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 haven'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... Sound/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 E1L1 is a linear level DOOM E3L3 is a non linear level TC E2L2 is a linear level (except in d-match, with full keys) TC E2L6 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 a good FAQ out there, but I don't know what it is called :) For problems, more info, etc My Internet address is: J.Fisher@csc.Canterbury.ac.nz Justin Fisher Author - Aliens-TC