[3DGE] Hypertension: Harmony of Darkness [commercial]

[Coraline]

Yes, physical releases are limited to what the publisher dictates. Cool thing is that they will come from a legit Sega-owned press factory where they made Dreamcast games back in the 2000s.

[Jaxxoon R]

So does this mean the Salad Fingers videos are now cannon to the universe of Hypertension?

[Coraline]

Yep! He was very adamant with voicing the character himself, and as long as we had a good script for him, he would only make minimal changes. So far, he hasn't had to change anything drastically to the point of rewrites. As for the dialogue, he writes all of that anyway, but he didn't want us shoehorning in the character without approving the direction or the script. We also had a discussion about his in-game appearance, which was a point of contention with the team (making him ultra realistic or keeping the style of the cartoon). We decided to keep the cell-shaded look of the cartoon (including his house) to keep inline with the mental disorder the main player has and how it can change her world on a whim.

So, here's some screenshots. The gamecode is running in standard DOOM 2's MAP01 retrofitted with our new dynamic light system (and all sector light set to 0) as the previous Hypertension levels all run like absolute shit now due to the inclusion of model maps (and thus were completely unoptimized for the new lighting system), so we might not even keep those and have to start all over. That's why it's sort of important to get someone now.

Here's Feolina's (main character) axe. Notice how there are multiple textures, and the dynamic lights affect the lighting of the weapon. In the dark, the spec maps with the brightmap layer affect things like the character's nail polish sheen and axe sheen. We could have pumped the resolution up on the weapons, but it's still at heart being developed with the Dreamcast in mind, so we are limiting all textures to about 256x256 (512x512 in some instances) - but since MD5 can have multiple textures now, the overall size of one texture doesn't really matter anymore. Means we can still make some amazing stuff at low resolutions.

This also applies to ANY MD5 (or MD3/MD2, since we also painfully updated that shader) - they can all use normal, spec, or brightmaps - and as many textures as they need.

Walls, floors, and 3D floors will also be able to utilize bump, spec, and brightmaps as well through the new lighting system, but a good deal of stuff internally is being rewritten at a pretty cost.. This will most likely mean 3DGE projects will not be backward compatible AT ALL with old EDGE stuff. It's taking so long because we don't want to break compatibility with DOOM/BOOM/3DGE mods so there's a lot of checks to make.

Axe shot 1

Axe shot 2

Axe shot 3

Axe shot 4

I have some more stuff - I'll be happy to upload if nobody minds me just keeping this thread up to date!

[Coraline]

Okay, here's some more shots. Some of these are a little older, when the game was running on the OpenGL 1.1-fixed light renderer (which is still available), and the too minimalist HUD. You can see what the level design used to be like (loaded with dynamic lights and regular sector lights, MD3's, etc) - but with the new rendering system much more care has to be taken with level design than before. Some shots are running with the new lighting system (the ones with the pretty HUD).

Link to the Imgur album

[SamVision]

Can you post an extended vertical slice gameplay video of the most recent stable build?

[Coraline]

The problem with that is now, we have no levels to post. If I paste the previous levels back into the engine as-is and run it with Hypertension now, the framerate would drop and sputter all over the place since they are unoptimized to be used with the new engine code.

Usually I post gameplay footage stuff, but now that we had to start from scratch, it's important to find a level designer now.

[ibm5155]

so, it's like a lite version of vavoom lighting effect?

[Coraline]

For now, but 3DGE is still more advanced than VaVoom because we can use multiple mesh, multi-skin models with multiple texture passes.

The lighting engine is "lite" for right now, but when we add shadows and other stuff, we are hoping it stands on its own in that regard. Real-time shadows will be another story that should be more advanced than Vavoom.

[ibm5155]

Oh, that's nice, I Always hated vavoom for having such a cool (but limited) dynamic shadows, but, it required a nasa computer to even play vanilla maps :s

[Coraline]

The thing there is that the shadows were unoptimized, and so are the default DOOM maps that you play them with. Really, to use such features correctly require you to very carefully design maps with high-end stuff like that in mind.

However, we are optimizing things to play as fast as possible as smooth as possible. That's why Hypertension isn't an all-out action game.

[SamVision]

So what kind of levels is this game going to have? I assume some Blood inspired settings like graveyards, hospitals, caverns, tombs, temples etc.

[Luigi2600]

You kinda look like main character somewhat same perky cheeks.

[wildweasel]

You kinda look like main character somewhat same perky cheeks.

...Was that worth bumping the thread over, though?

[BFG]

Could you please release the version with all the BLOOD stuff as a fan made wad after you have finished the version with all original content? I think it looks like a decent follow up to BLOOD, only in the Doom engine. would be a shame to nix all of that stuff.

ah this has been bumped..

[Coraline]

I have entertained the idea (people ask me all the time lol), but I still don't think GSP would go for it for obvious legal reasons. It is enough of a risk for them that I think it is better left re-purposed. Most of the levels have already been re-tooled in some form.

Since the publisher got the cease and desist the *second* they announced it as a commercial project, whoever owns the rights probably still is aware of it.

It is complicated..better left in the past. Besides, the stuff we are working on now is a million times cooler and still has some action elements of Blood.