traversd

Well that’s it for 2009. Christmas came and went last week. It had a new innocence and excitement about it this year with little Nicholas being around. They say a baby’s first Christmas is a paper one (because they enjoy the wrapping paper more than the presents inside!) but he wasn’t discriminatory at all – Everything was taste tested. The paper, the presents everything had to be tested for it’s edibility!

So 2009 had some big pluses – Family weddings, my first wedding anniversary and the birth of my son Nicholas. A few minuses though – My grandparents both passed away this year, Grandma in Feb, and Grandpa in Nov. They will both be missed heaps.

I did a big chunk of Doom mapping while I was on leave from work after Nick’s birth. I’ve done a bit of gallery below on all things ‘Doomy’ I’ve been messing with in 2009. Despite having not ventured into the world of mapping for nearly 10 years I’ve found myself working on a few singleplayer maps for Doom2, just as many deathmatch maps and even a couple of Heretic singleplayer maps. Now, like most things, I just need spare time to work on them!

So my return to mapping for Doom is appearing to be just as random as it ever was. I’m still doing bit’s and pieces on Nostalgia Station, and a map I called Offshoot from the 1994 crappy map, plus I’ve made 2 maps for a community 1994 map tune-up challenge with one more in progress now, oh and a map that started life a speedmap I made whilst watching the footy one night. So obviously it was perfect timing this past week to… start another map!

I’ve been checking out what I’ve missed in terms of Doom stuff over the past 10 years and this week discovered Skulltag and it’s built-in bots. That combined with some DM related posts on Doomworld and I’m sucked in.

This is just a small DM map (although compared to my older DM maps is medium to large in size) – Suits 2-4 players I would say.

Still a WIP but unless it gets a big detail make-over is probably just about complete.

td-dm1.zip

I’m also starting to work with what’s arguably become the new vanilla/baseline of Doom mapping in my absence – Boom linedef types.

-t

Not sure what got me wanting to try this but a while back I searched for the option to give the actors in Doom a shadow. Just a simple “blob shadow”. Upon checking I couldn’t find a source port that did this other than the Doomsday series. I’m using GZDoom for playing and play-testing at present so had a look at the GLDEF options.

I’ve managed to create faux-”blob shadows” by updating actor frames to have a subtractive dynamic light at their feet. It’s not the smartest implementation but it does the trick for me and I’m only finding a performance issue with large amounts of enemies (my test map has 300+ in one room and it get’s choppy). Some screenshots and a link to the updated lights.pk3 are below.

shadow-dlights.zip

-t

In my new found interest in Dooming I have been checking out the www.doomworld.com and www.newdoom.com forums. On NewDoom ‘Fatal’ has started a “crappy map” contest. Basically to have some fun and make a silly map that would have been made in the early mapping days of Doom, or let’s be honest when we all first start out mapping ;o)

I saw the crappy map contest post and the ‘refer to the numerous wads made in 1994 for inspiration’ comment made me think back to how my brother and I started out mapping with WADed.

So I thought I could make something that says – “I’m still learning the ropes but feel really compelled to show everyone anyway!”. Below on the left is a dodgy animation I made of the levels development – complete with first time level maker commentary ;o)

I also put an extra section in as a bit of a secret/joke. It was meant to be a bit of a sanctuary from the “1994″ era and basically show some nicer level design. It worked out a bit too well because the small section grew into it’s own level. I cut it off into another WAD but left part of it there still for the secret. Below on the right is a pic of the map with the cut-down addition.

-t

My dodgy animation		Map with extra area

1994!.zip | 1994!.txt

Lots of stuff has been happening recently. My wife and I have been doing some small renovations to our home – some new carpet, knocking down a wall to make a bigger bathroom, moved a laundry out and a study in; all in preparation for my greatest achievement to date!

Nicholas Troy Dunne was born on Tuesday May 12th, weighing a healthy 3.7kg. Both he and mum are doing well.

I have taken a chunk of time off work to be with bub and mum – and to complete the renovations of course ;o)

A while back I started re-doing part of my nostalgic doom map, adding a “blue key” section. Hopefully will find some time toward the end of my holidays to finish a bit more of it for a re-release.

-t

I’ve found myself making a Doom map recently! Haven’t done so in years and thankfully the know-how has slowly come back and so too the creative juices )

Update: All done! Hopefully it plays as fun for everyone as it was making it. Once the main geometry was made I tinkered quite a lot with the levels flow and how the player might progress through it. It has a few secrets which give the player a bit more fire power, and few traps that will sting if you’re caught off guard.

t_nostalgia.zip

- t