DescentBB

Although not originally my intent, I've decided to turn this into a thread to collect my own new level releases. In order of appearance is Crownpoint, Crownpoint X, and my new release Gallup.



Crownpoint screenies...



What might not be apparent from the screenshots and what makes this level most unique are the transparent "glass" barriers seperating the center "dome" and four halls from the outside (see the spreadfire explosions in the 2nd shot). The dome must be entered by any of the four halls from the ring surrounding the level. I believe that it creates a particular "run but you can't hide" playing effect.

It's difficult to capture the level's essence with screenshots and talk, so I guess you'll have to just try it.

Crownpoint download:
http://home.comcast.net/~jeff250/descent/crown.zip

Note: Although this level is compatible with all versions of D2, any OpenGL version of D2x before Diedel's D2x-W32 1.4.2 update will experience rendering glitches, including the original 0.2.6 branch. For OpenGL, use of Diedel's D2x-W32 1.4.2+ is recommended, or just use the SDL/Software rendering D2x or a legacy version of Descent2 (v1.2, Win95, 3dfx).

Also, special thanks to Diedel for updating D2x and keeping D2 alive.

Jeff,

great work, you have created some truly crazy piece of architecture there!

How about creating a special D2X-W32 variant of the level (named "Crown Point - D2X-W32" or so) using colored walls? I find it pretty hard to play anarchy in a level with completely invisible transparent walls ...

karx

Didn't D2's transparent walls support tinting natively? Totally invisible walls seem a bit... frustrating. Like a bird flying into a windowpane.

If Jeff uses tinted walls, some faces aren't rendered at certain view angles by D2X-W32. That's why I had added the "Render Entire Mine" option. Initially that option caused quite a performance hit. I have improved it though since then.

Hrmm... well if you're able to support colored walls (and recommend them, at that), then how hard could it be to re-use the same code to render tinted windows?

Colored walls are an exclusive D2X-W32 feature - tinted walls are a D2 legacy feature. So you can have tinted walls in levels compatible with all D2 versions, but colored walls only in levels that can only be read by D2X-W32.

Jeff chose to use completely transparent walls as these don't lead to rendering faults in OpenGL versions of D2.

Crownpoint X, a D2x-W32 exclusive version:
Contains D2x-W32 features such as "transparent" walls and cameras.
Before playing you can...

• Modify the "transparent" wall transparency to desired transparency percentage from the D2x menu. This can be played around with. (I've found 90% to be about right).
• Make sure that cameras are enabled in D2x. You may want to disable them if things get "jerky" (as I found them to be) for gameplay though.
• Also, make sure that "Render entire mine" is ticked. From what I could tell, it had no noticable effect on performance and removes rendering glitches!

Crownpoint X download:
http://home.comcast.net/~jeff250/descent/crownx.zip


This camera says more about oneself than anything.

edit: Whoops, now there should be enough light again. New version updated.

*W*O*W*

Thanks! I've added one last fix to the X version. Apparently when I was playing around with some of the D2x features, one of the cubes of the energy center was inadvertantly changed to normal, so that's been taken care of. Final version of X is V1.2. The original remains unchanged.

Gallup (spelling intended) screenies...




Gallup requires the latest version of D2x-W32 with (for best experience) "render entire mine" enabled and utilizes special features such as 32-bit TGA's and wind tunnels. It contains 768 cubes.

The basic premise of this level is that there's essentially a central series of rooms surrounded by two one-way wind tunnels, one clockwise and the other counterclockwise. That's about all I can say. So play it.

Gallup download:
http://home.comcast.net/~jeff250/descent/gallup.zip

I've been putting this off and working on it much too long, so I hope I didn't grow casual to any glaring bugs, but I hope that everyone will extend to me the same intensity of courtesy via comments and criticism that I extend them.

Special thanks to Diedel once again for a job well done on DLE-XP and D2x-W32, without which this level would be for naught.

Known issues:
Very distant cubes aren't rendered
Alpha texture in front of alpha texture (like on the fountain area) situations aren't rendered correctly (from what I understand from Diedel, this isn't easily fixable and probably won't be)