Descent 1 1/2

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 6:25 pm

And now for a sample of my host of levels.

http://www.enspiar.com/dmdb/viewMission.php?id=955
Ceres Military Perimeter
A short, sweet level to end off the Descent "Easy" Catergory. Just remember that you're trapped in the boss arena at the end. Destroying the boss will grant you freedom. Xfing, remember K'mon Gen'nton?

Varuna Military Base
A bit of a longer level than Ceres, Varuna Military Base is also a bit more complex. Once again, you get trapped in the boss arena. And there are four matcens making robots. They are triggered upon entry, and exiting one will trigger the one you exited. Killing the boss will not grant you freedom, unlike Ceres.

http://www.enspiar.com/dmdb/viewMission.php?id=956
Beta Ceti Level 11\Fol'wousrr Station
A mediumish level, there are plenty of MAXes (I know the two are unrelated). And a cool twist revealed by shooting a switch: The centeral hub is also part of the boss arena. Don't forget the only Earthshaker!

http://www.enspiar.com/dmdb/viewMission.php?id=957
S'tlo Sigma
This level is very tunnely (even the boss arena!) and dark. Xfing, when editing powerups, I want the secret door just in front of the door to the blue key left empty, and the initial Headlight and the Full Map secrets to be left alone.

And there you have it! Four lovely levels.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 7:40 pm

Okay, I have played through the levels. I'll withhold my feedback until some others also have familiarized themselves with them. It's not like I'm the only person here qualified to rate Descent levels, you know. I think there are better people for that, in fact. So let's have us a little, nice test run, shall we?

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 8:48 pm

I think it would be better if you didn't upload the levels to a public database, Lightwolf. Xfing's call ultimately though.

A bit of initial feedback on Ceres -- the design doesn't really feel very much like Parallax's D1. It's not badly designed but it's a little bit too simple. Mostly there's too many control panels for a Descent 1-style level, the areas are too symmetrical, and some of the textures (like the lights in the starting room) are a little bit... for lack of a better word, sloppy. The use of that particular door to the energy center and the robot maker with no webbing textures are both definitely things you need to avoid.
Before you try to explain, I understand the difficulties working with a room like that start and adding the lighting, the only real solution if you want lights there that don't look sloppy is to drastically change the form of that room.

On the whole it's a good start to a level but it really needs a lot of expanding and a lot more attention to detail. There's potential here but it needs to be realized. At this point you need to be patient with the map, and figure out what it wants to be even if that's not exactly what you want it to be.

Naphtha · Post by **Naphtha** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 12:26 am

I'm going to be that guy just this once so... more like four ugly levels. I will say this quote's a great one to go by, though:

Alter-Fox wrote:At this point you need to be patient with the map, and figure out what it wants to be even if that's not exactly what you want it to be.

That right there is why the completed levels took a lot longer to build. It's not about speed, it's about maximizing the playability and quality of the levels by carefully deciding what makes the level flow as well as possible and what will probably get the most players to enjoy it. My levels tend to include unusual connectors and whatnot as a way to alter the flow and give players multiple options on how to approach the level, but I'm trying not to overdo the disorientation factor or just throw in some lazy curve generator solution that can take only ten seconds on the current DLE versions. It's all about taking the time the level needs to be fully inspired and become the best playing level it can be.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 12:39 am

Ceres: I agree, it's too simple. Also, it suffers the problem of being small and having a formulaic layout - key doors to each side of a main room. Fol'wousrr Station also does this (although it isn't as simple). Sometimes you can get away with this, like the first level of Enemy Within, but I would strongly advise against making a habit of it.

Varuna: Better. The level doesn't really shake the feeling of linearity, though; there is the main loop, but it isn't really a loop because of the grates. The layout becomes like a winding tunnel, with rooms coming off it. The level is also still relatively small for a Descent level; it's comparable to level 1 of D1/D2 but not much past that. The room geometry is generally better than Ceres. I wouldn't advise boss rooms like this in co-op though - it's very hard to get in that door if you're not invulnerable. I did like that the level generally has a recognizable texture theme and sticks to it.

Fol'wousrr Station: Level geometry shows some progress but there are still a couple of "big box" rooms - including the boss room, which is also too small for a boss with this kind of power - it'll murder you to death as soon as you open the door

The level as a whole is quite small and the layout is rather simple - it feels like this is an earlier design than Varuna - which I thought was the better level overall.

S'tlo Sigma: Best layout of the four, showing some promise now. It does rely a bit much on the tunnels, though - a balance between the two would be nicer. D1 had a habit of "rooms connected by tunnels" level design, but it isn't really very D2-ish. D2 more often has complex rooms that may have corners, large corridors, etc joining them. They may be straight (much of level 3), but they may not be (much of level 2).

General advice: at this stage it may make more sense to build some levels on your own that aren't intended to go into this project. Practice helps develop design skills and you'll need a lot of them to convincingly emulate the style of the D1/D2 levels - it's not that easy to pull it off. I am seeing progress with these levels though so it looks like you'll get there, in time.
Texture alignment is important - there are a lot of seams in these levels you could eliminate with tools like "align children" - if you're not familiar with it, take the time to learn it soon - you'll need it pretty quickly.
Next up would be the lighting tool, which makes levels look much more believable. It takes a bit of experimentation to figure out how to get lights to work the way you want, but it's well worth it.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 3:41 am

Ok, my feedback. Generally:

- All the levels you chose seem to be boss levels, which are supposed to be some of the most memorable levels in the set, yet yours are generally too small and still struggle with plainness, laziness, multiple design faux pas and ignore the guidelines. Also, non-protruding doors on walls are a poor design choice, you could have at least made the top and bottom doors jut out a little bit. There are areas which show promise, but those were clearly heavily inspired by stuff I'd seen earlier. The boss battles overall are horribly imbalanced and the boss rooms themselves unexciting and

Ceres: It's too small, too formulaic and too reliant on regular Euclidean shapes. The design is so plain it basically feels like Wolfenstein 3d in true 3d, cubic rooms connected to a cubic hub. You also ignored the guidelines of 1 kind of door per levelwhich was to mirror Parallax' design, nor is there anything to tell there is a matcen in the hub - the general convention is to mark these with the purple texture, there are plenty of creative ways to do that - missing that on purpose is a sloppy and overly gimmicky decision, and it would require a lot of skill to make it work (even though just marking athe matcen will still be better anyhow). These flaws are relatively minor compared to the grander scale, though - once again, the level is far too small and would have been more suited for Vignettes or Maximum, even after improvements. The boss room is just a cube, too unremarkable by far. The texturing also isn't really appropriate for what Ceres should look like, but that's an easily fixed issue. All in all, the level's not good enough.

Varuna: The overall impression is warmer, that's for certain. The texturing scheme could work, and certain areas show promise geometrically. However, again the level is rather too small and too uniform, and overly reliant on winding tunnels, which comes across as gimmicky. Again, several doors are not very well-placed and the boss room is this time a death trap, I figure on Insane it would be nigh impossible to complete. I liked this level the most, yet still it's not good enough.

Fol'wousrr: By this point in the mission, this level should at least be 3-4 times as big as it is. While the geometry sometimes starts bordering on interesting, the flow of the level is still very formulaic, the areas have zero interconnectivity to them. The boss arena is bad, and also too small.

S'tlo Sigma: A Puuma Sphere level that looks a bit too much like a Baloris Prime level for my tastes... one from Maximum, no less. You're familiar with the Puuma Sphere texturing scheme, aren't you? Also, the tunnels bear a lot of resemblance to certain areas from Descent 1 levels 14 or 19. The boss fight is also very bad, too gimmicky by far - there is no arena to speak of. What if the boss actually teleported and blindsided you? You'd be dead and with nowhere to run. Still, there is potential here, but unrealized.

Sirius wrote: General advice: at this stage it may make more sense to build some levels on your own that aren't intended to go into this project. Practice helps develop design skills and you'll need a lot of them to convincingly emulate the style of the D1/D2 levels - it's not that easy to pull it off. I am seeing progress with these levels though so it looks like you'll get there, in time.

I have to agree with this. I appreciate your enthusiasm and willingness to prove yourself. You've already made a lot of levels, and in a very short timespan. But you should use those levels for one of your own projects, of which you've already started a few if I'm not mistaken? Complete a mission, post it to the DMDB and learn from people's feedback. Also, adopt a more patient approach towards making levels - ever heard of the 80/20 rule? 80% of the stuff is done in 20% of the time, and the rest takes four times as much time to do. You are also a huge individualist, like experiments too much and have repeatedly disregarded proposed guidelines, so it doesn't look like you like to be fettered when making levels. Yet for now, I don't see your levels paralleling the established standard of quality that other designers move within and therefore can't accept them as part of D 1,5. It really would be better if you directed your enthusiasm towards your own thing for a while.

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:45 pm

Okay. I'll see if I could make a bit of progress on Quantum or Retro. However, like I said,

LightWolf wrote:And now for a sample of my host of levels.

You might like a few of the others.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 6:43 pm

LightWolf wrote:Okay. I'll see if I could make a bit of progress on Quantum or Retro. However, like I said,
LightWolf wrote:And now for a sample of my host of levels.
You might like a few of the others.

Make just ONE.

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 8:47 pm

To be brutally honest Lightwolf, your maps are not meeting the standard that we need here. They could work well for your own projects where you decide what the standards are -- but when you're working to someone else's standards you have to respect them. You claimed something like ten levels, and handed in four of them in the time it should have taken a much more experienced designer to finish one of them.
If you are willing to work much, much longer on your maps than you have been, we will be willing to give you the chance to. That means claiming one level at a time even if you think one of the maps you want might be taken by someone else. I'm not going to lie -- you haven't made a good impression. You're going to have to convince us that you're willing to take this project much more seriously than you have been taking it, before the people in charge of the project will take you seriously.

My advice at this point is to not claim a slot. Start working from scratch on a much larger and more complex map than what you've done so far, and study the parallax levels to try and get the same style, but don't copy them outright. And don't worry about getting it done quickly, worry about doing the absolute best work you possibly can, and improve your design skills. Try to make something absolutely stunning -- think of it as a work of art. The thing is, even if you haven't claimed a slot, if your work is good enough we will want it. Focus on making it great and on nothing else, because if you make it great the administrative work will handle itself.
It's an intimidating concept (and let me stress, if this idea doesn't intimidate you my entire post is falling on deaf ears -- until you can at least understand why it should intimidate you you're not going to improve) but if you put the time in you can do it. Judging by the maps I've seen from you so far, it's going to take at least a month and a half of solid work to accomplish this one -- but the good news is once you create that quality of work once, you'll be able to do it again and again much faster.
Finally, I think Xfing will clear the spots that you've taken to be taken by other mappers. Don't take this personally -- Descent's engine is not an easy one to learn -- even though it sometimes fools you into thinking it is. We all started at your level, and you're just starting. If you put in the same amount of time and effort that we did to learn how to make maps great instead of just how to make maps, we'll be glad to take your work.
But if you continue with this project the way you have so far, you're just wasting your own time. And spare time is a precious thing in this world.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Thu Jul 10, 2014 2:47 am

What he said! My first level took over a year to make, during which time I learned so much, that work on subsequent levels took like 1/10th of the time, yet the quality arguably wasn't worse. This is one thing you really need to be patient with and it's definitely better to have one memorable level than five bad ones.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Thu Jul 10, 2014 3:03 am

Time to build isn't a hard-and-fast limit - it largely depends how much you have and how it's divided - Luke Schneider apparently did most of the Entropy 2 work in the space of a couple weeks. That isn't a feat I've ever been able to duplicate even when I was 13 and didn't have anything else to spend my nights on though.

My experience was: I started working on levels late in 1997, I think. There was a level set in the works from all the way back then - before I even started using the editor I was drawing out designs on paper - which later turned into Obsidian. However, literally nothing from that first year or so actually made it into the set - I was learning how to build better all the time, and the earlier designs would just have looked badly out of place. (Koolbear's site used to have the first level I recall completing on it - I don't recall how he got hold of it - but it's currently down. I still have a copy I could put somewhere for posterity... suffice it to say it looks nothing like the level 2 of Obsidian it was originally going to be.)

I think my big "breakthrough" came after I had learned enough of the editor to know my way around, when I started studying the cube-work of other authors - particularly Schneider (and I have to admit, it really did show for a while... I learned more variety later

). That taught me what was possible, how it was possible, and opened the door to thinking "how do I make this more interesting?" for every room, every corridor, every wall. There is, arguably, such a thing as too much detail, but when you're developing single-player mapping skills it's probably best to pretend there isn't at first.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Fri Jul 11, 2014 3:51 am

I've checked out the Falls of Truth from Naphtha and damn, is the level superb so far. Even better than the Grancdrisp Oven, in many aspects. The geometry of the area where you get the blue key is Vertigo-level or beyond, it's simply amazing, I'd never come up with something like this. Great usage of D1-exclusive and otherwise textures too, it's just right and not over the top. The green cobblestone looks just made for Quartzon, and it's surprising how well the gray, pointy cobblestone fits too. Keep up the good work, I'm looking forward to seeing this baby completed

Pumo · Post by **Pumo** » Sat Jul 19, 2014 7:10 pm

Naphtha wrote:Any chance I could help with the PIG file, Pumo? I might not have the right programs to revise the file, but I could try to convert more of the sprites so they look right in the new palette.

It would help if you could extract all D2 animated monitor texture frames and D2 cockpit textures (including weapon HUD graphics, etc) from FIRE.PIG (of all the D2 palettes is the one that looks closer to D1 colors, so it would be the easiest to make it fit). If you can help me with that it would be very much appreciated Naphtha, as it's a huge part of the tedious work!

You may need DTX2 for that, I don't know if that's one of the programs you don't have?

(PS. And sorry for the late reply, I did not read the latest posts from this thread until now).

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 3:35 am

Pumo wrote:FIRE.PIG (of all the D2 palettes is the one that looks closer to D1 colors, so it would be the easiest to make it fit).

Hmmm... now that you mention it., you're right. I always thought that Groupa.pig was the logical choice for making D1 levels with, because it's supposed to be the "neutral" and multifunctional palette. But Fire.pig seems much more faithful to D1 in any case, robots included.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:13 am

It may be possible to determine this mathematically

Naphtha · Post by **Naphtha** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:56 pm

Xfing wrote:
Pumo wrote:FIRE.PIG (of all the D2 palettes is the one that looks closer to D1 colors, so it would be the easiest to make it fit).
Hmmm... now that you mention it., you're right. I always thought that Groupa.pig was the logical choice for making D1 levels with, because it's supposed to be the "neutral" and multifunctional palette. But Fire.pig seems much more faithful to D1 in any case, robots included.

I remember MD-1224 having this theory that Fire.pig was the original one developed for D2, rather than GroupA.pig. I'm not sure I agree with that myself because I feel that it emphasizes the blues and reds a bit too much to be truly "neutral," but other colors like greens are handled very faithfully. For textures like the purple monitor, I'm wondering if GroupA.pig would work better there, but I can try to use Fire.pig for most of the ones you need.

EDIT: By the way, Falls of Truth should be pretty much completed and synched on the Dropbox. I'd like to officially claim Secret Levels 1 and 3 and get started on the latter as soon as possible.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 8:55 am

Naphtha wrote:
Xfing wrote:
Pumo wrote:FIRE.PIG (of all the D2 palettes is the one that looks closer to D1 colors, so it would be the easiest to make it fit).
Hmmm... now that you mention it., you're right. I always thought that Groupa.pig was the logical choice for making D1 levels with, because it's supposed to be the "neutral" and multifunctional palette. But Fire.pig seems much more faithful to D1 in any case, robots included.
I remember MD-1224 having this theory that Fire.pig was the original one developed for D2, rather than GroupA.pig. I'm not sure I agree with that myself because I feel that it emphasizes the blues and reds a bit too much to be truly "neutral," but other colors like greens are handled very faithfully. For textures like the purple monitor, I'm wondering if GroupA.pig would work better there, but I can try to use Fire.pig for most of the ones you need.

EDIT: By the way, Falls of Truth should be pretty much completed and synched on the Dropbox. I'd like to officially claim Secret Levels 1 and 3 and get started on the latter as soon as possible.

Great. I'll get things in order.

EDIT: Can't run the level for some reason. Rebirth just exits without an error message. Kinda like this level was made Vertigo. But even after I converted it to pure D2, the problem persists.

EDIT 2: Got it. There seems to be a bug, either on the Rebirth side or the DLE side, which makes the application crash immediately when a level's mission name is different to its automap name. Happened to me before with my first level.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 10:01 am

Ok, my impressions for Falls of Truth.

Astonishingly pretty level with amazing cube geometry, Vertigo quality or higher. I like how you push but not break conventions, for example with the decoy marking in the yellow key area. The marking suggests the yellow key will be THERE, while in fact it is entirely somewhere else, surrounded by blue forcefield stripes (if you're not planning to actually put a forcefield there, I believe there are better aesthetical choices for that one, though). It would also seem that you struggled a bit with the geometry in the part where in the red key room you put that rail-like grate for two walls - the areas they separate seem to be a bit crooked - not that it's necessarily a bad thing, but I get the impression that you were going for perfect symmetry there, so I'm just pointing that out. Also:

- The lighting seems weirdly pale and weak, moreover it's uneven. I take it that was deliberate, but you should prbably amp up each light texture's output by like 20% and reapply the global lighting settings in DLE.

- Replace the spiderbot screen from D1 with a version analogous to what I did in the file d1optim.pog in order to avoid the awkwardness which happens when someone destroys it. Of course, you've got all the frames you need in the file package I exported. This also goes for the one you used in the Grandcrisp Oven.

- If you don't mind, please find another base for the replacement of "Door 25". It's natural to replace the D2 equivalent of the same name with it, but it being a D2 door, I didn't touch its sounds in my new sound file, so it still plays the D2 opening sound. If you could find a D1-introduced door that is unused in the level and has an appropriate number of frames (it was 7 I believe), go ahead and replace that door frame by frame instead, that way we'll be able to hear the D1 door opening sound for this door. If there is no 7 frame door from D1 you can use then ignore this.

- Apparently DLE has some kind of code quirk going on and it saves any level with data from the .HAM file you currently have set up for your game. Since I failed to mention this, you are probably still using the outdated game files, and therefore when I played the level in my version, robots kept on saying "Blue scores" etc. I think downloading the updated .HAM and .SXX files and then re-saving the level will fix this issue. I have made it so you can hear all sounds from the game without sacrificing anything.

- After you've got the new game files, you can put in the boss, it's never too early for that and it will allow us to make complete runs through the level.

- Last but not least, add like 1 area behind a "solid" waterfall for secret goodie storage. Playing Quartzon, it has become quite instinctive for players to poke into waterfalls hoping taht there will be a secret area behind it, and the level doesn't have them in some places I felt very inclined to check out. So like one more would be perfect. Otherwise the number of secret areas is fine I guess.

Of course if you want, I can do all of the above for you and let you know once I've reuploaded the file, your call.

Naphtha · Post by **Naphtha** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:26 pm

Actually, I tried incorporating all the files but I couldn't seem to get the S11 and S22 files working inside the HOG. The drones were still making multiplayer sounds regardless, so I think I'll just solve this by removing the HAM files for now. I did shuffle around the POG file, though, and did add that extra secret area for you. I still can't figure out where you uploaded the POG file, unfortunately, so I worked around the screen thing by simply using another one for now.

As for the lighting, I was kind of going off of the memory of Quartzon levels being rather dark in certain places. The uneven nature actually has more to do with the cube geometry, I think, so I'm afraid that's probably not going to be changed. It does look a lot less dark in D2X-Retro, though, so I don't think it stands out as much there.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 5:12 pm

Naphtha wrote:Actually, I tried incorporating all the files but I couldn't seem to get the S11 and S22 files working inside the HOG.

No worries about that, robot sounds are handled intrinsically. Get the new HAM and SXX files and all should be fine.

I still can't figure out where you uploaded the POG file, unfortunately, so I worked around the screen thing by simply using another one for now.

Sorry, an oversight on my part. It's there right now, in the "Updated game files" folder. Try it out with a blank level, see what I replaced etc.

As for the lighting, I was kind of going off of the memory of Quartzon levels being rather dark in certain places. The uneven nature actually has more to do with the cube geometry, I think, so I'm afraid that's probably not going to be changed. It does look a lot less dark in D2X-Retro, though, so I don't think it stands out as much there.

Well, I'm not talking about segment lighting per se, but how bright the light textures themselves look. Not only they aren't bright enough, but some instances of them seem darker than others - is that even possible? Or determined by segment size? I had no idea

Anyway, thanks a lot for the level, it's great, and feels much better than actual Quartzon levels did. The D1 textures aren't just a gimmick, they really help.

Pumo · Post by **Pumo** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 5:28 pm

Xfing wrote:
Naphtha wrote:...The D1 textures aren't just a gimmick, they really help.

Indeed they help a lot! That's why my Pumo Mines levels use much more D1-styled base textures (even if they just serve as base for my more realistic hi-res textures), as they bring much better atmosphere to ANY texture scheme you choose for a desired level, including those that stem from D2 (like Fire, Alien1 & Alien2 levels).

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 1:37 am

It's probably possible to make light textures yield inconsistent levels of light, but not without significant work. I'd suspect it has something to do with the size of the rooms affected.

Also, I have to say, having a boss robot greet you with "You scored!" before wrecking you with rapid-fire omega would be pretty funny. (To someone else, at least.)

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 2:20 am

Yeah, it would be definitely funny in an absurd way

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 6:02 pm

Thanks for the advice on level building, guys. I'll try to work with that. As for studying levels... I think just studying Vertigo will be good enough.
P.S. Naptha or Xfing, can you please post a link to Falls of Truth?

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 9:29 am

Best to go beyond "good enough" into "outstanding" if you've got the time. And this project's got years ahead of it.

But certainly, practicing as you're studying is a good idea.
Anyhow I'm looking forward to seeing your work improve.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 10:19 am

Naphtha should decide about liking to the level. he's the author. I think you'd quite like the level though. hee hee.

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 3:17 pm

But can I have a link to it?

DarkFlameWolf · Post by **DarkFlameWolf** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 6:43 pm

If I'm not mistaken, I think Lightwolf 'contributed' a level to The Enemy Within. I think it was level 17, The Endless Flows. Granted, I had to rebuild that level from scratch and make it into something more than what was given to me, but his basic design never changed. I tried to stay true to his build as best as possible. But If this is the same Lightwolf I'm thinking of, I do admit the design is a bit lackluster, but does show some promise. Like others have said in this thread, practice makes perfect! Look at how other designers have made levels and try to incorporate your own style into that vein of detail/complexity in level design.
Now with regards to this level set. It seems you all are adhering to a specific set of standards with regards to level design and flow. That's probably something not up my alley. As those who have played my levels, I'm all about doing new and interesting things and trying complex ideas in small spaces. My levels have always been about experimentation. If I EVER get around to finishing it, Arcade Descent will be no different. So as much as I want to help out with this endeavor, I don't believe my skills would be necessarily what you'd be looking for here.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Sun Aug 17, 2014 5:31 am

DarkFlameWolf wrote:If I'm not mistaken, I think Lightwolf 'contributed' a level to The Enemy Within. I think it was level 17, The Endless Flows. Granted, I had to rebuild that level from scratch and make it into something more than what was given to me, but his basic design never changed. I tried to stay true to his build as best as possible. But If this is the same Lightwolf I'm thinking of, I do admit the design is a bit lackluster, but does show some promise. Like others have said in this thread, practice makes perfect! Look at how other designers have made levels and try to incorporate your own style into that vein of detail/complexity in level design.
Now with regards to this level set. It seems you all are adhering to a specific set of standards with regards to level design and flow. That's probably something not up my alley. As those who have played my levels, I'm all about doing new and interesting things and trying complex ideas in small spaces. My levels have always been about experimentation. If I EVER get around to finishing it, Arcade Descent will be no different. So as much as I want to help out with this endeavor, I don't believe my skills would be necessarily what you'd be looking for here.

Well, maybe not and maybe yes indeed - keep in mind that secret levels and ones from the Vertigo portion of the mission are basically "everything goes". You'd just have to stick to the most basic conventions of Descent, such as 1 kind of standard door per level (hell, even Vertigo breaks this at times), marking matcens with the trademark purple texture, using the insertion hatch door, exit door and the like. Not too much to limit your creativity, and I haven't really noticed you break these conventions frequently anyway. But yes, since the mission should invoke the feeling of playing D1 and D2, levels overly experimental in nature would kind of go against that - but then there's the question of what "experimental" is. This is not quite "Descent the way Parallax did", we're not going for a direct copy. "Better than Parallax" is also very acceptable.

For instance, levels such as D1 S2 or D2 L2 are experimental in a way and they're very good and memorable levels by any standard. But levels such as The Entropy Experiment Level 2 feel more like exercises in symmetry and texturing than actual levels. In fact, I have always thought that Descent 2 could have used many more levels like Turnabout Bore, as Zeta Aquilae was overall the most fun system to play. A level from a different mold every now and then would only serve to improve the overall experience in this mission too.

Anyway, if you feel like it, you can PM me your mail address and I'll make the dropbox directory available to you, so you can see what kinds of levels we already have.

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Sun Aug 17, 2014 7:36 am

No that was me, while I was learning how to map on this engine.
Unless you're making a metaphor.

Naphtha · Post by **Naphtha** » Sun Aug 17, 2014 12:35 pm

Just noticed you updated Eris Military Base, Xfing, and I definitely like it more now that I'm taking a second look at it. If there's anything I can recommend, it'd probably be to replace rock021 because using it tends to look very unprofessional in D2 levels nowadays. I could actually recommend rock343, which should come out as being rather gray rather than dull green in the D1 PIG.

The only other thing I'd recommend is to be mindful of your cube count in areas like the blue key grating, since I'd normally just replace multiple adjacent, identical cubes with a single larger one. The cube count even affects lighting in DLE, since it calculates brightness based on how many cubes away the nearest lighting sources are (not how many units away).

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Sun Aug 17, 2014 6:06 pm

Naphtha wrote:Just noticed you updated Eris Military Base, Xfing, and I definitely like it more now that I'm taking a second look at it. If there's anything I can recommend, it'd probably be to replace rock021 because using it tends to look very unprofessional in D2 levels nowadays. I could actually recommend rock343, which should come out as being rather gray rather than dull green in the D1 PIG.

The only other thing I'd recommend is to be mindful of your cube count in areas like the blue key grating, since I'd normally just replace multiple adjacent, identical cubes with a single larger one. The cube count even affects lighting in DLE, since it calculates brightness based on how many cubes away the nearest lighting sources are (not how many units away).

Rock021 you say. Unprofessional you say. Well, I understand where you're coming from very well, since this texture has that "default texture you'll replace soon" feel. But it doesn't look particularly bad in a gray-themed level. But rock343 conveys a totally different feel, so I don't think it's a good replacement in this particular level. Eris is supposed to be raw, ugly and inhospitable, while rock343 is a rather vivid texture. I'll probably go for rock065 or 066, if anything.

But I'll do something with this, don't worry. I'll think of another texture to use. I reuploaded Eris just today, because the version of DLE has been ★■◆●ing up my levels by loading palettes from previous open levels - a nightmare if you're using imported custom textures. The current version has fixed this, but there's an even more serious bug - you can't actually choose segments by clicking on them! I'll have to wait until this has been dealt with before I make the adjustments.

As for the blue key grate - it just came out like that and I couldn't be a$$ed to reduce the cube count, haha. That's another thing I might do when the new editor is out. And I'll try and fix the minor issues with the Falls of Truth while I'm at it.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Sun Aug 17, 2014 6:48 pm

I suspect rock021 really only looks bad to a level designer who took the "never use the default font" mantra and ran with it. To a player, as long as you use it like you would any other texture, it's probably totally OK - there were places in the original campaign where it showed up, e.g. some ceilings in D2 level 8.

I'm trying to stop DLE from monkeying with .POG files without asking you, but it's a months-long project and I'm only maybe at the middle of it. Diedel already fixed the palette-swapping issue, so as long as you re-import the .POG files after saving, nothing should be broken anymore.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Mon Aug 18, 2014 7:12 am

You're welcome to check out Eris for yourself and tell me what you think of my use of this texture. The theme of the level as of now is Fire, thanks to its closeness to Descent.PIG, changed it from GroupA a while ago and it does look better.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 8:22 am

I'm trying to fix the robot and door sounds in the Falls of Truth but I'm having a hard time doing it .It seems as though the previous HAM file this level was made with is somehow imprinted upon it and can't be undone. Deleting the doors and putting them in again doesn't work, the level still seems to be drawing on a nonexistent .HAM file. I'm thinking about marking the entire level and simply copying it as a block and pasting into an empty level, maybe that would fix things... I have no other idea at this time.

EDIT: Okaaaaaay, I get everything now. Naphtha simply put in the entire Descent2.HAM file into the HOG, and it was normally invisible and I needed to tick "show all files" to see it. The D2.HAM file was obviously an outdated one from before when I made UUD2SP and was experimenting with replacing multiplayer sounds instead. Haha. Naphtha, you did say something about this, but I couldn't catch your drift back then. Hee hee.

Anyway, at least you confirmed it's possible to put the main .HAM file of the game into a .HOG file, that would save everyone the trouble of needing a separate Rebirth folder to account for the weapon and boss changes, but that would require adding an instance of the HAM file for each level, which would increase the size of the finished file exorbitantly, so it would probably be better to replace the main game file after all.

Naphtha · Post by **Naphtha** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 10:45 am

As far as I know, both DESCENT2.HAM and D2X.HAM can be modded and put inside the .HOG, but Rebirth and Retro don't seem to support .S11 and .S22 stashed internally just yet. That's why those ones weren't included and the sounds came out weird, because I had to replace the defaults to test the sounds. Since we can't put all of them inside the .HOG, we might just have to resort to external storage for now to make things cleaner, but I'm sure it can always be brought up to Zico and Drakona.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 12:01 pm

Ok, I've tweaked the Falls of Truth and reuploaded it.

- Had to change the mission name from "Falls of Truth by Naphtha" to simply "Falls of Truth", else my Rebirth wouldn't run it

- Tweaked lighting by changing the luminosity values of the small round lights, small unbreakable lights and door lights to 60% each and then running the automatic lighting process. Before some lights (especially the unbreakable truncated square ones) were so dark they didn't actually seem to emit light at all.

- Removed the obsolete HAM file, which fixed the sounds.

- Added the boss - Vertigo 1. Also inserted a modified version of d2x.ham to support it. No extra files needed to play the level this way and the robot has been improved.

- Couldn't really do anything about the red spiderbot monitor, since you used all other kinds of monitors in the level anyway, so there was nothing I could replace with the spiderbot monitor frames (I'm talking about its completely screwed up animation when shattered) I simply replaced it with the Red Fatty monitor for now.

I've forgotten how to create such POG files using DTX2, and DLE itself doesn't really allow frame-by-frame editing of monitors, lava etc, so my hands are tied for now. It's best to start making levels with immediately importing d1optim.POG before starting work - it's easier to discard D1-only textures you don't want than to add them late into the editing, as far as monitors are concerned. Maybe newer versions of DLE will allow editing monitor frames, things will be much easier then.

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 7:32 pm

DarkFlameWolf wrote:If I'm not mistaken, I think Lightwolf 'contributed' a level to The Enemy Within. I think it was level 17, The Endless Flows. Granted, I had to rebuild that level from scratch and make it into something more than what was given to me, but his basic design never changed. I tried to stay true to his build as best as possible. But If this is the same Lightwolf I'm thinking of...

I have no idea who it was, but I know it was not me. Unless you're talking about very recently (within one or two years), that is

And I still can't seem to find a link to Falls of Truth, and I'm beginning to grow impatient.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 2:26 am

LightWolf wrote:
DarkFlameWolf wrote:If I'm not mistaken, I think Lightwolf 'contributed' a level to The Enemy Within. I think it was level 17, The Endless Flows. Granted, I had to rebuild that level from scratch and make it into something more than what was given to me, but his basic design never changed. I tried to stay true to his build as best as possible. But If this is the same Lightwolf I'm thinking of...
I have no idea who it was, but I know it was not me. Unless you're talking about very recently (within one or two years), that is

And I still can't seem to find a link to Falls of Truth, and I'm beginning to grow impatient.

You're growing impatient, oh wow. Don't you think that sounds a little bit too entitled?

Naphtha · Post by **Naphtha** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 12:18 pm

Xfing wrote:Ok, I've tweaked the Falls of Truth and reuploaded it.

- Had to change the mission name from "Falls of Truth by Naphtha" to simply "Falls of Truth", else my Rebirth wouldn't run it

- Tweaked lighting by changing the luminosity values of the small round lights, small unbreakable lights and door lights to 60% each and then running the automatic lighting process. Before some lights (especially the unbreakable truncated square ones) were so dark they didn't actually seem to emit light at all.

- Removed the obsolete HAM file, which fixed the sounds.

- Added the boss - Vertigo 1. Also inserted a modified version of d2x.ham to support it. No extra files needed to play the level this way and the robot has been improved.

- Couldn't really do anything about the red spiderbot monitor, since you used all other kinds of monitors in the level anyway, so there was nothing I could replace with the spiderbot monitor frames (I'm talking about its completely screwed up animation when shattered) I simply replaced it with the Red Fatty monitor for now.

Huh, I thought I put the boss in just fine.

Either way, though, I'm all right with most of the other changes. I try to keep lighting as consistent as possible so D2X-XL doesn't change it much from what you see in Rebirth and Retro, but since most levels tend to be darker there anyway when you enable lightmaps, I guess I can let it slide.

Understood about the monitor as well, btw, and I tried to eliminate any instances of it in the level, but I must have missed one or two.