T.U.C.Q. Progess Thread

[Boingo the Clown]

Progress Report: November 14, 2013

It has not been much, but I am making progress.

I have been experimenting with the sky viewpoint thing.  It is an object that projects what it sees on to the sky to create backgrounds.  As you have probably seen on E2M1 I created some huge outside areas to put buildings in to improve the look of the level.  What I am trying to do now create some backgrounds in miniature. I have only created a couple of buildings, and they are not textured yet.  Here you can see a replica of the Toronto City Hall buildings.



To the right of City Hall and slightly behind is a normal 64 x 64 crate for scale.  City Hall is only 32 pixels tall.

Ideas for other landmark buildings would be useful.

The sky viewpoint has even given my an idea for a couple of levels, which could be fun if it works.



Most people have the option to show the ENDOOM lump at the end of the game disabled (In fact it is the default), but I decided to ad an ENDOOM lump anyway.



It is crude, but it is better than seeing the DooM version when you quit.



I stole some smoke sprites from Legacy (Legacy is dead. It is unlikely they will give me any guff.).  I used it unchanged with Flemoidus Gyro.  When I finally get around to making the new sprites for it, I plan on having the engine of the helicopter on its back emitting smoke.

Then I did a repainted version of the sprite in a pale grey, just off white, and created a spawner similar to the teleporter glitter to place at the bottom of the waterfals in the game to create rising mist from the falling water.







Two things in the big arena at the end of E2M5.

I finally dealt with that teleporter. 

Why is there a teleporter sitting in a sewage pond?  I have no idea.  Maybe it is some kind of strange overflow system.

Anyway, the teleporter is rotated 20° to the left, which is why I never switched it over to the same look as the other teleporters until now.  I was right about my reasons.  It was very difficult, but ultimately not impossible.

Before:


After:





A long while back I spent a heck of a long time make a whole set of floor textures for this room to make the floor grates match the contour of the room.  However, there were two platforms at the far end of the room that I did not create textures for.  Well, now I have gotten around to it.  I created four new textures just for them.

I hope they feel special.

Before:


After:




Finally, I added a new cursor that looks like a mini-zorcher in order to eliminate the bunny head from DooM.

... ... ... ... ...

Meanwhile, I have noticed some problems with compatibility with some of the IWADs, just as I did with DeiMWolf.  The most shocking was an incompoatibility with the original Chex Quest!  Heretic is the one that has the most troubles, with keys that turn into Heretic monsters and Heretic weapons in place of the Chex Quest weapons, but the ability to switch weapons in Chex Quest is a major problem.

I am going to have to spend some time fixing the compatibility problem.  I will keep you updated.

[TrueDude]

Progress Report: November 14, 2013

It has not been much, but I am making progress.

I have been experimenting with the sky viewpoint thing.  It is an object that projects what it sees on to the sky to create backgrounds.  As you have probably seen on E2M1 I created some huge outside areas to put buildings in to improve the look of the level.  What I am trying to do now create some backgrounds in miniature. I have only created a couple of buildings, and they are not textured yet.  Here you can see a replica of the Toronto City Hall buildings.



To the right of City Hall and slightly behind is a normal 64 x 64 crate for scale.  City Hall is only 32 pixels tall.

Ideas for other landmark buildings would be useful.

The sky viewpoint has even given my an idea for a couple of levels, which could be fun if it works.

I love this, I always thought the city would be cool if it the buildings were actually rendered. Are you planning for this to replace the billboard city texture in the background? It'd be neat if you did, but if so, you should at least make a new giant red pyramid, that building is pretty iconic for Chex Quest 2 imo.

[MajorSlime]

I like it. I've played around with that method of creating a skybox; its always fun . Its a good idea though. And I never thought of making miniature buildings - mine were full scale. Genius!

[75]

I've got a miniature replica of Jade Plateau in that later desert DM level in Chex Pack (i.e., a piece of rock with a tin can on it connected to another piece of rock with a toothpick), but I like the shape of your buildings better so far.

I like the idea, if you're looking for a starry sky background that doesn't have the buildings on it (just stars and urban light pollution), I have something you can use.

I agree about the goofy pyramid building, it is a must. I'd say add a lot of strange colors to it too (pink, purple, green, blue); avoid gray, the colors in the city sky and the bizarre building shapes really gave E2 an interesting look!

[TrueDude]

I also just realized, with that method, if you made larger than normal textures for the mini skybox buildings, you could make them look bigger than they actually are rather than all pixelated. It would help the illusion a lot.

[Boingo the Clown]

Yes.  High res textures are my friend here.

[Boingo the Clown]

Progress Report: November 15, 2013

I'll bet you weren't expecting another progress report so soon.  Right?

Remember how I was talking about compatability problems with IWADs other than doom.wad?

Well, I have been working on the problems and I have largely fixed it.

For the menus in Heretic I went into the gzdoom.pk3 file and looked around in the MENUDEF lump. I then basically copied the lump to T.U.C.Q. and deleted everything that was not DooM or Chex related, and switched it all to not being game specific.  That did the trick.

Game Menus: fixed

I then went to the ZDooM wiki and copied the SBARINFO lump example for DooM, removing anything not Chex related and switching it to not being game specific.

Statusbar: fixed

I then fiddled around with a bunch of stuff in the MAPINFO lump.

Miscellaneous Junk: Fixed

Then there was the problems with the keys, ammo, and weapons not appearing in Heretic.  It was kind of annoying to have a Heretic imp appearing where the blue key should be and an iron lich appearing where the yellow key should be.

I made up a LOCKDEF lump to make sure the locks were working okay and giving the proper messages.  (Heretic has a green key instead of a red one after all.) I then copied the key definitions from the ZDooM wiki into my DECORATE.

Keys: Fixed

I basically copied the Chex versions of the ammo types from the ZDooM wiki into my DECORATE, with adjustments.

Ammo: Fixed

Then I copied Chex versions of the weapons over, with adjustment.

Weapons: Fixed.

There are still some problems with Heretic.  There is a major problem with the sky, its large font in place of the graphics used for the intermission screens is a real pain, and the wrong sounds are played for the doors, lifts, and a few other item, but those can probably be fixed too.

T.U.C.Q. is now known to work with the following IWADS:

DooM

DooM II

Chex Quest

Chex Quest 3

Heretic (with issues)

FreeDooM

HACX - Twitch 'n KIll (v 1.2)


T.U.C.Q. is known to NOT WORK with:

Strife (sort of works, but with major issues that make it unplayable)

Hexen (crashes)

Oddly enough, while Hexen crashes when used as the IWAD, I found its expansion game "Death Kings of the Dark Citadel" does work as an IWAD.

[Boingo the Clown]

It looks like that last progress report is moot. Compatability is no longer an issue.

I messaged Graf Zahl and he gave me the information I needed.

T.U.C.Q. is now an IWAD.

[Anonymous (ChexGuy331)]

oh, sick. major strides.

[xbolt]

T.U.C.Q. is now an IWAD.

Truly, these are modern times.

[Boingo the Clown]

Maybe not so modern.  I am currently working on some stuff on my old computer, mainly because there are programs that do not work in Windows 7.

[Atariangamer]

Glorious 16-bit programmes for your personal home computer system.

Sorry I kinda "dropped out" of the "scene" we have here...Definitely an achievement, and one that will be useful for times to come.

[Boingo the Clown]

I am glad you are back Atari.  I was wondering where you went.

Progress Report: November 24, 2013

Minor progress to report.

A couple of weeks ago I made up a replacement ENDOOM lump as experiment even though most people have the ENDOOM display option turned off.  This week I obsessively made a better one.



The lift in the big hangar at the north of E2M1 has been bothering me for a long time. I want to change it to being a 3D platform like the small lift, but the method I used changed that lift's behaviour, requiring switches to raise and lower the platform. I do not really want to change the way the large platform moves, so I have left it alone.  A couple of days ago I was playing HACX and saw a lift using a technique I had seen before, but never used myself, so I decided to give it a try.  The method is simply to use an invisible sector and use transparent mid textures to build a grid to fake a visible floor.

This is what I ended up with.







I do have another option or two I might try.  What do you think og this method?


I finally got around to making that chainlink fence texture and put it in today.  That was really easy.



I made some minor changes to the diner in the hopes of giving it a little more of a 1950s googie style. In fact, I am planning on changing the interior of the diner from brown to a salmon pink if I can.  I am even thinking of adding a jukebox (the squared off kind like I used to see when I was a kid like this one, not the round topped kind due to it being easier to make) that with scripting might be able to play a little music.

I spent some time on the old computer early in the week making up new(er) versions of the title screen indentifying the next release as release 6.  Don't get excited. I am not ready for a release yet. Progress continues to be slow.

As a side note, I was manning a Christmas kettle for the Salvation Army the other day. I decided that drawing snot monsters might be off putting for people walking by, and so I decided to do some sketches of a blimp I might have as a background element in E2M1. I started sketching a nice cigar shaped object with tail fins like this, when somebody stopped and asked me why I was drawing a bomb!

Anyway, I kind of stopped drawing.  Maybe snot monsters are not so bad.

As an experiment, I installed MorphVox Pro on my new machine.  Maybe I will attempt to do some voice acting for a cutscene or two if I can get over my stage fright.

[xbolt]

OMG JC A BOMB!

I've never been a huge fan of lattice-style elevators. I believe you could still have a 3D floor elevator, but have a thin invisible wall in front of it that would act as the barrier to get underneath, and have that be the switch to trigger the lift. (If that makes sense)

[MajorSlime]

Wait, what exactly is the issue with the 3D floor lift again? Was it that you don't want people walking under the lift?