Optimus

Someone should make a WAD that makes this true :)

I have to start from a lame ass boring cement room and see where it goes from there. Planning to finish my map for Doomworld Maximum project 2023 and I only have few days lol.

Version 0.3 is finally out!!! Little improvements but nothing massive in performance. A bit of C micro optimization to gain from 0.1-0.5fps to 2-3fps in some other places. Also improved polygon renderer a bit in performance, however in most cases it's equivalent with columns if you are not close to walls. Things still struggle, especially on real hardware. With some reduced option for 2x1 columns it's kinda better. The main new feature is the automatic use of RGB coloring and water fx over liquid surfaces, and the fire sky in the hellish levels same as PS1. Those are optional mod menu choices at your own will (they tiny waste some performance, but mainly because the recoloring might in some cases increase the visplanes in some big rooms). Also gamma correction slider. And few more fixes or small improvements, like the fake contrast above. http://bugothecat.net/releases/3DO/optidoom/optidoom_main.html

It's always a good idea, hard for most people to do. I didn't personally like most social media like facebook or twitter as they were boring to me. Well short of, I got stick to twitter at some point. But generally my weakness was youtube, which I at least can pretend it's better as I will watch some big podcast with a serious discussion instead of 140 characters of crap. But then that becomes also a second life, as there is too much content, and you want to see this and that 3 hours podcast. My habit was even at some time to run that 3 hours podcast in the background while I do something else, which would be some casual gaming, to be able to pay attention. But yeah, we have lost attention they say. I was born in the early 80s and only after my 18 I had my first experience with classic internet with a modem. I can't imagine how it is for younger people, when even older people like me can easily be addicted.

Splitting a sector at places to create smoother lighting/shadows. But I might be doing it ugly that leaves dirty sectors and not bothering to experiment some more with correct light values to get the proper atmosphere. I am inspired by other maps who did this, especially since the 90s, but they do it better than I would ever do. Yet I mess up some parts pretty badly and then the map is not suitable for vanilla over max visplanes, unless I cut down/destroy things.

Missing texture on monster condo. Surprisingly saw that first as I was playing the Xbox360 Doom 2, then went on my PC to check again. But GZDoom probably corrects it, so screenshot is from Chocolate Doom.

Obvious thing I never realized when playing monster condo (map27) in Doom 2. I was backtracking to get stuff or search for things I missed and I noticed a strange opening in the very beginning area. I was like "Hell, I don't remember this opening, is it some creepy pasta-bizarro Doom or was it always there?". But it was always there, it's just that I would always get an invulerability and move forward and teleport to a different location. But the original path opened connected the starting dark area to those marble corridors you get to with the duplicated marble area. To me, seeing that opening in the 2nd image, was like a creepy pasta, like a new corridor I haven't seen before. But it always was like this, because in 3rd image I get into the habit to grab the invu and move forward, which always teleports me in the second area of the map. Because I usually never need to go back to the first area, I have never seen that open like this. And travelling back from there to reach the marble areas (those that are duplicated like parallel reality, that have mancubi and secret revenants) was surprising experience.

Strange though, I was playing this level few days ago, always not knowing how to not trigger the crushers yet, so I saved and tried going on the left side with the potions but triggered that one. As seen in the map, there is a corner that will trigger that is too close to wall. So, the strategy didn't work for me unless I stuck/slide myself to the wall. I ended up with going through the middle directly but as far away I can from both pits.

Unexpected mix of different universes

It's all in people's personal taste. I do love the Dark Souls series and later FromSoft games, but for me it's because of the atmosphere, sense of exploration and non linearity. Everybody talks about difficulty in this game and some people might even play only for the boss fights and forget the rest. And those are core things of FromSoft games but the least attractive for me. But at the same time I am glad it's not the exactly opposite of this, extreme handholding. Meanwhile in all kinds of games, I like more if the game has such atmosphere and world or level design that attracts me, even if it was a walking simulator. I prefer the adventurous Doom levels than the slaughtermaps. I've played and finished broken games because the world exploration and immersion/atmosphere lured me in till the end.

Back to Lunacid release. I played the alpha previously. I am about to finish the game but there is more. And the areas, items and enemies that were added after the latest alpha are more than I expected and with really fantastic atmosphere and nice surprises. It will take me a bit more since I read there are more endings, and certain items only appear in full moon in real life time. p.s. Meanwhile, since then I've played a lot of From Soft early titles, from King's Field 2 to 4 (I still have to play 1 and shadow tower). I can now see and understand more of the references. There is even a whole level inspired by a Demon Souls world, very very close, it's obviously a tribute. And more. There are more undiscovered stuff and will take me time.

If it's possible and not a glitch, I might just go for it. I like speedruns where someone used a rocket wall jump to skip entire sections because it makes physical sense. I don't enjoy speedruns (in Doom or other games) where someone clips through the wall because of a collision bug. I can't wrap around my head over this, while the physical thing makes sense. In the real world Doom universe, if the archville pushed you up in the air, you would have gone over that blocked area (I also hate invisible walls). The only exception where I could cheat and don't, since I prefer to play with mouse-look, if there is a shooting riddle that I realize I shouldn't just look higher and shoot, but find the higher platform, knowing it was designed with that in mind, I just try to solve the puzzle of how to get in that higher area with same level as the shoot linedef action.

Hehe, I just finished reading new John's Romero book and he uses the term 2.5D for Doom. I guess that term is what most people relate to nowadays.

It's just a bit hot and good food.

Added fake contrast, something that was missing from the original and I never noticed. Really makes a difference. Also added gamma correction, by utilizing the VDLP of 3DO that maps in realtime from the 16bpp framebuffer to the 24bit RGB. I am also replacing events like colorization of the screen where hit, on radiation suit, yellow when taking object, etc (also invulnerability). These were done before on 3DO by rendering a single colored quad on top of framebuffer with blending enabled, now I think the VDLP is the more proper 3DO hardware way to do it. I am going to do more work into it, planning to have the next release for the 30 years anniversary of Doom. My hope is also to see if I can further optimize the performance, something I didn't fully managed to do in a sufficient way.