nuisance
(my microphone stopped working back in october, and I ordered a replacement, and have yet to remove it from its box. Which is a bit frustrating since I could have gotten a better deal had I waited for "black friday" or whatever it is. But I intend to create yet more sound effects.)

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longwinded project backstory
it is a very old concoction, because my goals kept changing and the zdoom restrictions kept changing in my early period working on it, while new options have continued coming. At least now i feel like I have the power to finish, if not necessarily the time. and in any event I suspect I have irritated some people who monitor the sprite carnival topic through my evidently unconventional approach! I presume it is permissible to unload those here in the future.

my goal is little more than to tell a silly story about colorful imps in a hopefully better than marginally interactive way. I may not have chosen the best way to do that, but as indicated my goals have transformed substantially since the beginning. The only thing that doesn't change is my desire to do it. I know that much, after dumping it as a dead project between 2007, when the latest zdoom seemed to be wholly incompatible with what I had made, and 2015 when I decided to check on it again and was able to overcome, in a way that I no longer remember, the barrier which I had struck .

At present nothing is playable because I think out of order and solve problems even further out of order. I can however supply the input wads, pk3s and launching .bat files to anyone who wants to be very confused.

I have spent an irresponsible amount of the past year creating redesigned, higher resolution sprites for monsters that I originally drew in 2003 and 2004. That has revealed itself to be a substantial task and with it done (it isn't) other tasks should proceed more smoothly.

Indeed I don't know WHO a potential "audience" for this would be. My 7-year old niece likes it. She also likes hideous cartoons like peppa pig and plenty of outwardly moronic ones I need not name. I don't compare myself to them but the point is I don't know what to compare this against or who to expect to enjoy this. But a few people besides me do. Or think they do.

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areas of particular vexation:

1 I can't really "finish" any levels because so many things that I want to put in them are not ready.

2 I am terrible at writing code for level events and "cut scenes" but I can adapt existing code, provided I can attain a rudimentary understanding of it.

3 i imagine that i would like to add a few 3d models for some more complex decorations, but yet lack any expectation of learning to create them, but that is not a priority!

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please let me know if you would like to help with something, but I think I can handle it. eventually!


there probably won't be a playable release any time soon. but very occasionally somebody of internet who knows this THING exists asks me what is going on with it, so I ought to make a static web page for it somewhere, and for the time being the [g]zdoom forum system seems like a logical location. I expect some entity will let me know if it believes that not to be the case.

howdy.

[KynikossDragonn]

Oh, I'm so delighted to see you create a thread about this! I've absolutely enjoyed seeing all the previews and art for this thing when I started looking through all your old website posts and YouTube video.

I have numerous things to directly respond to in this:

- It may be more like an eccentric, debatably tolerable art exhibit than a proper game; I am not good at first-person shooting games that came out after Hexen, so I doubt in the end the difficulty will be very great.

This is honestly how I've immediately viewed this thing as, a interactive art-piece, more story than constantly SR50'ing everywhere and circle strafing things to oblivion. I don't expect this to be fast-paced or even remotely like Doom, and that's not a bad thing in my book!

-numerous unusual sound and voice effects that I will attempt to keep from being an annoying nuisance

The voices are my favourite!

Indeed I don't know WHO a potential "audience" for this would be. My 7-year old niece likes it. She also likes hideous cartoons like peppa pig and plenty of outwardly moronic ones I need not name. I don't compare myself to them but the point is I don't know what to compare this against or who to expect to enjoy this. But a few people besides me do. Or think they do.

I'm really enthralled by the whole thing, the visual art style, the sounds and silly voices. I would hope to think I'm not alone in thinking this is a really wonderful work of art to be experienced first hand.

2 I am terrible at writing code for level events and "cut scenes" but I can adapt existing code, provided I can attain a rudimentary understanding of it.

I come with a lot of experience with scripting mods for Starsiege: Tribes, Tribes 2, and all Unreal Engine 1 games (well, I say that because UE1's UnrealScript is all the same) but I haven't dove into ZScript yet. I've been told, by Marisa, that it's basically "UnrealScript but it doesn't suck". If I grasp a firm understanding of all this I'd gladly help out with scripts whenever I can.

3 i imagine that i would like to add a few 3d models for some more complex decorations, but yet lack any expectation of learning to create them, but that is not a priority!

I know how to use Blender, assuming it doesn't lock up my iGPU or do anything absolutely stupid, I could help with making static meshes since inanimate objects are my specialty, bonus if they aren't animated because I can't figure out the animation thing in Blender.

please let me know if you would like to help with something, but I think I can handle it. eventually!

I can always help out with testing anything, sound editing, making Blender do something useful for you, and when I can actually click with ZScript, help with whatever confusing functionality you require.

there probably won't be a playable release any time soon. but very occasionally somebody of internet who knows this THING exists asks me what is going on with it, so I ought to make a static web page for it somewhere, and for the time being the [g]zdoom forum system seems like a logical location.

I'm extremely patient, "Rome wasn't built in a day"!

It'd be interesting to have a webpage for this on your site as well, but I'm not entirely certain of your webhost's provisions. I think having a forum thread here on the ZDoom Forums is a great idea, at the very least!

[chronoteeth]

its so presh <3

[Captain J]

Bookmarked, Bookmarked and triple Bookmarked. Your animation skill is super amazing and gonna be pleasant to see them in doom mod so yeah!! I hardly can wait for the release

[bimshwel]

Oh, I'm so delighted to see you create a thread about this! I've absolutely enjoyed seeing all the previews and art for this thing when I started looking through all your old website posts and YouTube video.

I have numerous things to directly respond to in this:

ah thank you! you did mention a few before, but it is easier to get these issues all in one place.

It'd be interesting to have a webpage for this on your site as well

Maybe if the project ever feels more solid a that would seem justifiable to me. the front page is already an odd mix of content, so I do not see an issue with simply posting graphics i made and using that as an excuse to not write a proper new entry that week. Anyone using this forum however it is safe to assume knows what gzdoom is, and I can probably get more useful feed-back here than elsewhere, such as people trying to tell me that I made the sprites too big for doom or asking if it is "vanilla" compatible. And if anything goes wrong with the formatting, it will be someone else's fault!
with regard to 3d models, I suppose if you are able to make anything eccentric-looking that would be most beneficial. I don't know factually where I would put one or what purpose it would serve other than to reduce the "ah ha this is a doom mod" factor somewhat.

its so presh <3

I hope presh is a good thing!

Bookmarked, Bookmarked and triple Bookmarked. Your animation skill is super amazing and gonna be pleasant to see them in doom mod so yeah!! I hardly can wait for the release

if it ever is released I will certainly mention it other places than this and so checking here ought not to be necessary, but thank you for the enthusiasm whatever the case! I didn't realize even double bookmarking was possible.

[KynikossDragonn]

with regard to 3d models, I suppose if you are able to make anything eccentric-looking that would be most beneficial. I don't know factually where I would put one or what purpose it would serve other than to reduce the "ah ha this is a doom mod" factor somewhat.

I can generally follow sketches, for example; when I started working on my own project to put Gunmetal into Unreal 1, I looked up the concept art to Gunmetal and started producing models based on the original concept art sketches.

I might have to help you get acquainted with Blender and the "texture paint" tool so you can actually produce the "skin" for the model, as I'm not a artist!

My ability to make skins on my own is hilariously stupid: (only posting this just to PROVE I can technically do these things)


So, I can generally make you any geometry you need, but you'd probably have to "paint" it when I finish making the model!

[bimshwel]

I could probably figure out blender in the right mindset, It might be the sort of thing where I need to fiddle with someone else's model to figure out how it works, or doesn't work. But if I never get to it certainly even a few weird shape things like those could fit in if colored garishly enough.


meatwhile here is another bit that I probably won't get to soon but that i had the inclination to make a diagram of so i do not forget.
pez put some interesting puzzles into "archie." i think after the point where they become annoying they should be optional, and it may not be feasible to make very complicated ones anyway, at least for me, and undoubtedly these have appeared in other zdoom things by people with better script skills.

also "sditzo" means spindizzy worlds, for whatever reason when i downloaded spc music from it ages ago I put them into a folder labeled that. i wrote it like that here knowing i would be showing the diagram and having to explain what it means so i really ought to have simply written its name. I did not get enough sleep!

[KynikossDragonn]

I could probably figure out blender in the right mindset, It might be the sort of thing where I need to fiddle with someone else's model to figure out how it works, or doesn't work. But if I never get to it certainly even a few weird shape things like those could fit in if colored garishly enough.

The way I work in Blender probably isn't the intended method, but the program *CAN* be rather irritating to figure out, especially since every major release of it jumbles up the UI even further. There's a lot to it that I can't grasp a single comprehension of in it, despite any "tutorials" floating around, to make things even more irritating, most of the tutorials only apply to various old major releases of Blender.

I'm actually more used to working with UnrealEd 1.0's "2D Shape Editor" which is kinda sort of like making a sector in a Doom map editor, but you're turning it into a extruded 3D model based on the shape you drew with the various lines.

[bimshwel]

I don't know that I have ever learned to do something from an internet "tutorial." If I am bad enough at something that I need the instructions I probably won't be able to follow them. I probably couldn't follow a tutorial about something I know how to do, either! The ones for making digital artwork, even non-animated, are full of steps and rules that I wouldn't bother with.

ah ha I have not posted sprites in a while.

this gif no longer matches the ones I am using since I had to split up the angles, and then adjusted them further. I had TRIED inserting all the angles together and cropping them as "textures," which ended up being rather less convenient than I had hoped, and also made the game run substantially more slowly, at least when it first starts up, and of course with testing I spend more time starting up than playing the thing. the texture definition will still be good for customizing the hats and body types once I finish a set of those. or so I think.


and here, the first non-box sky in a while, now that I can simply x-flip the graphic in the texture definition, because I am pedantic about nonsense like that. Creating more skies should not have been a priority but this test map slot for whatever reason going back some years has had a mushroom sky graphic stolen (and modified) from cosmo's cosmic adventure which I today imagined I could replace without much trouble and ought to before showing any screenshots that it might appear in. It needs more work and may yet be boxed -- the down scaling in low-resolution video modes may benefit it better in a box-- but it fits for now. However I insist that actual level design will resume at some point! Now that I have put all those videos in one place I can see that it gives an impression more like disorganized chaos than a lot of work that is going somewhere. In reality it is both but I prefer to emphasize the latter.

[Gez]

This is delightfully quirky! Also I couldn't help but laugh at the PRINGLES logo on Doom marble. It's just so incongruous.

[Amuscaria]

Loving the painted graphics style you've got going here.

[bimshwel]

This is delightfully quirky! Also I couldn't help but laugh at the PRINGLES logo on Doom marble. It's just so incongruous.

thank you! I remember deliberately including that wall in one of the videos, knowing that anything based on the original game's graphics was being phased out, since some of the old and/or derivative stuff still amuses me.

Loving the painted graphics style you've got going here.

and thank you! It took me a while to fall into a specific sort of aesthetic and much of what transpired before I did has ended up being replaced, for the better, I think, despite the time loss. I am useless with straight lines and trying to appear like I am not.

[Agentbromsnor]

I'm reminded of the game Exploding Lips when I watched the trailer.

[bimshwel]

I will certainly aspire to do better than that going forward! A lot of the old sound effects need to be removed or toned down.

flopal61.gif

flopal62.gif

this took longer than was justifiable, and i will definitely avoid spinny motions for anything I want to give extra angles to in the future, or draw over this one, ideally. Or so I reckon right this moment.
The hat and the green thing will be launched as separate objects on the second or third frame and for now I imagine i can get away with not full-rotating them, but the green thing may be too tall like that.
oh fleeps angle 8 still has many problems. I shall see it dealt with.
as usual the gif thing on this site is weird but only on the last frame so I can handle that.

[bimshwel]

a different flop, that I probably should not have made, for an alternate version of the same monster that took as much or more effort to create with interchangeable pieces as just making a separate monster would have been.
I think while falling I will have it bleed pieces of candy or just round colored circles like in the first duke nukem game since that amuses me.




the first three frames can also be played repeatedly to make the creature appear confused or amidst a very stupid dance. some other monsters can already be knocked over temporarily if hit a certain way, maybe this can be an equivalent situation. Or just a stupid dance.