Descent 1,5: first 10 levels control thread.

[Xfing]

Guys, I'm very sorry for my recent inactivity, real life's caught up to me and I haven't had the occasion to post. But now I should have a weeny bit more time on my hands.

I think that due to the largeness of the project we might as well split it into smaller chunks, which is why I made this thread. It will be more manageable to take things piecemeal and just focus on ten levels for now. I'm not talking the first ten chronologically, but just ten random ones, to have an easier time marking the milestone.

The levels whose layouts are more or less completed include:

Level 1: Lunar Titanium Mine
Level 2: Venus SO2 mine
Level 15: Sedna Lost Station
Level 16: Circularis
Level 29: Ku'thaaz G'herb-ilk Station

(I'm at work now, but when I'm back home I can upload some screenshots if you're interested).

All these levels are deposited on a cloud drive https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ebxnw29fnwotes6/_uNLt-AlkG here. I no longer hold them on my hard drive so as to keep versions uniform. You are free to download, see and correct all the levels as you see fit if you think you see something that can be improved.

In this thread we'll see to the completion of 10 levels. As luck would have it, we're halfway through that milestone, so that is something we'll be able to accomplish in a reasonable scope of time.

Firstly: lemme know how your levels are coming along, Sirius, NT and Pumo?

Secondly: NT, You also said you would see what you can do to improve Sedna and fix that door and switch in Circularis. Are you able to access that dropbox directory I put up?

Thirdly: Same with Alter-Fox, I recall you mentioning something about wanting to fix some texture error or something in K-station. Were you able to?

Finally: Pumo, how are you holding up with that random PIG file? I'm impatient as ever about that one

[Sirius]

Nothing material yet, just done some concepting to figure out what I want to do with it. Think I'm done with that for now, though - just need to start makin' stuff.

[Naphtha]

I'm sorry for taking so long, my creative attention span's been pretty split lately. ^^;; I did get back to finishing the tweaks to the Sedna level and chopped things down to 713 cubes, simplifying the starting/yellow area quite a bit and fixing the grate issue while leaving the boss room intact. I hope I didn't add so much detail that it stands out from the other levels, but it should at least be easier on a crappy graphics card like the one my computer has. XD;;

I did also make the quick fix to Circularis, so expect a zipped Dropbox folder with links to both levels. I'd like to promise additional levels, but my mind's been racing with other ideas lately so I don't want to make promises I'm not sure I can keep. I do still want to do at least one for each Descent 2 system if I can get enough time and inspiration, but I've been working on other levels as well that wouldn't fit so well (too much detail, basically), but if an idea comes to me that would fit one of the level slots, then definitely I'll put it towards it.

[Xfing]

I'm sorry for taking so long, my creative attention span's been pretty split lately. ^^;; I did get back to finishing the tweaks to the Sedna level and chopped things down to 713 cubes, simplifying the starting/yellow area quite a bit and fixing the grate issue while leaving the boss room intact. I hope I didn't add so much detail that it stands out from the other levels, but it should at least be easier on a crappy graphics card like the one my computer has. XD;;

I did also make the quick fix to Circularis, so expect a zipped Dropbox folder with links to both levels. I'd like to promise additional levels, but my mind's been racing with other ideas lately so I don't want to make promises I'm not sure I can keep. I do still want to do at least one for each Descent 2 system if I can get enough time and inspiration, but I've been working on other levels as well that wouldn't fit so well (too much detail, basically), but if an idea comes to me that would fit one of the level slots, then definitely I'll put it towards it.

Sweet, thanks a lot. I'll give you feedback later after I'm back from work. Don't worry too much about speed, we're not in a hurry anywhere. I did some research and it turns out that some community projects at Doomworld took as much as 8 years to complete (and I venture a guess that the Doom community is way, way bigger than ours). We're not even 4 years in, so no worries It would be refreshing to see a single level every once in a while just to keep people hooked on the project and to avoid the impression that it's on hiatus or dead.

[Xfing]

Alright, feedback time!

Circularis is perfect, everything's been fixed and it works perfectly. The only thing that still bothers me are the round lights which use the unbreakable yellowish texture instead of the breakable, white one. I know this was a D2X-XL colored light consideration, but both authenticity and established mainstream Descent conventions dictate that we should rather use the white light. Aesthetics lean towards it too, as the yellowish light doesn't really fit Zeta Aquilae. It looks more retro in a bad way too.

As for Sedna - You did a splendid job on reducing the cube count, as quite frankly, I haven't noticed any structural changes at all (except for the grate). Sadly, another problem has sprung up, but that's none of your fault: the newest DLE screws up imported animated textures in yet another way - only displays the first frame as the imported texture and all the remaining frames as the original texture. What results is a clusterfk, so I hope Sirius and Diedel fix this soon

Or maybe it's just that the POG file got corrupted in the transition to the new features that Sirius implemented.

EDIT: Yes, it indeed was. Fixed. Anyway, good job NT. Good luck on your next levels

[Alter-Fox]

I haven't had the time to fix the textures I wanted to -- I've been really busy with some contract work, finishing Creatures of the Nether, realizing who that ocelot reminds me of, writing some songs for Talon (which, I guess, also counts as contract work), continuing work on the episode outlines and character sketches for The Sol Contingency, watching Doctor Who specials leading up to November 23, having dreams about turning into a snow leopard, etc...

I might have some time soon though.

[Xfing]

Yep, having multiple interests is a problem that we probably all share

[Xfing]

10 levels done - achievement unlocked!

[Xfing]

20 levels milestone achieved. Yayyyy