DescentBB

LightWolf wrote:Ok, time for Varuna 3.1!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwhA94 ... sp=sharing

I changed some of the textures, completely eliminated the red key tunnels, got rid of two of the blue key matcens, and did some minor matcen rewiring. In removing the tunnels and realigning the red key room, I even fixed the glitchy door. There were a few other minor tweaks as well.

Ok, let's say I'm sufficiently impressed. You've got yourself a spot! Good job. Of course there's still some minor things to take care of, but I'll do it after I'm done with Makemake. You've finally got your boss level on the list, how's that feel?

Only regret is that it couldn't be sooner. Or more purple.
And now I'm representing every portion of the set. Did anyone catch that?

Hey friends,

I've uploaded my progress of Level 29, the Salt Distillation Facility, to Dropbox. I kind of remember why I slacked off on my level building; I'm stuck as all hell on this map. Can anyone take a look at it, give me some pointers, even do some building if one is so inclined? Any inspiration or anything would be appreciated too, I'm just at a loss of where to go.

Can I have a link?

Kaizerwolf wrote:Hey friends,

I've uploaded my progress of Level 29, the Salt Distillation Facility, to Dropbox. I kind of remember why I slacked off on my level building; I'm stuck as all hell on this map. Can anyone take a look at it, give me some pointers, even do some building if one is so inclined? Any inspiration or anything would be appreciated too, I'm just at a loss of where to go.

Well, as far as the texturing goes, it does look Limefrost-ish with that D1 spin. If you want an idea, add some simple, facility-like areas using the white lab wall texturing you used for Virus Lab. What you've got already works nice as a hub. I'm pretty burned out from working on Makemake myself, frankly, so not much advice I can give you

Xfing wrote: Well, as far as the texturing goes, it does look Limefrost-ish with that D1 spin. If you want an idea, add some simple, facility-like areas using the white lab wall texturing you used for Virus Lab. What you've got already works nice as a hub. I'm pretty burned out from working on Makemake myself, frankly, so not much advice I can give you

Yeah, I wanted to add more areas as a lab-ish area, just trying to figure out the right layout. I like that I decided to use multiple ice textures for walls floors and ceilings, it adds a lot of variety to the ice textures. Just gotta find some inspiration...

Kaizerwolf wrote:

Xfing wrote: Well, as far as the texturing goes, it does look Limefrost-ish with that D1 spin. If you want an idea, add some simple, facility-like areas using the white lab wall texturing you used for Virus Lab. What you've got already works nice as a hub. I'm pretty burned out from working on Makemake myself, frankly, so not much advice I can give you

Yeah, I wanted to add more areas as a lab-ish area, just trying to figure out the right layout. I like that I decided to use multiple ice textures for walls floors and ceilings, it adds a lot of variety to the ice textures. Just gotta find some inspiration...

BTW, I would ask you the same thing. I'm uploading what I have on Makemake so far. It's level 16. Most of the layout is done, it just needs the reactor room and the yellow door area, both are meant to branch off horizontally from the titular shaft, with the yellow key immediately available at the bottom of the shaft (still haven't placed it, haha). Would you mind taking a look? I've already asked Naphtha to take a look too, but be my guest. I'm completely for joint efforts. If not, some suggestions would help too.

ΕDIT: Right now I'm thinking of using the two branched tunnels for entrances to the yellow area - an extensive red area wouldn't be such a good idea, since it does take a while to get to the exit. A simple, one-room reactor chamber akin to D1L15, placed opposite of where you get the yellow key, would probably be the best idea here - that would let you destroy the reactor from the outside and then have a clear way towards the exit. Even if the reactor weren't visible or destructible from the outside, it would just cost a good pilot 5 seconds at most to enter the chamber and take care of it. Yeah, that's probably the route I'll go here. Still, I could use help with the yellow area, since it can very much afford to be extensive (we're only at <500 cubes here!)

BTW, I've found files for several levels marked as updated yesterday on Dropbox, designated "Phozon Blaster's conflicted copy". What's that about, Phozon? :O

Speaking of updating things, I updated Claw Marks and Red Moons Rising in the music folder -- in both cases, to hopefully make the guitars sound a bit better. If you've downloaded them already you probably want to redownload.

Made some progress on the Salt Distillation Facility. The textures are a lot of fun to work with.

but...

don't you just hate it when you're working, you've made something look really cool, only to find out the dimensions don't match from left to right, so you have to scrap it and start again? Apparently I can't tell the different between 40 units extended on one side, and 60 on the other.

If it looks cool does it matter that it's perfectly symmetrical?

Alter-Fox wrote:If it looks cool does it matter that it's perfectly symmetrical?

I tend to build more symmetrically, but even in this case it looked good from facing it, but if you turned a 180 you could see from the other cubes around how messy it turned out. Ah well, to try again later!

Has happened a lot to me, but you get better at dealing with it with experience. Minor asymmetries are a much bigger problem - when you want a room to be even from both sides etc. Not only stretching or contracting cubes comes into the picture, but the order of operations is important too.

Xfing wrote:BTW, I've found files for several levels marked as updated yesterday on Dropbox, designated "Phozon Blaster's conflicted copy". What's that about, Phozon? :O

I have no idea i haven't touched this for ages

Oh you know what. After looking at them it says they came from my years old laptop which I just got to run one more time recently, so something must have auto updated when that was on?? weird/
I didn't specifically change any of them so I guess if the originals are still how they're supposed to be, these are fine to delete.. hmm

Phozon wrote:

Xfing wrote:BTW, I've found files for several levels marked as updated yesterday on Dropbox, designated "Phozon Blaster's conflicted copy". What's that about, Phozon? :O

I have no idea i haven't touched this for ages

Oh you know what. After looking at them it says they came from my years old laptop which I just got to run one more time recently, so something must have auto updated when that was on?? weird/
I didn't specifically change any of them so I guess if the originals are still how they're supposed to be, these are fine to delete.. hmm

Ok, I'll do it when I've got a moment. BTW, how are you holding up? Feel like designing a level anytime soon?

Just a little inspiration gets me a few new rooms on the Salt mine. What do you guys think?

Looks good geometrically! I really like the choice of textures too. Just make sure the D2 ice textures get an equal representation. Also, if you feel the D2 doorlights fit better, go ahead and use them. I like the D1 doorlights but it's not like we have to use them in every single level (except of course the Solar System)

I'm partial to the D1 door light since it's easy to work with, a cube just needs to be ~5 units long for the door light texture to fit nicely. The D2 ones are okay, but they tend to be 7-8 units long, and sometimes they don't always fit nicely. But on my unnamed Beta Ceti level, I'll be sure to use the D2 doorlights!

Kaizerwolf wrote:I'm partial to the D1 door light since it's easy to work with, a cube just needs to be ~5 units long for the door light texture to fit nicely. The D2 ones are okay, but they tend to be 7-8 units long, and sometimes they don't always fit nicely. But on my unnamed Beta Ceti level, I'll be sure to use the D2 doorlights!

No sweat! I'm sure you'll make the right call, as you've proven several times already

I would finish Makemake maybe even today, but I'm trying to beat level 11 of Descent. Not going that well -__-

That does look quite nice. On the first screenshot it looks like the floor is visible through the wall -- but if that's a rebirth bug it's not your fault.

Alter-Fox wrote:That does look quite nice. On the first screenshot it looks like the floor is visible through the wall -- but if that's a rebirth bug it's not your fault.

Intentional design, I think you're talking about the floor cube with a light on it?

Yeeeeeeess... maybe I'm looking at it wrong.

Makemake is done! I think. It's only got 604 segments, so either I've become real good at cube economy, or this level is real small. Well, it is pretty fast if you ignore all optional areas, but I guess it could be expanded if one was stubborn. Please check it out, fly through it and give me your feedback. Here are some screens.

Entryway


Automap


Shaft entrance from the outside


From the inside


BTW, how to take screenshots like the ones you did, Kaizerwolf?

EDIT: I knew I forgot something! Nuestros amigos los hostages Added seven of them to the level, in two cells - one of them quite elaborate and cube-intensive. Now the level's finally complete. I guess.

I don't think it's particularly short, or if it is the layout is confusing enough to make up for it!
Did see a few places with seemingly wrong textures -- I don't like that the "bleed" area for the reactor matcen starts over halfway down the wall, in particular -- and I admit I'm not a fan of the "reactor down a tube", cuz you did that once already I think. Everything else seems good though. Reminds me kinda of Hyperion from D1.

Alter-Fox wrote:Did see a few places with seemingly wrong textures -- I don't like that the "bleed" area for the reactor matcen starts over halfway down the wall, in particular

It shouldn't, it was supposed to start right next to the matcen cube, obviously. I'll check it out again

-- and I admit I'm not a fan of the "reactor down a tube", cuz you did that once already I think. Everything else seems good though. Reminds me kinda of Hyperion from D1.

I made it a point to make the reactor room this time as short and simple as possible, to give the player enough time to get to the exit after blowing up the reactor. But I've noticed that it takes about 17 seconds, so I could afford something more complicated I guess

EDIT: Oh yeah, the bleed texture is actually in both those places. Guess it can be done away with, simple as.

The bleed texture does start next to the matcen, but it "tiles" again halfway down the wall.
Rebirth doesn't let me take screenshots that work, and I can't run the level in D2X-XL because of the custom PIG, I don't know how to help you find them.
There's another place with a default "rock20" texture on one wall that doesn't match anything else in the room, and a set of door lights that are horizontal instead of vertical.

As for the reactor structure I don't think you need to move it, just give it something to stand on or under instead of being at the back of a "pipe".

Alter-Fox wrote:The bleed texture does start next to the matcen, but it "tiles" again halfway down the wall.
Rebirth doesn't let me take screenshots that work, and I can't run the level in D2X-XL because of the custom PIG, I don't know how to help you find them.
There's another place with a default "rock20" texture on one wall that doesn't match anything else in the room, and a set of door lights that are horizontal instead of vertical.

As for the reactor structure I don't think you need to move it, just give it something to stand on or under instead of being at the back of a "pipe".

I used to have these problems with screenshots in Rebirth too, but ever since I got a new machine it's not been a problem.

Well, those minor things you mentioned are obviously oversights, you could just correct them on your own if you've already pinpointed them

As for the reactor, I'll try something a little bit more elaborate, but first maybe you could fix those errors

Sounds like an expensive fix.
I'm not at home most of the day but I'll probably have time in the evening to fix a few textures, yeah.

BTW - I've started working on a new music track called "Big Red". Like Claw Marks and Inside Out I've got a particular map in mind to introduce it, the name probly tells you which one.

Alter-Fox wrote: BTW - I've started working on a new music track called "Big Red". Like Claw Marks and Inside Out I've got a particular map in mind to introduce it, the name probly tells you which one.

Yeah, it does Good luck! Making electronic music is a chore, I know alright ;x

Next order of business for me is to convert and retexture Lightwolf's level, which I might do soon-ish. I always do those things eventually

When you do, go for half-brown and half-green. A few mixed rooms should look nice too.

Kaizerwolf wrote:[D2 Door Lights] tend to be 7-8 units long, and sometimes they don't always fit nicely.

The default D2 door lights are exactly 7.5 units long, and the "fatter" ones are exactly 8.125U long. It seems like the D1 ones are exactly 6.125U long.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Xfing wrote:BTW, how to take screenshots like the ones you did, Kaizerwolf?

I think you just hold alt and push F7 until your HUD disappears. There's probably an easier way, but that's how I'd do it.

"Big Red" is on the dropbox now btw.

Just listened to the song. Holy ★■◆●, it definitely does capture the retro Descent 1 vibe! Not sure if it's quite dramatic and pulse pounding enough for the boss level, but to be fair, the original songs never were either so it's all good I guess

Well, it is the first boss too.
...
Speaking of other bosses, I had an idea for an arena for Frosty that would put a slightly different spin on the fight than how it usually went in Counterstrike. If I can figure out how to make it work I guess I'll take that map.

Alter-Fox wrote:Well, it is the first boss too.
...
Speaking of other bosses, I had an idea for an arena for Frosty that would put a slightly different spin on the fight than how it usually went in Counterstrike. If I can figure out how to make it work I guess I'll take that map.

Wouldn't that be sweet! Keep in mind that collabs are possible, so if you only have an idea for the boss arena, but not for the rest of the level, you could always let one of us know. Naphtha helped me out with the boss arena for Ceres and everyone's happier for it.

Happy Holidays by the way

I've got an idea - go for serious cave-ness.
P.S. What's the approximate basic story so far? (No details, just the basics - aside from PTMC forcing you to fight infected bots )

LightWolf wrote:....go for serious cave-ness.

Don't we all, though?

LightWolf wrote:I've got an idea - go for serious cave-ness.
P.S. What's the approximate basic story so far? (No details, just the basics - aside from PTMC forcing you to fight infected bots )

There will be a level of story exposition comparable to D1 and D2 - which is to say not much. Basically another dude walks into Dravis' office a while after Vertigo 7 leaves and gets briefed. MD1032 might receive his write-off treatment in the meantime, which could tie into the briefing from Dravis' perspective. (EDIT: Just remembered that had actually already happened at the start of Vertigo, lol) At the end our pilot will probably get paid what he's due, but will start noticing something's fishy about all that and will be kicked to the curb by Dravis and told not to ask too many questions and keep his nose to the pavement, which he will reluctantly do.

Now that I have download rights to the dropbox, I'm playing through the levels (and eating lunch). Probably going to edit this quite a bit.
I really like the first few levels, though I think that level 1 is a touch large. Can't play Sedna for some reason.
As for salt facility suggestions: Put the blue key in an omega, and make the blue door more industrial-heavy with a fair amount of switches. Make yellow more natural/cave-y.

Edit: I really like R'eeie's forcefield puzzle.

Edit 2: I have officially concluded that the Rebirth BETA 0.60 is very unstable with these levels.

LightWolf wrote:
Edit 2: I have officially concluded that the Rebirth BETA 0.60 is very unstable with these levels.

Looks like you've answered your own question, lel. Just use up to date Rebirth or XL.

The Rebirth guys probably would appreciate the bug reports, too.