DescentBB

Hey folks,

It’s finally done! After two years of work, I’ve completed Galax Rebirth, a complete remake of Galax, the very first Anarchy level I ever created for Descent 2 during its heyday. Ultimately, the remake differs significantly from the source material, but some layout elements have carried over from the (laughably amateur) original.

Make no mistake, due to its dimensions and complexity this level is a beast! I had to trim it down several times during the course of its creation because it would cause Descent Rebirth to crash. As such, I’ll likely never create a Descent 2 level of this scope again because it’s incredibly time consuming to work with so many segments and keep them properly textured. Nevertheless, it was a fun challenge to tackle and I’m proud of the result.

Galax Rebirth, as the name implies, is designed with Descent Rebirth in mind and won’t run on the native Descent 2 software (the level has far too many segments). Given its size, I’m honestly not sure how good of an Anarchy level it’ll ultimately be, but it’s intended for eight players (heck, it could probably handle 16 players if such a thing were possible in Descent Rebirth).

You can download the level here: Galax Rebirth

Update: Pointed the link to the Galax Rebirth mission page on the Descent Mission Archive where you can find the latest version for download.

Below are some screenshots to provide you some idea of what’s in store for those who choose to play the level, however, they really don’t do it justice. You need to fly through it (and hopefully compete in it) for the best experience.

Editor View:



Level View:



















Galax vs. Galax Rebirth Comparison:

Looks beautiful. Not sure how it would play multi due to it's size but great job.

Thanks! It was definitely a labor of love. It took me far more time and focus to complete than my previous "rebirth" effort with Omnidoom, another of my old Descent 2 Anarchy levels from back in the day. Galax Rebirth turned out far better than Omnidoom Rebirth in my mind, but yeah, it's big. Probably too big, though I did try to make it easy to get from one end to the other. That said, this isn't even the first time I've remade Galax. I did so towards the end of Descent 2's heyday, but that one has been lost to time, unfortunately. If anyone happens to have it, though, I'd love to have it back.

Wow, that look unbelievable. Top-tier geometry and texturing, and it looks really fun to fly around. Great job!

Thank you! It's certainly fun to fly around.

8.8k segments! Holy moly I think that's a new record.

Yep! I wasn't kidding when I said this level was a beast. I had to be provided a modified DLE executable (from this very board, in fact) in order to even save the level because it has so many segments.

This level is MASSIVE. It's frigin gorgeous but I think way to big for even 12 people.

Time to implement 16-player Anarchy in Descent Rebirth. Let's make it happen! On a more serious note, yeah, the level is very large. I got a bit overzealous with the design.

Also, I've uploaded version 1.1 of Galax Rebirth (as of this post) since I found an area in the top-most level where some connected segments with fairly extreme geometry were causing player ships to get caught on seemingly nothing. DLE diagnostics didn't report any issues so I lucked out finding them.

I wonder what would happen if you tried to build a SP level...

It just so happens that D2X-XL gives you 20k segments to play with if you need them, along with a bunch of other features that you can add to your level.

To be honest, I've never had a real interest in building single player levels or campaigns. I've always had more fun building Anarchy levels in which to romp around with friends, although I haven't played Descent 2 Anarchy since the late 90's (testing levels doesn't count). As far as D2X-XL is concerned, even with such a high maximum segment count it's DLE, itself, that's the problem. Once my level starts hitting several thousand segments, DLE begins throwing "Out of Memory" errors when I'm manipulating textures. In the 8,000 segment range, I can resize, rotate, shift, or align textures maybe 20 times before DLE throws an "Out of Memory" error. I'm not sure what this error actually does since it doesn't crash DLE, but I've always closed it afterwards. Towards the end of Galax Rebirth I'd be restarting DLE every couple of minutes when I'm doing heavy texture manipulation. Very tedious.

On a side note, I had to re-upload Galax Rebirth 1.1 on the sly because I accidentally left some sides with the wrong texture and didn't want to create a new version. For folks who already downloaded the level earlier today, I recommend re-downloading it for a fix to my fix. Sorry about that.

Version 1.2 of Galax Rebirth is now available (download link in the original post). I don't plan on releasing any additional versions after this one unless someone reports something glaringly wrong with the level (size concerns aside) or some new feature is introduced to Descent Rebirth like support for additional players. As for the changes in this version:

• Added some missing light textures
• Made some minor texture changes and aesthetic improvements
• Performed some general texture alignment fixes

What an absolute beast of a level! Its scope reminds me of Omnidoom Rebirth. Is that one also by you? I can't remember

Xfing wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 5:26 pm What an absolute beast of a level! Its scope reminds me of Omnidoom Rebirth. Is that one also by you? I can't remember

Correct! I also did Omnidoom Rebirth, which was a remake of the original Omnidoom level I made back in the 90's. In fact, I'm considering redoing Omnidoom Rebirth after learning some things with Galax Rebirth. Regardless, Galax Rebirth was definitely a test in patience. I'm glad I was able to finish it because there were multiple times I didn't think I'd complete it.

Najarati wrote: ↑Tue Oct 06, 2020 2:48 pm Correct! I also did Omnidoom Rebirth, which was a remake of the original Omnidoom level I made back in the 90's. In fact, I'm considering redoing Omnidoom Rebirth after learning some things with Galax Rebirth. Regardless, Galax Rebirth was definitely a test in patience. I'm glad I was able to finish it because there were multiple times I didn't think I'd complete it.

Well, with this amount of skill in conveying detail, maybe you should do a single player level sometime too? Haha