[RELEASE] Cold As Hell: Special Edition (final version!)

[Nash]

though you might want to make the chair not rendered from the inside, so it could save up a little bit of performance.

GZDoom doesn't cull backfaces unless the actor has alpha applied so backfaces will always be visible. It's only 132 polygons though - I doubt it's going to cause any noticable performance issues at all.

About the flag... yes, that's my failed attempt at making the animation loop manually. I'll try and tweak it further if Jonny thinks it's too distracting.

[JonayaRiley]

Holy crap that looks nice! Again, thanks for the hard work on this, I'm putting it together and adjusting the spawns in the maps now.

Actually, the animation looks perfect if you cut a few of the end frames off in the DECORATE definition and let the interpolation code take it from there. I think it looks jerky only because it stays in a similar position for longer than the rest of the animation, giving it an odd look. I ended it at frame NULDP and it looks nice and smooth.

Also, good work with the chair texturing. I adapted the texture for the gray metal chair as well, and the shadow baking looks nice.

I think this may be ready for idgames once I get the flags fixed in the levels. Anything else anyone noticed that needs fixing?

I found one major thing in the ending sequence (spoilered if you haven't played the new version of the final level and want it to be a surprise), but so far it looks good:

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I found an elevator in the escape sequence in the final level that was silent and fixed it.

[paradox_tn]

Holy crap that looks nice! Again, thanks for the hard work on this, I'm putting it together and adjusting the spawns in the maps now.

Actually, the animation looks perfect if you cut a few of the end frames off in the DECORATE definition and let the interpolation code take it from there. I think it looks jerky only because it stays in a similar position for longer than the rest of the animation, giving it an odd look. I ended it at frame NULDP and it looks nice and smooth.

Also, good work with the chair texturing. I adapted the texture for the gray metal chair as well, and the shadow baking looks nice.

I think this may be ready for idgames once I get the flags fixed in the levels. Anything else anyone noticed that needs fixing?

I found one major thing in the ending sequence (spoilered if you haven't played the new version of the final level and want it to be a surprise), but so far it looks good:

---

I found an elevator in the escape sequence in the final level that was silent and fixed it.

JonnyFive. I was experiencing something when I was in the housing about finding nine codes, I'm not sure why this happened but when I ran out all ammo and only have a pistol left, I fire two shot and it reloads itself after two shots, I've didn't get a chance to use all the rounds of the clip before reloading it.... It kept doing it and doing it after I have no max clips left. I don't know if this happens to all other levels, but I believe it's a pistol bug again is it?

I've notice on the transit center on the level. The actual switch to go down...well I'm facing the main switch and the switch flips green then red after activating it right. I stare at in front of it. Here the screenshot:

[JonayaRiley]

I have no idea about the pistol bug as I can't reproduce any similar behavior and the DECORATE code shouldn't let that happen... so either I fixed it while fixing something else, or something got bugged while you were playing.

The texture thing is fixed. It was using the wrong switch texture on the second half of the invisible teleporter trick.

[paradox_tn]

I have no idea about the pistol bug as I can't reproduce any similar behavior and the DECORATE code shouldn't let that happen... so either I fixed it while fixing something else, or something got bugged while you were playing.

The texture thing is fixed. It was using the wrong switch texture on the second half of the invisible teleporter trick.

Ok. Thanks JonnyFive. I can't wait to seeing on the next update soon.

[Enjay]

On the flag model, the new one looks great - far more natural than the previous one or my own abortive attempt, that is until it loops. Sometimes it can look quite awkward and unnatural when it does.

[JonayaRiley]

On the flag model, the new one looks great - far more natural than the previous one or my own abortive attempt, that is until it loops. Sometimes it can look quite awkward and unnatural when it does.

Like I said, I think I was able to get it to look better when looping in-game. Good enough to not look out of place when you're playing anyway.

[Enjay]

Sorry, I missed that post. Obviously I haven't seen your tweak of it yet. However, I have to say that something cool like a fluttering flag is something that I would stop, look at and study, at leat the first time I saw it, so if other people are like me, it will get scrutinised.

Of course, if you take my half remembered John Carmack quote to heart, it's less important. I'm sure it was Carmack in an interview "back in the day" he was asked about cool features such as the bullet holes in walls that could be seen in games such as RotT and whether such features would appear in any id games. His response was something like "if people have time to stop and admire things like bullet holes in a wall, we are doing something wrong".

[Nash]

Glad I could help J5. :) I just noticed that the orientation of the flag is wrong but by the looks of it, you seem to have gotten everything sorted out.

Regarding the baked models... I take it you don't want me to do a proper baking pass? As I said, the one I uploaded was a quick and dirty job... but hey - if you're fine with it, no point in doing it again. :D If you want me to rebake with a higher resolution (and also if you want me to bake the other models as well) let me know.

[JonayaRiley]

No, the baking pass is fine as-is, and I did a quick remap of the table model to use some of the chair's texture properly (EDIT: which was a really bad idea). I'll leave the ladder alone because there are literally 2 of them in the whole mod.

EDIT: Actually, the table looks like shit in game the way I slapped it together. Nash, if it's not too much trouble could you do a quick bake pass on the table and ladder models this weekend? It used the same base texture as the wooden chair originally (well, the ladder still is, but that's beside the point).

Anyway, the new version is up in the first post. If you were playing the 12/2 version and aren't interested in bugfixing for me, you can probably skip it since most of the changes have been cosmetic or very minor. I need to update the manual (the source document is on my computer at home) to credit Nash for his model work, and if nothing else funky is discovered then it'll be time to update idgames with the final archive copy either this weekend or on Monday morning.

[Nash]

Yeah, re-using the same texture won't work because they have completely different UV maps... and to make things worse, the UV map I used in the test chair was unwrapped automatically using flatten mapping.

I'll manually unwrap all of your models so that the shadow baking will look crisper (and the texture will actually be seamless). I'll get it done in time for your idgames release.

[JonayaRiley]

Thanks, that would be a huge help.

[paradox_tn]

Ohh yeah! This is what I'm been waiting for...I give thanks to you again JonnyFive, you earned it!

Also Nash, really nice work on the chair and flag.

Now I drank to ya!

[Enjay]

OK, I couldn't hold off any longer. I had to DL it. Had a quick play through and it is certainly getting better and better. I hope to be able to have a proper play through again tomorrow.

Oh, and the flag animation looks good. You do know, do you, that there is no need to include all those nul sprites for the flag? You could just use existing sprite names (like poss or whatever) because the sprites will never be seen anyway.

[Arch-Valentine]

So is this wad designed to be played in continuation, or can you just do pistol starts for added difficulty? I ask this, because of the whole notes thing. Plus having tons of notes from previous levels is kinda annoying.