DescentBB

Quite a bit of attention has been given to the design tutorials formerly hosted on GameEdit, but I haven't heard too much noise about the levels that may have fallen off the face of the Internet when GameEdit went under. In January 2004 I went through the GameEdit site and made a list of levels hosted there which Planet Descent was not hosting (and downloaded them). The list is given below. Some of the more recent levels may have been added to PD at a later date. Also, I have not checked to see if the files are hosted at KoolBear's or some other archive (I know for example that The Fellowship levels are hosted on a German site). The list contains both single and multiplayer creations.

There is also a short list of another four levels at the bottom which I have acquired somewhere since January 2004, and these may or may not have come from GameEdit (I just don't remember), but I am listing them just in case.

LEVEL OR MOD - AUTHOR
--------------------------------------------------------------
1001 Ways to Die - Starkiller
21 Plus ! 1.0 G - [TA]Marek
3 Ships - Starkiller/Messenger
ABANDONED - Mike "schplurg" Massei
Ancient of Days - Skyrat
Anemo - Solrazor
Centrifuge 2 - {[OOW}]DragoN, aka Draegos
Crammed - ?
The Crossing - {[OOW]}DragoN, aka Draegos
Crushed v1.0 - Ima Gonr
Deep Space 1.2. - Jugernaut
DOWNWARD SPIRAL - Valence
ES-441 - ees122
Hyperspace: Divided 1.1 - Pete (Hunter)
Intense - Jiven
Knight of the coconut - [DCG]Roadrunner
LUNAR OUTPOST FOR D3 - Argos
Lunar Outpost MN0019 v11 - Skyalmian
Planet X Alien Version 1.0 - Falk Fischer (Fischlein)
Pyrohawk - KILLSU2
Rover Fun - {DPA}Breach
Spaceship Nexus - [NuB]Stryker
Super Brain Salad Surgery - SKULL and KILLSU2
Team Veins 2 - Luke Schneider, Outrage (Modified by Testiculese)
The Fellowship - Fellowship Team
The Tub (El Bano) - [CU]Argos and Jiven
Temple Of Frustration - KILLSU2
Trinity - NgC
Tuberacer Team Fortress - Tuberacer
Tunnel Rat Dueling Arenas - Sirian
Vortex 2 - Papacat
Waltz'n Matilda - [RIP]DwnUndr
Wicked Garden v1.2 - Jugernaut
Wildfire - KILLSU2
WindMine StarGate (Pt. 3) - Ron Lester
WindMine Secret Planet (Pt. 4) - Ron Lester
WindMine Hidden Worlds (Pt. 5) - Ron Lester
Zion - Kyouryuu




Blown Starship (Modded) - (LL)ATAN
Blown Starship - (LL)ATAN
One Step Closer v2.0 - The_Edge
Score CTF - Pete (Hunter)

Before GameEdit went under I downloaded every level from the levels folder, so I should have them all. I don't see any in there that I may have deleted (in the months when I took Schplurg's doctrine of Quality more seriously) from GE due to either not being lit or having terrible design errors (example of the second being the first Wicked Garden). If you can tell me what the .zip filename for those levels are, I'll quickly gather them up and submit them. Level name does not always equal the .zip file name, so it'd take me forever to sort through the list to figure out which is which for the ones with different names.

There are several on that list that PD definitely has, including Hyperspace Divided, Lunar Outpost MN0001 and 0019, and the Fellowship set. Make sure you're looking at the new dynamic level archive, located here. However, there are many on there that I don't see in the archive; I'm highly surprised that we don't have Zion, in particular. If we don't have some of those, just send them in to one of the staff members, and we'll get them hosted.

MN0019

He's referring to the 1.1 version, which PD does not have. 1.0 has a couple of severe bugs that can cause the level to not be completed.

LEVEL OR MOD - NAME
------------------------------
1001 Ways to Die - 1001.zip
21 Plus ! 1.0 G - 21plus1c.zip
3 Ships - ships.zip
ABANDONED - abandoned.zip
Ancient of Days - aod.zip
Anemo - anemo11.zip
Centrifuge 2 - centrifuge_2.zip
Crammed - crammed.zip
The Crossing - crossing.zip
Crushed v1.0 - crushed.zip
Deep Space 1.2. - Deep Space 1.2.zip
DOWNWARD SPIRAL - dspiral.zip
ES-441 - es441.zip
Hyperspace: Divided 1.1 - hyperdivided12.zip
Intense - intense.zip
Knight of the coconut - timewap.zip
LUNAR OUTPOST FOR D3 - d1v5.zip
Lunar Outpost MN0019 v11 - MN0019_11.zip
Planet X Alien Version 1.0 - planxali.zip
Pyrohawk - pyrohawk.zip
Rover Fun - rover.zip
Spaceship Nexus - nexus.zip
Super Brain Salad Surgery - sbss.zip
Team Veins 2 - teamveins1.zip
The Fellowship - fellowship.zip
The Tub (El Bano) - el bano.zip
Temple Of Frustration - tof.zip
Trinity - Trinity.zip
Tuberacer Team Fortress - trtf.zip
Tunnel Rat Dueling Arenas - duel-rats.zip
Vortex 2 - vortex2.zip
Waltz'n Matilda - waltznmatilda.zip
Wicked Garden v1.2 - wickedgv12.zip
Wildfire - Wildfire.zip
WindMine StarGate (Pt. 3) - gate.zip
WindMine Secret Planet (Pt. 4) - planet.zip
WindMine Hidden Worlds (Pt. 5) - hiddenw.zip
Zion - zion.zip




Blown Starship (Modded) - bstarshipmod.zip
Blown Starship - starship.zip
One Step Closer v2.0 - osc20.zip
Score CTF - score.zip


It is possible that one or two of these levels made the list because I could not originally download them from Planet Descent but could do so from GameEdit. I f it turns out you need any, just say the word.

Have all except One Step Closer v2.0 (OSC20.zip) and Rover Fun (Rover.zip). Rover, if I remember right, wasn't lit, so I had removed it. OSC I don't recall.

Now, to whom of PD should I submit them to?

You could submit them to TBird, or Do_Checkor, or even me, for that matter.

Should have clarified: to whomever will post them the soonest.

No matter who gets them, Do_Checkor will have to physically add them to the DFiles server; he usually takes care of this very quickly, though. I can't speak for anyone else, but I can say that I would be able to add them to the level database and get them added to Checkor's FTP server fairly quickly.

Nice work guys!

IIRC, you mentioned Zion in the Planet Descent news, but you linked to my Planet Descent site's download for it rather than your own database.

To those wondering about the slight delay: I've had school work keeping me busy this week, but I should get all of the levels entered into the database and uploaded as of tomorrow afternoon.

Edit: Yeah, Kyouryuu, that's probably what I did. Now, with a dynamic level archive and Checkor having taken over level-uploading duties, it's a lot easier for anyone to add them to the database.

Well Checkor only handles the DF side of it, I still have to upload the levels to FP...but I don't think anyone cares about FP .

Sorry for the slightly more extended delay; there's quite a few levels among the bunch that are seemingly already hosted on PD and need checking, plus I need to check the auto-download links and make the database entries. Looks like I may not be the fastest person; what can I say, I'm lazy? Anyway, I solemnly promise to get the levels uploaded at some time tomorrow.

Top Gun wrote:Anyway, I solemnly promise to get the levels uploaded at some time tomorrow.

Yawn...

While we are at it -- could someone please upload Pyromania 1.5g to PD ?

It is, Grendel. The main page was just never updated. Here's the link.

To Do_Checkor and everyone else, yes, I lied. I'm working on it as we speak. Hopefully, by tomorrow, you'll see those levels up there.

P.S. College sucks.

Frogot about mine?:
Ahayweh Gate For D3!

Top Gun wrote:It is, Grendel. The main page was just never updated. Here's the link.

Nice ! I'll change my request: could someone please link it into PD ?

No. S-Priest made a little new homepage for Pyromania, wich I am hosting already. He didn't officially release it yet but I'll post news within the next days / weeks.

Well, at long last, I have all of the levels uploaded. I'm just waiting on Checkor to upload them to DFiles before I make a news post at PD. One note: any levels on that list that I didn't add were already on PD as the exact same version, so don't think I lost a few.

Do_Checkor wrote:No. S-Priest made a little new homepage for Pyromania, wich I am hosting already. He didn't officially release it yet but I'll post news within the next days / weeks.

Huh ? Pyromania 1.5g got released what a year ago ? W/ the comment "this is the last version". And you refuse to link it in ? I don't get it.

now on dfiles.de and descentforum.net ...

regardin PM: it isn't the final version... wait a few days...

Then take at least PM 1.2 down..

Skyalmian wrote:(example of the second being the first Wicked Garden).

or Subway Dancer. =)

I did my searching on Subway Dancer a long time ago. Nowhere does D3Edit list any of the following that are required to exit the level shell (which is the case with Wicked Garden): concave faces, mismatched portals, non-planar faces, bad portals, bad shells, and degenerate faces. The only errors it does have are 49 bad normals, which are on the cans sitting on the benches in the boarding rooms -- not possible to exit the level through something that's only maybe 1.5 units long. Please point out where the hole in the level is.

In the subway station area with the vampire poster on the pole. Sit down in the railroad tracks depression and fly towards the vampire pole. You will end up outside the level.

I see what you mean now...
It's a concave face. D3Edit's Concave face checker by default is too high.
Setting it to the lowest number and checking the room alone reveals 10 concave faces. The opposite side, which can be flown through also, has 4 concave faces.

Checking the whole level shows 86 such faces.

Poor level design at work.

whoa.. That's quite a few.

Clean up in level 4!

They just don't make em like they used to.

I believe the facececker is newer then most of the levels designed with D3Edit.
Is there any level without concave faces if you use the facechecker below default level, Skyaliman?
For example, btc has 20 concave faces if you check it. Poor level design? I don't think Otherone is a bad level designer, you should be very careful before posting.

How nice of you to make your first post in this thread.

Magifre wrote:Is there any level without concave faces if you use the facechecker below default level, Skyaliman?
For example, btc has 20 concave faces if you check it. Poor level design? I don't think Otherone is a bad level designer,

Of course there are -- the levels where 1. the designer didn't let D3Edit automatically make the portals / split surrounding faces (that tends to cause minor concave faces) and instead did it all manually and 2. he/she made everything snap to grid. Do that, and the chances of these mini-concave faces popping up are slim to none. Looking at BTC, the concave faces are on the light fixtures. Take out the light fixtures and make them snap to grid of 5 on all 3 planes, which they appear to have been made on, and the concave faces go away... Odd.
Looking at other levels, I see that Ascent has 0, Hellfire has 0, Halcyon has 0, Skybox has 0, Aquarius has 0, Stadium has 2, Worlds Apart 2 has 2, Damage has 2, Abend 2 has 2, and Burning Indika 3 has 2 (both caused by D3Edit's splitting of a face for a door portal). All of those numbers are well below the insanely high one of 86. When I was looking at the Subway Dancer room where the player can escape the level, even the tracks were half made of concave faces. So yes, something quite wrong there.

you should be very careful before posting.

I'll post what I want.

Thx ;)
hehe, I see what you post always..,
just what you want... :)
You focused a known problem to a single level,
it's a shame how you trying to keep that level alive this way.

the facechecker in d3edit is faulty if you set it below defaults, it reports bad faces but this faces are not bad. make very small faces with small distance between the vertices and it will allways report them as bad even if they are not.

more likely a problem with the precision it calculates the faulty faces.

for example you have a face with 2 vertices on the same plane, one at x5.0007 the other at x5.0002 . the face isnt bad and d3 wont see it as bad. but d3edit calculates 5.000 for both and will report a bad face. (just an example, not real values)

simple resize the room and make it 2 times bigger, all errors gone.

DigiJo wrote:the facechecker in d3edit is faulty if you set it below defaults, it reports bad faces but this faces are not bad. make very small faces with small distance between the vertices and it will allways report them as bad even if they are not.

I can see that being the case for some of them, but not all of them. I looked. The light fixture concave faces in BTC didn't appear to be, but zoom in on Subway Dancer's, Burning Indika 3's, and Damage's and you can see the slight deviation on the faces. Damage's two faces are blatantly concave if you look.

And now you know why staying on the grid is a good idea! The same thing is true in Unreal levels. If you decide to go off-roading and ignore the grid, you're opening the doors to a whole slew of fun problems.

Usually, I think D3Edit is pretty good about finding concave faces, although I think the sensitivity of this setting changed somewhere in the beta versions. By default, it might be too ignorant. D3Edit's precision only goes out to thousandths place. So minor discrepencies can't be caught or fixed sometimes.

For me, it's some twisted joy trying to make all of my levels be zero in every relevant category on the error checker.

Finding concave faces has never been a problem for me. Fixing them sometimes is a real bear. That and open shells. Doors are terrible for this. The doorsframes are terrible in many cases with concave faces or open shells. I have found that if you split a face where a new vert is placed in an edge that borders a portal, you will get a concave face in the portal itself. In which case you must now blow away the portal, fix the T-joint and then re-establish the portal.
Atan's version, though it tends to crash, has a lot of cool tweeks and room tools that make a number of things much easier to handle.
Anymore, I continually check my levels as I go and fix these problems as they come up. It's much easier that way than trying to go back and cleas things up. I've had to delete entire areas of a level at times to fix some problems.

Oh damn.

Update: every missing level that Skyalmian sent me is now hosted on PD.

Thanks.