advice for making cave levels seem natural

I've finally gotten back to mapping after coming up with a concept I can finally see myself finishing: an underground exoplanet moon base, dug out in the upper half of a large, unactive volcano. It may not be the most original, but I think it'll work well. 

The above image is supposed to be at the entrance of the base/ middle of the level. My problem is that I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how to make a cave system( which is partially man made, partially natural) feel organic and like an actual cave. I tried basing the sector shape off human organs, combined simple geometry, but nothing really seems to work. I want it to be on the smaller end, with some sections being small enough to house encounters with only a half dozen former humans/ a couple heavier demons. Any advice on how to achieve such a natural, tight cave design?

I think a good bet is to just find caves by other authors and poke around those in the editor. I really love the way Lutz does caves, so I’ve spent a lot of time running around Doom 2: Hellscape either ingame with -nomonsters or in the editor, then trying to replicate that myself. everyone does caves a lil differently though!

Here is a cave map that I just happened to release a few days ago ;3  (It's definitely not small, as such, but never a bad time to self promote lol)

Right off the top, I'll say from that one screenshot that you might try making it non-symmetrical, making the overhangs jut out a bit more, and also vary the heights of the overhangs by breaking up those sectors a bit around the edges so it doesn't have quite that "layer cake" look?  (This may be what you want in the entry room and other bits that were carved by the hand of man but it may not look like a "natural" cave, especially with mixed rock types like that.)  Also the ceiling looks a bit thin to me, so you might raise the sky a little bit to thicken the rock layer up there.  Like Tango says, there's lots of approaches to making a Doom cave look cavey, that would just be my approach.

Use linedef action 181 and sector slopes all the time. Caves are always irregular in shape with slanted floor and ceiling. Don't forget stalagmites & stalactites. Lava comes naturally in caves but nukage can create great visuals. Use different rock textures for walls, ceilings and floors. Change textures regularly to prevent boredom.

13 minutes ago, Stupid Bunny said:

Here is a cave map that I just happened to release a few days ago ;3  (It's definitely not small, as such, but never a bad time to self promote lol)

 

 

Right off the top, I'll say from that one screenshot that you might try making it non-symmetrical, making the overhangs jut out a bit more, and also vary the heights of the overhangs by breaking up those sectors a bit around the edges so it doesn't have quite that "layer cake" look?  (This may be what you want in the entry room and other bits that were carved by the hand of man but it may not look like a "natural" cave, especially with mixed rock types like that.)  Also the ceiling looks a bit thin to me, so you might raise the sky a little bit to thicken the rock layer up there.  Like Tango says, there's lots of approaches to making a Doom cave look cavey, that would just be my approach.

Thank you for the advice, but the section pictured is more symetrical because it was a man made entrance so, I think that part will be kept pretty symetrical

Check this thread for good pictures of caves

a) draw more wiggles - granite vaults can be straight walled but limestone is formed from a million marble poles, almost, b) going to a cave (caves are created by water action... i used to go down caves in the peak district and some have absurd vault ceilings, often featuring tiny cracks of light, some being ultranarrow and having to be crawled through and some featuring extreme floor level differences, eg. abrupt boreholes which open into deep flooded chambers... there is very little wildlife or plantlife that appears in a cave beyond its opening and the floor is never ever flat so really rendering a decent cave in the doom engine at all requires indulgence from the mapper and from the player) and c) the art of monotexturing until the precise moment for a second texture to appear (impossible)

like... no cave i've ever seen has had a beautiful central water feature with a great place to view it from, at least not without gantries and spotlights being installed. if you are mapping for mood then a cave would necessarily look murky, shit and be full of pinchpoints, but modern doom caves will be picturesque and feature good gameflow logic and be necessarily beautiful, spacious and well-lit cos they'd be really hard to play if you made them realistic

ps: all of the caves i've been to have been showcaves or public gorges, i am not trying to sound like a badass :))))) one time i helped ceilingwalk a boat through an underground river though. way too fat and old to go potholing

my personal way for making caves is to use circles, tons of circles, make nearly every part of the cave a circle, except for the layout itself. you can do that too, though! put circles in the circles and mess with the height variation, and don't make it too symmetrical. create little alcoves above the player (with circles) to create depth beyond where the player can go, and you can even pop imps or other monsters in those too. usually after enough of this some neat caves pop out :)

Another, easier way to make a cave is with Obsidian and its many options

then use the result as a possible base for your own map.

Tweak it to your liking,

This isn't specific to caves, but you may find it useful anyway:

thanks for the advice everyone, and especially to Gothic and Stupid Bunny. I've been at school, so wasn't able to check back in for a while.

Also add that spike sprite, that is a must

Good call LSP, a good cave should have a few stalagmites

19 hours ago, Stupid Bunny said:

I'll say from that one screenshot that you might try making it non-symmetrical, making the overhangs jut out a bit more, and also vary the heights of the overhangs by breaking up those sectors a bit around the edges so it doesn't have quite that "layer cake" look?  (This may be what you want in the entry room and other bits that were carved by the hand of man but it may not look like a "natural" cave, especially with mixed rock types like that.)

So after messing around with the slope tool a bit, I ended up getting kind of lucky after making a random 45 degree slope. How would you say this section turned out?

3 hours ago, St. Mildly Annoyed said:

 

So after messing around with the slope tool a bit, I ended up getting kind of lucky after making a random 45 degree slope. How would you say this section turned out?

Looking better

The slopes look cool.

But i would say even less symmetry and some of the stuff Shepardus linked to, just with rock instead of water (I.e. adding little bumps in the floor and ceiling, inwards, outwards, it doesn't matter. Bumps!).

And of course the spike sprite. ;)

What about hight variations. That makes every natural area look realistic. 

Oh yeah, that's a very good idea.

Yep

Honestly I just ape really hard from maps that I think have good caves, kind of keyed to my target port, so I crib pretty heavily from Scythe and Speed of Doom if I am doing vanilla/limit removing stuff. You can get way crazier with slopes, etc in zdoom

I think I make decent caves. So give this a try or fly through it in UDB to look how I make 'em. Yes they're not close to being natural, but they're interesting to look at in my opinion. Shameless self-plug. Hope it helps! :)

On 4/3/2024 at 12:10 PM, St. Mildly Annoyed said:

Good call LSP, a good cave should have a few stalagmites

Add realistic height variations, stalagmites, dead marine sprites, couple U.A.C boxes near the entrance, and machinary 

Avoid orthogonallity, but also avoid sharp angles, caves surprisingly look better with smoothed curves, those are also good for gameplay. Try varying sector heights and even switch to different rock textures to add variety to the environment. Natural landscapes on Doom work following this philosophy.

- Go wild with ashwall2 lmao

- Often use low lighting numbers like 128 or 112 if the cavern area is an inside area

- Play with multiple sectors to simulate weird rock structures or ceilings, so the layout of the room is not noticeably just a boring box shape

- If you want to make craters, try to add what I called "layers" of at least 8 mu of difference between the base floor/ceiling sector, and give it a different floor texture like Romero does for steps

- Be really creative with small details like trenches, stuff sticking out in the walls, maybe some puddles of whatever, the choice is yours.

You've received a ton of good and useful advice that should get you where you want to. I took your idea and made a wad file to show you how some of it can be done. It's not perfect, but maybe it can help you a bit.

Download (MAP01, Doom 2, Boom comp.)

On 4/4/2024 at 4:13 PM, Chris Hansen said:

You've received a ton of good and useful advice that should get you where you want to. I took your idea and made a wad file to show you how some of it can be done. It's not perfect, but maybe it can help you a bit.

 

Download (MAP01, Doom 2, Boom comp.)

 

Holy shit, thank you. Well I've already gotten a lot of great advice, this will be a real big help.

To the other's who've been helping me with my original cave entrance design, I decided to dump and remake the area outside of the base opening, so I can better adjust to all of your advice

It seems my main problem is trying to break my habit of symmetry, without making the cave design look too random. But I've also forgotten about changing lighting, so thanks Chris Hansen for the reminder as well.