FVoxel guy from 20 years ago releases old level

[Phoenix]

A long, long time ago, I was a regular here, during the days of ZDoom 2.0.9x, stacked sectors, teleport-based fake 3d floors before GZDoom existed, etc... This was my first thread, introducing this silly fake-voxel technique, and I guess I would have been 18 at the time.

I swear I remember posting a screenshot of this level I was working on at the time with the caption "Bats in Tubes and an Imp", but I can't find the phrase anywhere. Maybe the thread's gone or maybe I'm just crazy.

Anyway, I had this level "Hexxis" I was working on, and over the years I've sporadically messed with it, and added to it. But honestly I've always been more interested in the (G)ZDoom engine as a technical playground than in its gameplay. My interests skew towards aesthetics, technicals, special effects, and general engine pushing, so I never really added much gameplay to "Hexxis" beyond the very bare-bones. I kinda don't really even like shooter gameplay that much, so I don't enjoy the idea of designing enemy encounters and test playing them ad nauseum. But I did do a lot of what I enjoy in "Hexxis", so there's a bunch of effects and weird things from over the years.

Some effects it contains:

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• Intricate stacked sector/3d floor/glass floor setups
• Waving lava
• Breakable mirrors
• "Modern style" ladders
• Sub-unit-high 3d floors
• FVoxel weapons
• Faked moving spiked wall
• Horizontally moving 3d floors
• Moving glass container on a rail

At this point I've been fiddling with it for ~20 years or whatever, so I figure I should just let whoever might remember it at least see it. I kind of just want to be done with it.

It is completable, in that there's a beginning, a flow of progression of some description, and an exit.

Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3

Download:

Here's the zip file.

It's got "Hexxis" and a couple other bonus things I was also working on over the years. I'll let the chips fall where they may.

[wildweasel]

Nice, welcome back and congrats on the release.

[Macil]

Can't believe I remember that old thread. I was very hyped as a kid in that thread to realize 3d designs were possible in the Doom engine lmao.

I really enjoy the exploration around the unique machine designs with a small bit of combat thrown in.

[Caligari87]

Are there any screenshots or videos of the FVoxels in action? The links in the old thread seem to be dead. Obviously we have much better tech today, but I love hacky old tech and I'm curious to see what it looked like in practice.

[Enjay]

Cool to see an old project revived, especially by the original author.

I broke the gun:

Just getting in the way of the gun seems to make things like this happen (the various bits have separated because some bits stopped moving when I was in the way).

The hexxis map has a lot of really neat, innovative effects.

[Phoenix]

Are there any screenshots or videos of the FVoxels in action? The links in the old thread seem to be dead. Obviously we have much better tech today, but I love hacky old tech and I'm curious to see what it looked like in practice.

I dug around and found the original FVoxel demo wad.

Here's some embarrassing old video I did showing FVoxels in action.

I broke the gun:
Just getting in the way of the gun seems to make things like this happen (the various bits have separated because some bits stopped moving when I was in the way).

Yeah, there's no collision on the gunbot thing. I was specifically testing just the one effect (many actors following one), so I suppose I just never added collision because I figured it would be easy and didn't need testing, or something.