*cough* ZooM *cough*

[Nanami]

Hi... *taps microphone* Is this thing on?

Yeah, well, it's been a while since I've been here. Or Doomworld. Or even in C:/Doom/ZDoom for that matter. I've been busy with other things. After finishing the Monster Resource Wad, while waiting for the new version of ZDoom (that came out didn't it?) and playing Ragnarok Online (oh man, you should hear about my level 81 monk...), the ZooM project came to a halt.

For those of you who don't know (for those who do know, skip this paragraph), ZooM project was something SargeBaldy and I started. It's a ZDoom racing mod. Before you say that's crazy or impossible, I've already done all the scripting, and we've played it, and it's fun. It featured varied-themed racetracks, new weapons, extensive scripting, new powerups, new music, and some other stuff I can't remember at the moment. We got a lot of progress before we took a break that never really ended.

Let me see, last website update was May 25th. Last forum update was August 21st.

Yeah, that hurts.

The thing is, I got to thinking today while looking around my harddrive, and I want to finish ZooM. And the silliest part is, it's so close to being finished. Racing mods for Doom have never been finished because of what? Scripting? That's done. Mostly all we need is levels.

I said before that no matter what, I'd finish ZooM. And I'm going to give it one more shot. And I figured this is the best place to come looking. This place is full of people who are concerned about ZDoom and its editing and modding capabilities.

If ZooM is to ever be finished, I need more help. We had a few people at the start, but a lot have disappeared now. Basically I need to recruit some people who are willing to carry ZooM through to the end.

Most importantly I need map editors. I did a map or two for ZooM, and I don't mind some editing here and there, but I can't make full maps anymore. After I made my last level, Heart, my editing skills died and I somehow knew I couldn't make another map. And so far it's proven true. But enough of that; I do need mappers. ZooM maps can be of ANY style, even with custom scripting, textures, and sprites. The only thing is that it has to loop around and be a racetrack of some kind.

After mappers, I also need artists. Mostly this is for weapon sprites. ZooM has new weapons in it, because we wanted ZooM to have a lot of variety in it. Anyone with any artistic talent would be appreciated. The weapons may be pretty basic and require almost no animation, but if you can do more complex than that, hooray. We have a few weapons to work with already, and even modifications of existing objects (say from Duke Nukem, Rise of the Triad), as long as it's good, would also be acceptable.

I also need some people who can do a few sounds, probably for the new weapons and powerups, and also a musician if possible. The goal is to have 16 maps total (4 circuits with 4 tracks each), and maybe if all goes well, 4 non-race DM-only levels. All the maps will need music. But nothing fancy; I already expect the wad will be big (assuming it's finished, obviously), and we don't want any mp3s. We're sticking to small-in-size midis and oggs (not that I ever approved of ogg quality).

A few other jobs sprinkled here and there are also needed. Say, some people to think up good jokes for each track (current goal is to have at least one joke per track; existing tracks all have a joke already), some people to clean up the wad file periodically and work to reduce size, some people to work documentation and the website, and obviously beta testers.

So that's my proposal. If I can get this going again I want to finish ZooM before I leave the community, so my last project wasn't the Monster Resource Wad. If I can't get enough willing people, I'll donate the resources straight to the community so you can all do as you like with it, and maybe someone will finish it someday.

Let's see what happens, shall we?

Oh, and if anyone is wondering about my other projects, like the RPG wad with the random seasonal weather system, I'll be donating those to the community.

[wildweasel]

I'm still relatively new at mapping, but I might be able to make some kind of map. Maybe on some building roofs - I have some good concepts in a map I have in progress already.

[MartinHowe]

...before I leave the community...

Huh? Namani is leaving? First I've heard of it; Nanami, you're part of the furniture here Why are you leaving?

[Lexus Alyus]

Mmmmm.... Oggs are pritty much like MP3's with better file size and quality at lower bit depths... lemme think... if I make about 5 tracks that are about 1:30 long, at 56kbps they will each be about 500k each... so, that would be about 2.5meg for the music... just so you know... I'm willing to make 5 small tracks to suit Zoom... but, I refuse point blank to make midis... just because I have no restrictions to make oggs and they will sound 1000000 times better . I'm gonna try to get to work... it shoudnt' take too long to create some small dancy type tracks or whatever...

As for levels... Mmmm, I figure that it can't be too hard to make some small/medeum ized looped race track style levels... shove lotsa detail in therea and add an intresting twist to the map (like a trap or a secret or something)... I think i can manage that... shouldn't take too long... could be fun in the process.

Send me the resources and I'll have a crack at it... how many maps would you need?

The reason why I feel I should help out here is

1) The music won't be anything too complex... so it won't take long
2) Same about the maps
3) I havn't touched any maps for a long time... so if I have something small to work on then that could be fun
4) The ponly major project I am working on is R1... the music for that is very complex and i'm finding it hard to come up with inspiration... doing something like this will help me to relax and think of fresh new ideas .
5) Apart from a lot of RL, I have a lot of boring boredom too... so, this will pass the time .
6) I feel sorry for nanami... and I also feel that I can help... so, in my way I'm abliged to do so .

Okay . Send me the resources and i'll get to work on the mapping... right now I'll get to work on the music .

[Nmn]

Lexus- As You're our Bro (i.e. R1 team college ) I need to remind You that RL can get bitchy at times, plus, You will never know how large the project will grow. For instance, ours was little in size during the early development but it grew into a new game really, You don't know how complexed tracks will this team require

Ofcourse it's Yours decision, seeing Your effort I won't kill You or anything just be careful, as I've slipped myself into 2 projects (that's KDIZD and Dittohead's project) while still working on R-1. I know how troublesome this can be

Nanami-great news Zoom lives! I'm looking greatly forward to this innovative and original Doom project. The demo already made itself to my heart and seing effort and talent this can only go further.

Myself cannot help You and Your team on Your project, because I'm already on one that requires more dedication than I could even imagine But I'm eager to see Your results, thus I wish You people good luck.

[Lexus Alyus]

I have 2 of the 5 tracks done... took the space of my last post to this one for both (about 3.10 hours). The seccond one just about reached the limits of my computer and almost overloaded a couple of times!

I will tackle the other 3 tomorrow as these tracks have drained me . Now I need to grab some food and then head off into town.. and then it's boring work...

I'll email the tracks to you... they are slightly bigger than I planned... but i'm sure I can squeeze more compression if they are too big. Hope you got your email on this forum... if not you'll have to PM it to me.

[Cutmanmike]

Ragnarok

Shit

[Nanami]

Mmmmm.... Oggs are pritty much like MP3's with better file size and quality at lower bit depths... lemme think... if I make about 5 tracks that are about 1:30 long, at 56kbps they will each be about 500k each... so, that would be about 2.5meg for the music...

Yeah... that's why I don't like oggs. Unless compressed to a point where it sounds awful, the filesize is too big. The music files we have right now are all less than 35K in size, and some of them are three minutes long.

I don't think the music needs to be anything but midi, because music is just background noise, and the difference between midi and ogg or even midi and mp3 isn't significant enough to warrant tripling the filesize of the wad.

But about your maps, I'd like to see them. It might be easier if you sent them to me through the forums instead of by e-mail considering all the spam I get now.

[Cutmanmike]

ahem, sorry for my rude outburst but this is me when I see that infernal name:



Anyway on topic, Zoom is indeed a jolly good idea. Someone needs to finish it. NOW!!

Prehaps one day ALL of our projects will be finished..... one day...

[Nanami]

ahem, sorry for my rude outburst

[Cutmanmike]

You seriously(tm) need to get out more

How can you play that hellspawn for that long?

[Iron Skull]

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Offtopic:

[

Do you play RO?
What server?
(i use RevolutionRo )

[Nmn]

Quoting images is a sin.

[cyber-menace]

Very much so... it wastes a lot of space and bandwidth... and dial-up users will curse your soul.

[Risen]

Very much so... it wastes a lot of space and bandwidth... and dial-up users will curse your soul.

Space, I agree, but bandwidth? It's the same image and as such only a sucky web browser (read: even more sucky than IE) would request it twice.