HEXEN II community work and discussion

[golden_boy]

Another one bites the dust? Wake up, Hexen 2 engine coders. The BSP format needs an upgrade to a new standard.

The clip brushes that Spike describes will help, up to a point. But this is a limit that needs to be removed by engine coders unfortunately.

This limit is killing new Hexen 2 singleplayer maps.

[Seven]

Hello Mathuzzz and gb,

I can fully understand your disappointment and frustration on this map limits.
I would like to post my thoughts about this subject:

When you follow this link and read the pdf´s

The Lingering Legacy of id Software’s Quake:
A Glimpse Into Thirteen Years Of Darkness (by Tronyn, 2009)

You will see a timetravel with the development and change in Quake mapping over the years.

In the early days, Quake maps were also limited to its original boundaries.
Thank to the engine coders, these map boundaries have been opened more and more.
But even in the early days, very nice Quake maps have been made.
They had the original feel, because they "looked" like original ones.

Today we have this situation with Hexen 2 mapping.
You cannot create Hexen 2 maps like Quake´s "Day of the Lord" or similar.
But, when you look at Rino´s amazing fan-made Hexen 2 mission pack, you will see that you still can catch the original Hexen 2 vibe into new maps (keeping the limits).
I found this in his readme.txt, maybe this is useful for you:

Editor used: Hexmaker +++ 1999 +++ [email protected]

What I want to say in a summary:
Yes, unfortunately Hexen 2 mapper cannot implement all the details, ideas and visions they have into their maps today. But isnt it a "challenge" to make new maps with the "soul and heart" of the original H2 maps/style ?


Maybe in a few years, Mathuzzz will also release a

The Lingering Legacy of Hexen 2 mapping

... who knows.

Thank you for your time reading this.

Best of luck for you,
Seven

[golden_boy]

It's not directly comparable to Quake... the problem with Hexen 2 is a BSP format limit that is reached very quickly because of Hexen 2's additional clipping hulls (Quake doesn't have these).

It is a broken design because they introduced these additional clipping hulls but did not raise the corresponding limit in the BSP format (despite using their own BSP format already).

The only thing that is comparable in the world of Quake is when the RMQ team had to actually change the BSP format and come up with BSP2. Everything that was done to custom Quake engines before (AguirRe etc) was just soft limits being bumped.

This is a hard limit because the file format is the culprit, not some definitions in the engine.

As for your idea that one should just make nice oldschool maps, that's like saying "640K should be enough for everyone", sorry.

Did you look at the screenshots of my Hexen 2 map? It is small. And yet it runs into this problem.

[Mathuzzz]

Thanks for your support Seven, but I must agree with golden_boy. His map is small, but very detailed. My map is a bit less detailed, but more larger/expansive. Unfortunately, neither of us can finish the map because of the same reason.
This limit is truly unforgiving and filling up gaps,holes and windows helps to rather small extent. I would have to delete all the details in my map to finish it, but then it will look like Doom.
I wasn´t very satisfied with most of the original Hexen 2 maps and that´s why I wanted to make maps which more resemble original Hexen and Heretic plus take advatanges of 3d engine and make them a bit nicer.

[Seven]

Hello,

I think you misunderstood my intention.
Most probably to my bad english. I am sorry.

"The map is small and it broke the limits."
Yes, but original H2 maps are not small and they dont break the limits, right ?

That is what I meant with a"challenge", not to define every corner or stair-step with high detail.
More like it was done in the original maps or in Rino´s mission pack.

More like:
You have to be careful with your available resources and not map like there is no tomorrow, so to speak.

If you say, that you do not have enough room for good looking maps, then the available H2 maps are not good looking ?

That is all what I am trying to say.
You are maybe indulged with the "limit-free" Quake maps and forgot how to household your resources.

But hey, I am no mapper... so what do I know ?
I just wanted to encourage you to continue Mathuzzz.

Because, if you do not continue... who should ?
Hexen2 scene is even smaller than Q1 scene
So finding a new "map-standard" with open limits in all engines is more than difficult/unlikely.

OK, but now I shut up. I promise.

[golden_boy]

Seven;

it is too bad that you never felt the frustration of putting tons of enthusiastic effort into a level, just to be KO'd in the 11th round by a hard limit from the past (that is almost impossible to know beforehand).

And then given a high-horsed sermon about the "virtues of self-control".

Oh and also, it is quite natural that a game, and the fan-made assets created for it, will evolve over time. Many years have passed since Hexen 2 was new. Evolution is a normal thing.

[Mathuzzz]

Seven, I don´t say that all the existing maps for Hexen 2 (including originals) are bad.
I´ll put it this way. My map is a castle with both exterior and interior and some surround areas. The space there is simply too big for the maps´s limits. And there is no such a map (complete castle) that I know of, because most of H2 maps are enclosed corridors.

I know what you are trying to say and I have this in mind, but once one cannot finish the map he spent months working on, he has very little passion left for another mapping.

Maybe I´ll try some compromises if I don´t have other choice, but I´m afraid it won´t be enough.

[Rino]

Hello Guys, of the legendary HeXen2,
I wanted to write two things: Seven, first of all I thank you!
"Editor used: Hexmaker + + + 1999 + + +", it is actually the YEAR in which
I made the first mp, (nothing special parameters) ,
I had a desktop pc with Windows98 (but also Windows95!).
I did the add on for fun,
but also often by trial and error,
it is clear that in mp1 I put a little of everything and I realized that making small maps I avoided the obstacle of slowdowns to SO, and Hexmaker,
and the various levels I made them as the ideas came to me at that moment, as a fan of the game without project ... even if I did something on paper, Furthermore with little regard for example for the VIS (important parameter to compile)
with mp2 I tried to do things better.
golden_boy, you're right it would require a modern engine to the game and
to make maps, maybe a q3map.exe, or other so as to give freshness
to our HeXen 2, deserves it, given the many fans who still play today.
Rino would be very pleased .
Mathuzzz, you're right it's better small map, to add detail
looks at The Mill, the Ravens have put in a block small, because
has many details, movement and triggers.
One way is to angle the corridors that avoid the VIS calculation,
concealing what's next.
A castle outdoors to 360 degrees, full of details, it is really big to handle
if it is single player, you have to take into account the triggers, you can sometimes see a door disappear no reason, it happens!
sometimes it is better to show only a few brush, such as the entry part of it and the main walls but then choose a changelevel, dividing the map into sectors.
There are cracks which create problems, but I when I can put a skybox and solve the problem.

Good mapping




See you soon, there are novelty incoming

Rino

[Rino]

Hello to everybody, new page on my site, work in progress.
I started working on mpbyrino, old episode made in '98, by performing major changes at the various levels and with new textures, if you want take a look:

https://sites.google.com/site/missionpackbyrino/

i wait your suggestion, and ideas, also regarding if you have a map sp that you would like to add

[MadJak91]

Hello,

I am having a problem using inkub0's Hexen 2 textures (0.85) with UQE Hexen 2 1.16.
I put the "textures" folder in "data1" and after running the engine it crashes with the error: Requested feature was omitted at compile time.

The UQE help file mentions crashes due to unsupported JPG encoding or something similar but I do not know if that is relevant. I am guessing that the pack is not compatible with 1.16 UQE?
UQE works fine without the pack.

Maybe I just need to place the folders differently so any help with the problem would be appreciated.
No official or unofficial add-ons, mission packs etc. are installed. Just plain old patched Hexen 2.

Thanks!

[Seven]

Hello to everybody, new page on my site, work in progress.
I started working on mpbyrino, old episode made in '98, by performing major changes at the various levels and with new textures, if you want take a look:

https://sites.google.com/site/missionpackbyrino/

i wait your suggestion, and ideas, also regarding if you have a map sp that you would like to add

Hello Rino,

I already was worried, because your old page was no longer available.
Now that you are starting a new page and even rework your maps, everything is good again
Your screenshot compilation looks really nice.

Are your maps now optimized for uhexen2 only ?
Because you mention it on your page...
I use another engine.

Hello,

I am having a problem using inkub0's Hexen 2 textures (0.85) with UQE Hexen 2 1.16.
I put the "textures" folder in "data1" and after running the engine it crashes with the error: Requested feature was omitted at compile time.

The UQE help file mentions crashes due to unsupported JPG encoding or something similar but I do not know if that is relevant. I am guessing that the pack is not compatible with 1.16 UQE?
UQE works fine without the pack.

Maybe I just need to place the folders differently so any help with the problem would be appreciated.
No official or unofficial add-ons, mission packs etc. are installed. Just plain old patched Hexen 2.

Thanks!

Hello MadJak91,

The author of UQE visits this thread from time to time. He can surely answer your question.
Until then, you should try to use jeanks High Resolution replacement textures. They are in .tga format.
Maybe this format is "better" supported ?

jeanks textures (which are reworked originals) keep the "dirty" look of Hexen2 which I like so much. You should try them.
They are included in jeanks complete pack (with improved jshexen2 engine and all).

Or you can (via mass-batch-convertion file) convert inkub0´s texture to a supported format.

Good luck,
Seven

[Korax]

JPG files are supported in UQE.
The problem I found is that something is different in the way those JPG files are saved as my own JPG files I've tested with work fine. I've used Photoshop CS3 to do my testing on using standard settings.

I know about the crash that gets caused by the texture pack and I did do debugging on it specifically to see whats going on.
Realistically there are only two ways to fix this, either get the JPG files re-saved to a standard JPG format or save the JPG files as TGA. The crash itself occurs within the JPG library itself which is what lead me to believe this is a JPG file-specific issue.

UQE uses the exact same library Quake III Arena uses as I directly ported it from idTech3 to the Hexen (Quake) engine. So barring any additional checking that idTech3 might perform I'm pretty sure these JPG files would probably crash-out Q3A as well.

An alternative I might investigate in the future is to have a look at what version of the library the idTech4 engine uses and look at porting that over to replace the one I'm currently using which was ported from idTech3.

I did report this issue to inkub0, but haven't gotten a response regarding it ever since.

[Rino]

Hello Seven,
the work I'm doing on mpbyrino, will not be optimized for uhexen2, if you've already played the old mpbyrino, there is no problem with the missionpack by rino EVO.

Thank you, and sorry for the wait

[MadJak91]

Thank you both, Seven and Korax!

Converting all of the JPG to TGA made the texture pack work with UQE.

In the end I decided to play with jaenks textures like Seven suggested. They are also really nice!
It is interesting that a few of the textures are still JPG but work fine with UQE. I guess they are the "proper" JPG textures in jaenks pack.

[Seven]

inkub0 started with creating replacement textures at a time where he didnt know jeank.
jeank found this thread somehow and 2 high talented people met
That was the beginning of a great story

At that time, jeank already converted almost all world textures and a LOT of the model skins (including some amazing weapon skins and monster skins !).

They both teamed up and share their work with each other.
In the end you find some work from each on in the others release

That time and the talent of these guys impressed me so much, that i even fell more in love with Hexen2.
I like jeanks improved engine very much too.

But now all the other engine devs are making a great progress and hopefully Hexen2 will be more popular again.
Yes, there is still the map-limitation, but maybe there will be a new standard for all engines soon...

Kind regards,
Seven