NOVA II: New Dawn - First status report in November | Still open for mappers!

[dobu gabu maru]

NoisyVelvet said:

If you'd like, I can take one out of the freezer and throw it into the oven again and bake it into a fresh-baked loaf of map for this project.

Do it do it do it. Just remember the megawad is not Boom compatible.

[jmickle66666666]

btw, you don't have to have 32 maps. I think this assumption causes many projects to get padded out with unnecessary maps. If this is a new mapper's project why sacrifice the project goal to make sure you have 32 maps?

[NuMetalManiak]

this is still going? I didn't even realize we had that many wads. looks like I can only made one though. I probably won't make another map since I am tied up with 32in24-14 and walkthrough making on the wiki at the moment. of course, I do have a couple of half-finished layouts for others to borrow (but then again none of you are probably going to listen to this statement). that one hell map I'm making I had put off for some months already.

[dobu gabu maru]

Getsu Fune said:

of course, I do have a couple of half-finished layouts for others to borrow

Feel free to drop them off so other people can pick at them if they wish.

Within a week or so I'm probably going to throw up a new thread so I can keep track of everything in the new OP

[Springy]

Is it too late to finish the map I started? There's still a way to go with it.

[Nordevai]

New mapper here, got room for one more on this boat?

[cannonball]

@Springy - It's never too late, get cracking and I look forward to seeing your map.
@Nordevai - Of course we have :)

[Impboy4]

Is it alright if I toss in a few levels that I have made here? I have a collaboration and a solo level from the TNT project as well as a level I haven't used in any map project at all.

[dobu gabu maru]

Any and all contributions are welcome. Just keep in mind not to add Boom or Zdoom properties/effects, and that you should be open to criticism.

[Impboy4]

Replacing boom actions with regular actions shouldn't be too hard. Though, one of my maps use the floor and ceiling brightness actions which is needed for most of the light effects in the level. Unless someone wants to take a look at it and make the light effects work right in this compatibility, I may have to use it in another project that has boom features.

[NuclearPotato]

Always been meaning to take a shot at designing a Doom map, and now that I brought my computer back from the dead, I'd say this is the perfect time to do so. Throwing my hat into the ring.

[Jaxxoon R]

Good thing I'd been working on a Vanilla map, then.

[Impboy4]

Here's Canyon Halls by me and my friend KevinHEZ. It uses stock doom 2 textures and is on the MAP12 slot (you can change the slot to a different one, it was merely for the sky texture).

-REMOVED-

EDIT: Go to the new download below.

[dobu gabu maru]

Played Canyon Halls. Really nice work there! I was most thoroughly impressed with the texture choice and the general layout of the level--it's great to get a "newbie" map that has a good sense of space and corners. That, and I was surprised with how devious that pistol start was. Just a couple things below.

- I got lost after hitting the switch that leads to the YK, not realizing it opened up a door. Making that door more conspicuous (or removing the switch) should definitely help. It's a good rule of thumb that you add light sectors in front of doors that you want the player to easily notice (and you can darken the sectors in front of doors that don't work, like in the SSG room).

- The AV trap post-red key doesn't work as intended (I didn't even notice there were monsters until I was scouring around for the few I missed). Ideally, you should have their sector joined with an outside one so the AV wakes up when the player fires, that way as soon as the W1 linedef is triggered, the AV can come marching out.

- There's a couple of rooms and instances where the monsters don't really pose a threat. It's hard to point them out without going through the map room by room, but it could be a bit more difficult in places (it does work as an early mapset as is though, like 03 or 05). For instance, the arach is mostly harmless since it can't walk through that tight door, and the mancs in the RK area aggro the other monsters easily.

- I don't think the EXIT sign needs to be above the YK door, as that may just confuse certain players sniffing around for where the BK or RK are.

- There's a couple of brown doors that are wider than 128, which you just offset the textures in the middle in order to compensate. It is pretty noticeable when you play however, and you're better off sticking a DOORSTOP on the ends of the door instead.

Fabulous work otherwise--you two should consider doing another map for the project!

[Ribbiks]

just a thought (@ tourn and dobu:)

would it be ok if cosmetic boom stuff stayed in the map? fake floors, floor/ceiling brightnesses, etc? Such that it would look and play fine in any LR port, but if you happened to play it in cl9 or zdoom or whatever the various frills would be present?

I'm not sure if tourn's already beasted apart the map making it LR compatible, but that was just a passing thought I had.

[tourniquet]

Ribbiks: I'm currently removing all kind of Voodoo trickery and generalized actions, some things were a bit difficult to rework but i'm allready done with the most complicated ones.

Dobu: As for fake floors, there are a few that i can rework via self referencing sectors but especially the crosshatch floor would be almost impossible to do and just as Ribbiks i would like to keep it.
Same about sector light specials, most could be removed but at least in the RK area things could get a bit complicated.

Dunno what you think about keeping some of them since they don't affect gameplay.

[jmickle66666666]

as long as the map stays limit-removing compatible, then i think i'd say it's fine. the map should look and act fine on -cl2, even if it looks better/different on -cl9

[tourniquet]

^ Dunno how Crispy Doom handles things but with all other ports there shouldn't occur any problems on Cl2 besides that the effect won't work as it can be seen here

Spoiler

[mouldy]

I had some fake floors in one of my maps in the first nova project. I think its ok as long as the player doesn't cross any linedef with an unknown action. So lighting effects and scrolling walls wouldn't be a problem either I guess.

[tourniquet]

mouldy said:

I had some fake floors in one of my maps in the first nova project.

Oh didn't know bout that.

impboy4 said:

Here's Canyon Halls by me and my friend KevinHEZ.

Great map, very good visuals, a bit underwhelming at times, just as Dobu i think i wont hurt to spice up some of the encounters.
Here's an FDA

You might want to move those Health Bonuses further away from the wall.

The AV placement here is very unthreatening, maybe you could add a teleporter line that warps him into the nearby maze as soon as he wakes up. just an idea.

Didn't like the long backtracking after getting the BK, maybe this sequence can be shortened via teleporter or so, otherwise very good.

[mouldy]

Impboy4 said:

Here's Canyon Halls by me and my friend KevinHEZ. It uses stock doom 2 textures and is on the MAP12 slot (you can change the slot to a different one, it was merely for the sky texture).

Download

I decided to record an FDA for this map, and here it is:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/5vald0ya4vtahxe/canyonhalls-mouldy.lmp

Really nice looking map, I like how open it is at the start to go in several directions. The complex layout is very doom 1 which is a good thing in my opinion (though it feels a touch cramped in places). The difficulty is fairly easy despite having a few bigger monsters, I'd say its a fitting difficulty for an early map, though having archviles and revs I'm not sure if it was intended to be harder. A lot of the fights involve opening a door and shooting whatever's in front of you, which is kind of inevitable in a corridor based map, but you can mix things up a bit by having rooms with multiple levels and monsters up on ledges and shooting through windows and stuff.

The first false exit threw me for a bit, and I went back through the map looking for all the stuff I missed, not realising that it was still waiting for me. Also all the false doors are a bit misleading, especially in a map where you have locked doors that are opened by switches, I'd avoid that. Also the backtracking was a bit fiddly in such a complex layout, shame all those false doors weren't shortcuts! I noticed some HOMs here and there but forgot to take any screenshots, and seeing as no-one else has mentioned them it might be a texture file I'm missing.

[tourniquet]

mouldy said:

I noticed some HOMs here and there but forgot to take any screenshots

I thought those HOMs were a result of not using the Nova2 texture pack, that's why i didn't mention them.

[mouldy]

tourniquet said:

I thought those HOMs were a result of not using the Nova2 texture pack, that's why i didn't mention them.

Yeah I keep forgetting about that. You'd think doom builder would have an option to save any external textures you use into the wad somehow.

[dobu gabu maru]

tourniquet said:

As for fake floors, there are a few that i can rework via self referencing sectors but especially the crosshatch floor would be almost impossible to do and just as Ribbiks i would like to keep it.

As mouldy mentioned, his Bad Blood map had Boom features, so keeping the cosmetic stuff is fair game. I think the map looks better with it too, so I prefer it staying.

[tourniquet]

Allrighty, thats cool.

[NuclearPotato]

Alright, managed to complete a first draft of my map, and I'm uploading it to get as much feedback as I can. Working title is "Run!!," currently using the MAP02 slot.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1bX8V5Yr798ZU1xa0U2UFpoeFk/view?usp=sharing

When I sat down to start this map, I wanted to keep it short and simple, to try to make up for this being my first attempt at a Doom map. You could probably finish this in 30 seconds, if you know what you're doing. All feedback is welcome, of course, but I'm particularly looking for:

-Monster Placement: I think that the monster placement as is will end up as HMP in the final version. That said, I'm already thinking of opening up a couple of monster closets upon obtaining the red key.

-Texture Work: This, I need advice on more than anything else. Most of the textures are just placeholders until I, a: figure out a theme I'll be happy with, and b: learn how to align textures properly so that my doors don't extend endlessly into the ceiling.

-Name: Always open for better name suggestions. :v

[dobu gabu maru]

Uhhh that sure is a first map. There's not much feedback that I can think of giving, considering that it's incomplete on the texturing front and the gameplay is pretty hairy. I mean it's kinda fun, but I can't tell whether such design is incidental or not as the map is pretty much just 3 rooms (and the fight for the red key is pretty bland in comparison). A good short level is usually around ~60 monsters or so, and you should probably aim for that before you'll get a substantial critique. That, and adding textures/lighting is essential when you design, so I'd recommend messing around with doing that too.

[cannonball]

NuclearPotato said:

Alright, managed to complete a first draft of my map, and I'm uploading it to get as much feedback as I can. Working title is "Run!!," currently using the MAP02 slot.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1bX8V5Yr798ZU1xa0U2UFpoeFk/view?usp=sharing

When I sat down to start this map, I wanted to keep it short and simple, to try to make up for this being my first attempt at a Doom map. You could probably finish this in 30 seconds, if you know what you're doing. All feedback is welcome, of course, but I'm particularly looking for:

-Monster Placement: I think that the monster placement as is will end up as HMP in the final version. That said, I'm already thinking of opening up a couple of monster closets upon obtaining the red key.

-Texture Work: This, I need advice on more than anything else. Most of the textures are just placeholders until I, a: figure out a theme I'll be happy with, and b: learn how to align textures properly so that my doors don't extend endlessly into the ceiling.

-Name: Always open for better name suggestions. :v

This map certainty needs some fleshing out as the layout is very basic (hub-spoke). I can't really give much advise on the texture front as to be honest it's really a case of deciding on a texture scheme and making sure your choices are not too garish. As for monster placement, improving the layout along with better room structure will help with this.

As for Canyon halls - It's a decent map and plays well enough. I do agree that the map could use a little more spice. Try and remove some of the corridors in places and replace them with rooms which connect to other areas where possible, you can then mix up the monster placement and increase the number of angles of attack.

[Nordevai]

NuclearPotato said:

Stuff

Pretty much what Dobu and Cannonball said. With this map being in such a "alpha" state its difficult to really give meaningful feedback.

Just keep working on sprucing up the layout and don't be afraid to play around with texturing. The best way to figure out how textures work is to just experiment with them in a map. Also, the player can get trapped in the secret room with the SSG.

[Impboy4]

Alright get V2 of the map while it's hot.

Download

Changes:

-Replaced all unknown/missing textures with stock (mouldy)

-Made the Red Keycard a trap by closing off the stairs and the way out. Monster closets added just outside of Red Keycard room that open once picked up. (dobu)

-Changed a few of the monsters to a tougher type to increase the difficulty. (everyone)

As for the linearity and backtracking everyone complained about, that stays because that's the way it's named and designed like.