Hell Renaissance : The Great Mindsucking Machine (WIP v0.2)

[Darkcrafter]

Hell Renaissance : The Great Mindsucking Machine - the level add-on for GZDoom in making since May 8 2018 (v.0.2)

A new UAC experiment on creating a machine to backup human mind into a digital image and transfering it via quantum entanglement to the cloud data center located in a different dimension failed. The machine got it hard and started sucking and subverting minds of everyone it could reach, leaving armies of demonic forces behind.

The mindsucking process failed to do it with your mind perhaps because once hell couldn't handle your presence before.

Lots of new ideas maps and music
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System Requirements:
a) Recommended:
- Operating System: Windows 7 x64 or greater;
- Engine: GZDoom 4.8.0 or newer;
- CPU: Intel Core i5 8400 or AMD Ryzen 3 3100 or better;
- GPU: nVidia GTX 760 2gb or AMD RX 560 2gb or better;
- RAM: 8GB RAM or higher.

b) Average experience:
- Operating System: Windows 7 x64 or greater;
- Engine: GZDoom 4.8.0 or newer;
- CPU: Intel Core i7 2600 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or better;
- GPU: nVidia GTX 750 2gb or AMD RX 550 2gb or better;
- RAM: 4GB RAM or higher.

c) Minimum:
- Operating System: Win XP, Vista or 7 (32-bit);
- Engine: LZDoom 3.87c XP fix (included);
- CPU: Intel Pentium E5300 or AMD Athlon x2 Dual Core 5000+ or better;
- GPU: nVidia GeForce 8400GS,
or ATI Radeon HD2400 PRO (OpenGL2 - will be hugely faster)
so please install drivers made on Summer 2007
and for Windows 7 please install legacy Windows Vista drivers;
- RAM: 1GB RAM;
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Installation:

1) Extract the archive contents into an empty folder.

2a) For a 64-bit computer with a good graphics card (at least supports OpenGL 3.3) extract GZDoom v.4.8.0 or higher
into the same folder you have extracted hell renaissance archive contents to.
2b) For a 32-bit computer or simply machine with outdated graphics extract LZDoom v3.85 into the same folder you have extracted hell renaissance archive contents to.
3) Buy Doom II (1994) and extract Doom2.wad into the same folder you have extracted hell renaissance archive contents to. You could try to get freedoom2 instead.

Works ONLY with hardware rendering (GPU renderer): Vulkan or OpenGL. If you're lucky and have a Vulkan capable card please choose Vulkan as it gets substantially faster and resulting in a smoother hell renaissance gameplay.
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You are free to share and modify it all as soon as it doesn't violate others rights.

Download the mapset:
NEW VERSION (v0.2) (379mb):

download mirror #1
download mirror #2
download mirror #3

screenshots (imgur)

Please refer to Hell_Renaissance_v02.txt that comes with the archive for more details and tips for mods compatibility like Brutal Doom.

Changelog (v0.2):

- trying to get the stuff sorted;
- better performance optimizations;
- all static geometry of Map15 now consists of a set of 3D models making it massively faster to render both on old and new hardware, also looking better due to better work with dynamic lights.
- potato graphical assets introduced;
- chances it runs on old computers are higher;
- some graphical enhacements;
- some new shaders of mine;
- a bit better gameplay and maps;
- more consistent work on music;
- MAP17 introduced, yet very infant;
- thousands of micro tweaks and fixes here and there and yet to come;
- bad music is no more present, really sorry about that.

OLD VERSION (v0.1) (408mb):
download mirror #1
download mirror #2
download mirror #3

screenshots (imgur)

[Dynamo]

The screenshots are... interesting. I don't think I've ever seen a project before where I cannot tell where the skybox ends and the sector geometry begins! How many maps does this have, anyway? And what's your roadmap for it more or less?

[Darkcrafter]

The screenshots are... interesting. I don't think I've ever seen a project before where I cannot tell where the skybox ends and the sector geometry begins! How many maps does this have, anyway? And what's your roadmap for it more or less?

This one currently has 16 maps and map17 in the infancy stage but I'm going to push for more in the future. I'd like to go full 32 level mapset but will I be able to do it well enough

The current maps are almost empty gameplay wise and I'm not going to saturate them with gameplay yet, maybe with some exceptions like map15 is somewhat "ready". My first goal here is to deliver the levels count and I'll get to the gameplay in the final "mastering" stage.

Now, after 4 years of development, the only version I have published up to date is v0.1 yet people generally like it for the scale and graphics.

The day I discovered that dynamic skybox script for doom maps was really one when I decided to make a full fledged episode for doom.

[Darkcrafter]

Wondering if there is a way to disable BSP and clipping visibility checks for certain levels. Would be super cool to have this option implemented in MAPINFO like NOCLIPPING, or maybe somehow limit this check for only certain sectors.

The biggest issue on some of these maps is CPU bottleneck that is introuced on geometry visibility stage. I'd want for the main game camera only render the main geometry and skybox camera only the skybox sector, in case this feature drops by.

[Reinchard2]

Amazing work. May I ask where did you get the hires version of sp_rock texture? Looks really faithfully.

[Darkcrafter]

Amazing work. May I ask where did you get the hires version of sp_rock texture? Looks really faithfully.

Thanks I did it on my own maybe somewhere in 2019 there was a service to upscale photos via srgan ran by some ukranian (I guess) guys for some plan. But before the texture was rotated and multiplied so a bigger version appeared that looks less repetitive. The next hell renaissance iteration I improved it even more so there is less srgan artifacts and it looks a bit more consistent. The other textures were also upscaled by me, some hand drawn details are there for sure. The same applies to other textures, some will get improved again like sky3 hell texture.

Painful process but definitely worth doing it by hand.

[Reinchard2]

Amazing work. May I ask where did you get the hires version of sp_rock texture? Looks really faithfully.

Thanks I did it on my own maybe somewhere in 2019 there was a service to upscale photos via srgan ran by some ukranian (I guess) guys for some plan. But before the texture was rotated and multiplied so a bigger version appeared that looks less repetitive. The next hell renaissance iteration I improved it even more so there is less srgan artifacts and it looks a bit more consistent. The other textures were also upscaled by me, some hand drawn details are there for sure. The same applies to other textures, some will get improved again like sky3 hell texture.

Painful process but definitely worth doing it by hand.

For a moment I thought you managed to find the source photo for this texture. It looks so natural. I read somewhere that this texture is probably based on a photo of some minerals or crystals, but I looked at the libraries the iD artists was using and found nothing similar. Anyway, good job on this one and several others. Cloudy sky form first episode of Doom2 also looks very good.

[Darkcrafter]

Could you please point into that exact iD library, I can remember there was some sort of CD full of images where some of the game's graphics originated from, I simply forgot its name.

Well, I tried to use google image search with sp_rock texture and it actually gives some minerals results looking pretty similar to the game! Kind of, I actually really liked the work of Cheello on 3D reconstruction of sp_rock in blender by hand: https://youtu.be/qvuud4cV2L4?t=175

[Reinchard2]

Library is called "Aris Media Clips 10". Yes, Cheello does a really good job with voxels and parallax. I was also making sp_rock by hand for my pbr stuff.

[Cygnus1337]

Im having a problem with your map which includes with;
- No Skyview
- Loading music not found
- monsters starts glitching with a textures and other monsters as well
- & The sound is not sync when starts to slowing down framerate (sometimes)

Also i really like one of your mountain 3d model version from your skybox

[Darkcrafter]

Hey Cygnus1337, thanks for playing my mapset and your review!

Im having a problem with your map which includes with;
- No Skyview
- Loading music not found

These are some minor bugs that don't affect the game at all, just some stuff I've been working at to fix.

- monsters starts glitching with a textures and other monsters as well

Well, these maps have loads of 3D model based geometry in the walkable area and unfortunately, these are the best gimmicks I could have provided the maps with to give them some collision, GZDoom engine doesn't have anything more advanced. For sure some monsters would sometimes get lost behind the geometry, it can be worked out in the later versions though to minimize this sideeffect.

- & The sound is not sync when starts to slowing down framerate (sometimes)

That means your CPU struggles with the game. This mapset was built around the idea of squezzing all out of GZDoom capabilites, the maps are huge in size, there is another scene rendered in parallel to the main scene (dynamic skybox), there is a lot of 3D floors that are large in lengths too, some horizontal and vertical portals that also add another load. 3D models do introduce some CPU and especially GPU load too.

I'm really not sure if one day they make the engine to handle maps like this, the original Doom engine, which ZDoom and then GZDoom derived from still use 2D frustrum clipping window, the sidechecks are 2D either and what is even more sad, this all gets useless in scenarios like this and does unwanted work, bottlenecking your CPU, slowing down the FPS.

I could suggest to get LZDoom v3.85 instead and turn on linedefs distance cull in the graphics settings, that will reduce the view distance but make it way more playable.

[Darkcrafter]

v 0.2 has been released a couple of days ago:

- trying to get the stuff sorted;
- better performance optimizations;
- all static geometry of Map15 now consists of a set of 3D models making it massively faster to render both on old and new hardware, also looking better due to better work with dynamic lights.
- potato graphical assets introduced;
- chances it runs on old computers are higher;
- some graphical enhacements;
- some new shaders of mine;
- a bit better gameplay and maps;
- more consistent work on music;
- MAP17 introduced, yet very infant;
- thousands of micro tweaks and fixes here and there and yet to come;
- bad music is no more present, really sorry about that.

Please refer to Hell_Renaissance_v02.txt that comes with the archive