[WIP] Talons of Darkness Quadrilogy (ZDooM)

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Wargasm92
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[WIP] Talons of Darkness Quadrilogy (ZDooM)

Post by Wargasm92 »

Rock and roll.
As you may have guessed, this is the thread for my new WAD for Doom (using a source port, as there is both custom decorate, sndinfo etc and ACS scripting.
Seeing as Eriance (god bless his soul) has decided that the weapons he's been designing for Demon Eclipse are both free to use (as long as they are credited; this has been done in my credits file, which you must read or I will hurt you) and even packaged them in a ready to use .WAD file, Eriance's classic-doom inspired weapons are included with this WAD. However, you can opt not to use them (thought why you wouldn't, I don't know)

So, here goes.

Unnamed is a level replacement and game enhancement modification for Doom 2 and requires a source port such as ZDoom or Skulltag to run. It comprises two files so far, Aftermath.wad and EP1RES.wad, both of which are entirely and unavoidably neccesary to play these maps. Screenshots are included, near the bottom of this post.

Unnamed (which, as the title implies, still lacks an over-arching name) will be made up of four (4) episodes, each with six (6) different maps contained within. All these maps will be configured mainly for the Hurt Me Plenty difficulty and will be completely playable from a pistol start. Episode 2: "Redemption" will be coming out soon, in perhaps three to six weeks, or thereabouts. Currently finished is Episode 1: "Aftermath" and it is this episode that is currently hosted and available for download.

Unnamed - Episode 1: Aftermath is now in it's final stage, that being the release of the full version. It includes Maps 1-6 (each episode having six levels--as stated before--and on occasion, a secret seventh level) and is completely playable, having been thoroughly ( :wink: ) bug-searched and extensively playtested. The maps are enjoyable, provide five-ten minutes of solid gameplay each and hold true to the classic Doom tradition of using as little scripting as possibly, which actually improves the gameplay IMO. (this is true of all but the sixth map. My promise of very little scripting kinda went to hell there)

Unnamed - Episode 1: Aftermath
Maps: MAP01 - MAP06 + MAP96 (ending screen)
New Weapons: Technically, yes, at least if you use the Eriguns.wad file while playing.
New Textures: Yes.
New Monsters: One (the boss of MAP06).
New Sounds: Yes.

And here is what you've been waiting for and thinking fond thoughts about...DOWNLOAD LINK!
http://www.mediafire.com/?1uus8fnhc3zdpms
NOW PLAY IT, MORTAL! AND ENJOY IT! YOU KNOW YOU WILL!

On a later note, here are the promised screenies. Everyone likes screenies.
Spoiler:
So, download it now, and enjoy it. Now.
Seriously. :twisted:

*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

EPISODE 2!
<> DEMONSTORM <>

Episode 2 playable beta is out now. While not currently compatible with Episode 1 (I've tried running the two together. Things f*** up) it is still nevertheless completely playable and awesome. It just means that if you want to play Episode 1 and then Episode 2, you have to reconfigure which wads you're using.

This time around, I've been much more thorough categorizing my resources. The Resource wad actually HAS the resources in it this time! Oh, joy!

The playable beta contains several things:
+ Custom Monsters (including a boss)
+ Custom Weapons (all but plasma rifle have an alternate demonic weapon keyed to the slot as well - cooler than it sounds, I promise you)
+ All-New Maps! Bam!
- Unfortunately, only contains MAP07, MAP08 and MAP09 (which is a tiny map responsible only for holding the boss... :oops: ) as they're the only maps I've
finished
+ The usual amount of badass and awesome!
+ More secrets than before! (kind of...:oops: )
= Will include many more maps than Episode 1 did. Oh yes, you get to visit ALL the regions of hell, this time...hehehe :twisted:
+ HAS (my version of) THE UNMAKER IN IT! KICKS ASS! (not obtainable without IDK/FA, as with the rest of the demon weapons save for the Blood Orb)
- Sorry, Demon Eclipse. Everything I've done so far, I promise that I thought of it myself, with the exception of the Spikewyrm (most of the code by me, but
taken the actual attack function from the powered-up Demon Skull in DE. Sorry, just too good to not use!)
- Also, yeah, sorry for nabbing some of your sprites, Demon Eclipse. Again, I'm not making a copy here, but something original. It's just that there aren't
enough demonic flamethrowers out there! ;)

So, enjoy blasting your way through a fresh set of levels!
Download links and screenshots below.
Spoiler:
DOWNLOAD LINK! YAY!
http://www.mediafire.com/?xtn87e94exhzemx
And this time, you can actually just drag-and-drop the .zip file into the source port of your choice. Works properly this time ;)
Last edited by Wargasm92 on Tue Jul 26, 2011 6:59 am, edited 10 times in total.
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TorrentialFire
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by TorrentialFire »

It's obvious that you've read the forum rules, and you have something to show. So don't worry, you're thread is fine. The only issue is the the screenshots are broken for me. I took a leap of faith and downloaded your Beta release anyway. 8-)

I must say, I haven't been able to bring myself to release anything I've worked on before. It's due to a little performance anxiety and perfectionism. I applaud you releasing something that people can play, and I'll be happy to give you some feedback.

It is pretty much a mapping standard in Doom that the DOORTRAK texture, when applied to the linedefs on the side of a door sector needs the 'lower unpegged' flag on it. That prevents the doortrak texture from moving upwards when the door is opened. It appears that nearly every door in your WAD suffers from this error. I though I'd mention it before you get flamed.

Otherwise, pretty interesting things going on with your architecture, I found some things pleasing in each level, but a few complaints:

The sky textures in the third level are too close to the walls and it appears that the doors are moving up into nothingness. Despite having a ceiling in between the door and sky texture, there is not enough of a height difference, and while it is subjective I think most would agree it looks bad.

The progression of the levels is a little weird, I felt like going to Hell in the third level was a bit early for a 4 episode WAD, as you have described it.

The transitions in the fifth level are odd, moving from tecbase/metal to brick in one doorway. I felt it was a bit premature and not well thought out.

Aside from those few issues, the gameplay was nice (although very linear), and most of the puzzles were difficult without being impossible. Keep up the good work! :D
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by marble »

TorrentialFire wrote:It is pretty much a mapping standard in Doom that the DOORTRAK texture, when applied to the linedefs on the side of a door sector needs the 'lower unpegged' flag on it. That prevents the doortrak texture from moving upwards when the door is opened. It appears that nearly every door in your WAD suffers from this error. I though I'd mention it before you get flamed.
Well, i have to disagree on this, the author might have done it on purpose, i wouldn't call it an "error".
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by TorrentialFire »

:wink: Alright. Whatever you think is right. As far as I knew, it looks dumb to most people. I don't understand why so many mapping tutorials all over the internet point out the unpegging feature. Just an odd coincidence, likely... :roll:

By the way, error was italicized because it's not really an error, just a preference.
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by XutaWoo »

It's an error because that's how the texture works. Appearantly. You can please everyone by just replacing the texture with a piston/chain one, so it actually makes sense for that part to go up and down. :P
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by Xaser »

A bit of an OT nitpick, but italics are generally used for showing emphasis. You're looking for quotation marks -- "error" is what you seek.

Contrast the following:

That's wrong.

That's "wrong."
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by TorrentialFire »

You're right Xaser. And it's not so off topic because I may have caused a lapse in communication with my improper usage.
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by Wargasm92 »

Holy crap. I posted this yesterday, I didn't think it'd get replies so fast. Well, yeah. Here goes. Thanks for the helpful constructive criticism; for some reason none of my playtesters stuck around long enough to give any. (damnit, my spacebar key is sticky for some reason. there might be a few grammatical errors in this next part)

1. DOORTRAK Lower Unpegged - I never actually knew that! Thanks, I'll edit that bit for the next release. Hmm...so that is what the Lower and Upper Unpegged flags do. Thanks again.

2. Third Level Skies - Ah. Yeah, I noticed that myself. I didn't really know how to make it look better, and I thought that, you know, you're in hell, things don't have to make as much sense as a structured, well-ordered UAC base. I'll have another go at it.

3. Level Progression - Ah, yeah, here goes. Basically, each episode will have about 6, maybe 7 levels in it, maybe a secret level as well. In the first episode, your monorail crashes (that's those wierd constructions at the beginning of Running Start) and you progress into the base. After that, you take an elevator down, and it turns out that this place is one of the experimental portal testing bases (need to abbreviate that to something...:| ) anyway, you figure that this portal might be what is causing the strange fact that everyone is dead or zombified, and there are demons running about.

Now, at this point, playing through the whole five maps I posted here (yesterday. woah) you might realise that MAP03 - Before the Storm is the only hell level in Episode 1 (with the rest being UAC) until MAP06 - Penultimate, which isn't actually in hell, but will have "bits" of hell "bleeding through" into the real world, and then you go through one of those rifts to get to Episode 2. Then, when I finish MAP06 (about, maybe 1/8 or 1/4 done at the moment, gonna be working on it all through the rest of today, pretty much), Episode 2 - Redemption, will be set entirely in hell. Episode 3 will be set entirely in the UAC, and Episode 4 will be set *almost* entirely in hell, with one UAC level (the end map, where the main boss has taken up residence, corrupting the base and drawing power from...something. Dunno yet). See the pattern? Cool, then. :)

4. MAP05 Transition - Ah. MAP05 was meant to originally be more of a maze-like map, however whenever I've tried to make confusing and *ANNOYING!!!* Doom 1 & 2 style mazes, I've failed almost utterly. To that end, I redesigned the level to be a giant slugfest, with the way to win being either holing up and blasting away or grabbing the invulnerability sphere and being badass. (i only actually tested the way where you pick up the invulnerability sphere--I never tried holing up. mental note: try it) However, the original set of textures I picked for Floor, wall and ceilings were actually shockingly terrible, and in the interest of trying to get the rest of the map done so the whole thing wouldn't just die, I swapped to my well-working "Hell Set". So yeah, it probably does look pretty terrible. I'll go back and address that.

5. Screenies are broken? Crap. I linked them to the imageshack page with the image on it...wait, no. I think i may have linked actually TO the Imageshack page, instead of the screenshot directly. I'll have another go, so watch out for an edit.

All in all, thank you so very much. I was honestly not expecting such a quick or positive result. Just one final question: what difficulty did you play at/enjoy the most? Thanks anyway. Watch out, I'll make a re-release very soon with maybe half or a little bit more of MAP06 as well as those edits I promised. Thanks!

P.S. Woah. Flame war in the makings. I've been on Realm667 before, and when I posted some resources I had made, the same thing happened, to do with--you guessed it--grammatical errors. Not trying to sound arrogant or anything like that (really, plz believe me) but if this is called the ZDoom Forums, shouldn't it be for ZDoom?

P.P.S. They should totally make a "Flame Wars to Do with Grammatical Errors" board. >:)
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by InsanityBringer »

XutaWoo wrote:It's an error because that's how the texture works. Appearantly. You can please everyone by just replacing the texture with a piston/chain one, so it actually makes sense for that part to go up and down. :P
I could understand it with pistons (though I still feel it would look weird), but it makes no sense with chains as it implies that the chain would be pushing the door, something a chain is not very good at. A chain should move opposite of the door.
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by TorrentialFire »

I don't think there was a disagreement about my style (seeing as quoting and italicizing in this context is for communicating a desired tone, not necessarily usage and mechanics), I agree with Xaser that it was off. But I certainly disagree with marble on the 'lower unpegged' flag usage.

For further clarification, the lower unpegged flag tells the engine how to render the texture in the lower slot of the linedef. If a sector on either side of the lower texture moves, without the lower unpegged flag, the lower texture will move with the sector. I think of it as literally 'un'-pegging the texture from either parent sector and fixing it in a spatial position. The result of this makes the texture remain stationary as the door raises. If the texture remains 'pegged' to the parent sectors, it will remain fixed to them and will therefore move when either parent sector moves.

The middle slot is always fixed when rendered unless a scroll special is added.

The upper unpegged flag tells the engine how to render the texture in the upper slot of the linedef. As you know, the upper and lower slots of the linedef only come into play when there is a height difference between two sectors. Inversely, the middle texture is generally (proper use of the italicization) used only on single sided linedefs (such as the outside walls of a room).
InsanityBringer wrote:
XutaWoo wrote:It's an error because that's how the texture works. Appearantly. You can please everyone by just replacing the texture with a piston/chain one, so it actually makes sense for that part to go up and down. :P
I could understand it with pistons (though I still feel it would look weird), but it makes no sense with chains as it implies that the chain would be pushing the door, something a chain is not very good at. A chain should move opposite of the door.
I think that chain should be reserved to pull a polyobject door open by swinging it outwards. However, that doesn't sound very doom-ish. :D
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by Wargasm92 »

Yeah. With this, before I got seriously into Doom Mapping, I'd been a ZHexen mapper, so I'd been using chain wall thingies on my doors anyway. Now I'm back to Doom (much more enjoyable, I have to say. There's a community, for one :] ) and I had a look at the doors (which, by the way, all have the lower unpegged flag set, now--re-release in a little while--:] ) I have to say, it looks a lot better with that flag set. While chains and other crap may be approriate for Hexen, it doesn't usually work in Doom--Hell is one example where it works better--and so I have to agree with TorrentialFire on this.
Also, thanks for the heads up on Unpegged flags.

Any suggestions on how I could improve the MAP03 Skies thing? I haven't had a go at it just yet, but then I'm still working on texture transition on MAP05. Besides, I never really thought of anything to do with how to do it in the first place, so it was/will be more difficult than some issues.

Thanks again. :|
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by TorrentialFire »

You've been to Realm667, but if you haven't already, look at some of Tormentor667's tutorials on borders and whatnot, a lot of my ideas on how to handle space inconsistencies came from there. The main idea, however, is to increase the height of the sector that has the Sky texture as it's ceiling.
Spoiler:
This isn't the ideal screen for showing this, but notice the brown texture that forms a border around that cutout skylight-ish sector in the back. It looks good and increases the height of the sector substantially. For most purposes, going back and outlining about 8 ~ 16 map pixels inside the sector (thereby forming a new sector) and raising that inner sector's height, then finding an appropriate texture to form the border. Most of the time, good border textures will overlap nicely at simple intervals like 8, 16, 32, 64 and so on, giving the mapper the option of going higher if necessary. Also, don't discount outlining again and changing the border texture if you feel like adding lots of detail.

Here's another example from my own wad:
Spoiler:
Notice there are two borders for that sky texture, a texture from the BROWN family and a plutonia specific texture EGSPTR3 which looks like a well known metal texture that is used in many maps to border things (especially those in the gothic DM style). This keeps the termination of the BRICK7 texture from looking silly.

EDIT: The ceiling underneath each of those borders plays a huge role in the appearance of the border. Matching colors on the ceiling of the sector with a lower ceiling than the border helps to make the border appear more logical. Imagine if those CEIL5_2 ceilings were black, or gray, it would look terrible and not mesh well with the flow of the border/sky transition.
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Re: Baronbeque

Post by Wargasm92 »

Wow. Yeah, I recognise the Realm667 tutorial screenie for borders there, but I'd never thought about it that way for my mod. I'll give it shot later today, and if I finished it, I'll post the upload tomorrow. I can see what you mean, by the way, but what on Earth (or Hell... :] ) is that grey ASHWALL construction?

Anywho, I had another go at the textures on MAP05 - Rolling Road. I removed the 'Hell Set' textures and put back in some different UAC base ones. Tell me what you think at some point, if you feel like it.

I fixed all the DOORTRAK textures (set them to Lower Unpegged--thanks, looks much better now) or at least I hope I got all of them. Other than that, I don't really know.

If you want to, you could extract my .WAD file and have a go at fixing some of the problems yourself, that way I'll have two perspectives to go at this from. But, as I said, only if you want to. No pressure. :]

EDIT: Wow. Just took at look at one of your maps, Baronbeque (the TNT Map02 remake, just for clarification). From the screenies, looks great. I should probably be posting this in that thread, though. Oops. I'll do that.

EDIT: Making progress on MAP06. Definitely about a 1/4 done, now. Also, I will be--at some point in time, anyway--going back over the levels and adding in more aesthetic detail as I feel some of the maps are a little barebones. Nothing like KDiZD, though. Which is probably a good thing... :] Freaking floor structures...
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by TorrentialFire »

Modified Map03

Alrighty. I sat down this morning with my coffee and took a stab at Map03's sky texture issue. After fixing the first room, I noticed that the doors in the north room (with the hell knight and two imps) are tagged 0. Then, I looked around and noticed that EVERY door was tagged 0. You'll find in more advanced mapping functions that using specials with a tag of 0 for the sector to be affected will cause the special to be applied to every sector on the map! This isn't so much of an issue with your map here, but for future reference, tagging each sector that a special should act on will prevent tag '0' related issues. Even doors, although the special obviously defaults a sector with a height of 0 that is it's parent. Tagging every sector that a special is going to apply to and then putting the proper tag in the special will save you a headache. It's simple to keep track of sector tags and when linedefs with specials are tagged to a specific sector, highlighting the linedef will also highlight the sector, portraying their relationship. If you want the doors to be activated separately, make sure they each have different tags. Sorry to create more work for you, but it's rather necessary.

Back to mapping: I changed the marble doors into platforms, so instead of going up into the ceiling, they recess into the floor. I though that looked more appropriate. Also, I tagged each of them, so if you look at the sector properties and the linedefs that activate them, you'll notice the Sector Tag slots now have numbers.

Otherwise, decide whether you liked what I did or not, and then act accordingly. The Arachnotron room on the west side and the yellow skull key room on the east side need a similar treatment as the first room. Hope that helps. :wink:
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Re: [WIP] Unnamed.wad (4-Episode Doom Wad)

Post by Xim »

For some reason the pk3 file isn't working at all what-so-ever. I even tried opening it up with Slade and it said the file was corrupt. I tried re-downloading it twice and still nothing.

Judging from the screenshots this looks like it might be fun. I don't like the Doom 2.5 chaingun though.
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