ARM Club 3/TheARMClub_PDCD3.iso/programs/games/aliens/TC-LEVEL_T

Text File | 1995-03-16 | 14KB | 324 lines

Making a level for ALIENS-TC
Basic Information, by Justin Fisher (author - ALIENS-TC)
========================================================

Bear in mind that making a level for ALIENS-TC will change the
way you play TC, don't read further until you have completed
ALIENS-TC, as the information below will probably lessen your
enjoyment of it.

Firstly, I recommend you look at my levels, see how I have
done things etc, use them for reference and ideas to get
started. Hopefully you will be able to use the ALIENS-TC
conversion in ways I havn't thought of. (I know Richard did in
the secret level). This text file contains the conversion
information ie what part of ALIENS-TC corresponds to in DOOM,
Wall textures, floor and ceiling textures, Things etc
Another thing to bear in mind is putting new graphics, sounds
etc in the PWAD (though not sprites or .EXE patches, as this
will mean installation inconvenience), ie changing some of
the quotes/dialogue to something more appropriate to the PWAD.
Be prepared to do a bit of texture offsetting, perhaps even
(shock! horror!) maths. (Trust me - once you got the hang of
it, it's far easier to calculate the texture offsets than
guess, or estimate.) Quite a few TC textures _require_ it
(especially the stair rails/banister/whatever)

IMPORTANT: You may not make ALIENS-TC WADs by modifying
existing WADs. (This is to ensure that the levels are suitable
for TC not a ten minute conversion resulting in a poor Aliens
level).

Here are the basic conversions:
ALIENS-TC                          Wad editing equivalent
---------------------------------------------------------
LIST OF THINGS:

SCENERY THINGS:

Hole in ceiling                    Skulls on skewer
Twin pipes (104 high)              Skull on pole
Complex pipes (104 high)           Dead Imp
Ladder (192 high)                  Tall blue torch
Landing lights                     Eye symbol
Metal girder (104 high)            Tall green column
Dripping Water (104 high)          Swaying body 2
Big Rock 1                         Brown stump
Big Rock 2                         Grey Tree
Big Rock 3                         Candelabra
Small spiky rock                   Candle
Hanging light (Lit)                Tall red torch
Hanging light (dead)               Tall green torch
Face hugger in Jar                 Red column with skull
Moving Face hugger in Jar          Column with beating heart
Facehugger Egg, unhatched          Flaming skull rocks
Facehugger Egg, hatched            Short green column
Small flame on ground              Short red torch
*Small flame on slime pile         Short green torch
Large flames                       Short blue torch
Slime column 1 (104 high)          Short red column
Slime column 2 (104 high)          Tall red column
Destroyable slime column           Large tree
Slime lump on ground               Dead trooper
Slime lump and ceiling lump        Dead Sergeant

*Put on same spot as Destroyable Slime Column to make it
appear the column catches on fire when destroyed.

MONSTERS:

Alien Warrior                      Demon
Alien Drone (spits acid)           Imp
Alien Queen                        Spider demon
Alien Queen (spits acid)           Baron of Hell
Face Hugger                        Lost soul
Face hugger egg (hatches)          Cacodemon
Warrior with explosive death       Spectre
*Drone with small mass, big H.P.   Trooper
**Silent warrior, explodes         Sergeant

*Used in E2M4 to be blown down through holes in ceiling (note,
they have very little mass, and take a lot more damage)
**Used in E2M4 as propulsion for the troopers...

SOUNDS/VOICES:

Motion Tracker, sounding 3 times   Impaled body
Motion Tracker, continuous (poor)  Pile of Skulls
Siren / Alarm, (continuous)        Hanging Leg 2
*Misc quotes (one of the next 3)   One legged body 2
"Keep it moving" (Apone)           Dead Cacodemon
"Keep it tight" (Apone)            Guts & Bones
"Nice and easy..." (Apone)         Guts & Bones 2
"Sir - you reading this? Looks
     like hits from (etc)" (Apone) Swaying Body
"This place is dead, whatever
     happened here, I think (etc)" Hanging, Arms out
"Check those corners, check those
     corners!" (Apone)             One legged body
"Remember - short, controlled
     bursts." (Hicks)              Hanging Torso
"Watch your fire and check your
     targets, (etc)" (Apone)       Hanging leg
"Lets finish our sweep. We're
     still (etc)" (Apone)          Hanging, Arms out 2
"Whatever you're gonna do, do
     it fast!" (Vasquez)           Hanging torso 2

*I _think_ this selects, at random, one of the following three
quotes (keep it tight, keep it moving, nice and easy), but it
almost invariably picks "keep it moving". Good all-purpose one
anyway. (Also, the motion tracker on continuous doesn't sound
very good)

WEAPONS, MISC:

Cargo bay loader                   Chainsaw + Blue armour
Pulse rifle                        Chaingun + Rocket launcher
Smart-gun                          Plasma gun
Grenade                            Rocket

NB, for the Loader, and pulse rifle, you put both objects on
the exact same spot on the level (DEU is best for doing this),
then they are picked up simultaneously when walked over.

Med kits, ammo, etc (and a few appropriate scenery items) are
unchanged.
>From memory, the unchanged scenery items are the technical
column (128 high) and the Floor lamp.

LIST OF FLOOR/CEILING TEXTURES:

Slime/hive floor                   Sflr6_4
Smooth, large steel plate          Sflr7_1
Roughened large steel plate        Sflr7_4
Grate                              Ceil4_2
Grate/duct in (striped) plate      Gate1
Medlabs Floorplan                  Floor1_1
Murky water (animated)             Fwater1, 2, 3 or 4
Landing strip (animated)           Blood1, 2 or 3
Landing strip 2 (animated)         Nukage1, 2 or 3

NB "Landing strip" 2 runs horizontally (on the automap/level
editor) while "Landing Strip" runs vertically.

LIST OF WALL TEXTURES:
Doom texture   Aliens replacement
---------------------------------
Bigdoor1       Metal door with company logo in black.
Bigdoor3       Green door, altered to tile better horizontally
               to form long doors.
Bigdoor5       Vertical metal plates with industrial markings
               (ie yellow and black stripes)
Bigdoor6       Green Bigdoor but edged with gunge
Blodgr1, 2 & 3 Murky water flowing down over brick.
Fireblu1 & 2   Flashing panel for proximity indicators (lots)
Firewall, b, c Animated control panel, looks nice.
Gray5          As DOOM, but with industrial stripe
Gray7          As DOOM, but with industrial stripe
Midvine1       Dark horizontal piping. (a big more than
               necessary too) (R)
Marble2        Corridor wall with pipes etc
*Marble3       component variations for above texture
               divided into 3 columns, each 64 wide:
               L end, R end, variation
Marbfac2       grey plate steel (R)
Marbfac3       Barricades
Pipe1          As Pipe2, but with "ARMOURY" sign.
Pipe2          Pipe2, but dark brown instead of tan.
Redwall        Safety railing (yellow & black fence)
Shawn1         Company logo in colour.
Skin2          Green flattish gunge (colour replacement)
Skinedge       Like skin2, but with a little more detail
Skinlow        Industrial wall texture, not very good.
Skinface       Standard hive gunge texture
*Skinmet1      Divided into several textures, you really have
               to take a look, it includes a small door with
               gunge, and hive transition textures.
               4 columns, each 64 wide:
               small gunged door, gray & hive R end, gray &
               hive L end, and grey with hive detail.
*Skinmet2      Divided into 2 rows and 4 columns, of signs,
               the first two columns need backlighting, the
               last two are just signs:
               sublevel 37, sublevel 36, level 2, level 01
               sublevel 02, sublevel 03, sublevel 02, sublevel 03
               Each sign is 64x56
Skintek1       Altered skin to STARTAN panels, can also be
               used as a transition texture.
Skintek2       Same thing as done to skintek1
Sp_dude1       Steel plate (like marbfac2) with supports (R)
Sp_dude2       Red metal plate with numbers (for fuel tanks)
Sp_dude3       Steel plate (like marbfac2) variation (R)
*Sp_dude6      Safety rails for stairs
*Skulwall      Small airduct grill (divided into four as
               follows:    Normal      Busted
                            grill      grill

                           Normal      busted
                           & gunge     & gunge

               Each grill is 40x40, and the texture is offset
               so you have to compensate (X+4 I think)
*Skulwall3     Same as above, except grills are big enough to
               fit through (48x64), offset x+12, oops.
Skspine1       Same as in DOOM, but coloured to fit in hive.
Skspine2       As above, but this spine is horizontal.
Sladdrip1,2&3  Altered so that murky water running from
               grill in BROWN144 texture.
Sp_rock1       Colonists in gunge 1
Sp_rock2       Colonists in gunge 2
Stone          Grey wall with industrial stripe
*Wood1         Divided into two textures, the first 128x128 is
               partially transparent hive wall, the second
               128x128 is solid black and yellow stripes.
Wood3          A strange sorta grey texture. (R)
*Wood5         Metal wall with transparent mesh (used in
               the lifts) make up the first 128x128, the rest
               is hive transition pieces (marble2)

* means the texture is made up of lots of textures too small
to warrant a bitmap all to themselves, so you chose which
section you want to use, and adjust the offset accordingly.

(R) means the texture was by Richard Love, for the secret
level (Alien host ship), his style is very different to mine,
so I thought I'd stick this in there.

Those are most of the Aliens textures, there are quite a lot
which have been altered in some way but not mentioned here,
these are the important ones anyway. Best idea is to view
them.


ADVICE:
Most of this can be gleaned from looking at the ALIENS-TC
levels, but here are some of the more effective ideas, and a
few that I think were good, but didn't have time to use
better.

The best way of making Aliens come out of the walls, is to
give them a niche in the wall where they can sit, out of
sight. you usually want to cover the hole with a texture
(should be partially transparent or it's not realistic and a
bit unfair to the players), but making it slightly darker will
also work (Demons (Aliens warriors (demons) do not move while
waiting, hence are very hard to spot).

Another technique is having an adjacent room, connected by an
impassable, transparent wall with an opaque texture. The
aliens "see" you though the texture and come towards you,
crossing a "teleport" linedef and appearing right where you
want them to (usually behind and in front of the player,
hehehe...).

I try to make the levels consistent (even under IDSPISPOPD
scrutiny) and in the above case, usually include a means by
which the aliens could have gotten to the place they arrived
at (usually just a ventilation duct. Another thing, to make
ducts more realistic, don't put in dead ends, add a shaft
going up - the player can't see where it goes, just that it
doesn't end, but can no longer be followed.)

Still on the subject of ducts, shafts are also a good way to
make a one-way duct. Make a lot of ducts if you can, allowing
another means of moving though the level. (I didn't use
ventilation ducts half as much as I wanted - there are no real
"networks" between rooms)

Your most common room height should be 104, because a lot of
scenery (ie dripping water, pipes) only fits properly in a
room that height. You can also combine scenery, eg dripping
water on the same place as a hole in the ceiling works quite
well.

Hives - All hive areas should be 104 high, because almost all
the hive scenery is that height, and the result is awful when
things like slime column don't reach the ceiling (or go
through it). Use the slime columns against the walls to make
a corridor more organic, but be careful - the columns restrict
movement and if the corridor is too narrow, they may prevent
passage. Deliberately preventing passage with a destroyable
slime column is a good way of either slowing the player down
or soaking up excess ammo. Dripping water looks good in hive
as well as anywhere else (and is also 104 high)

The rails on stairs can take a bit of time, for a start, the
each step must be 16 high and 32 deep. each step is assigned
it own SP_DUDE6 texture to it's 2-sided linedef, one side of
which must have an x-offset of 32 (to mirror the texture, view
the texture to see what I mean), and each step will require a
Y-offset of 16 _above_ the Y-offset of the step below it.
(It's up to you to work out the offset of the bottom step)

Above all, remember _not_ to fall into the "Rooms-connected-
by-corridors" design trap, and build locations, interesting
and original designs. (But don't sacrifice playability to do
this of course) It's also worth mentioning to build your
levels
in a non-linear fashion ie you have choice where you go.
DOOM E1M1 is a linear level
DOOM E3M3 is a non linear level
TC E2M2 is a linear level (except in d-match, with full keys)
TC E2M6 is a non linear level.

In terms of Deathmatch, non-linear is far, far, far better. So
even if your level is fairly linear, you can add some doors
that need keys (which are at the end of the level) so in
deathmatch, it becomes non-linear (As you start with all the
keys in D-match).

For actual advise on WAD building, there is FAQ at:
ftp.cdrom.com:/pub/doom/wad_edit/text/design12.faq
It is a Level design FAQ.

For problems, more info, etc
My Internet address is:

[e-mail]

Justin Fisher
Author - ALIENS-TC