HEXEN II community work and discussion

[WhiteMagicRaven]

I glad to share with you a old Raven Software game resources they fit very exellent with hexen2, i hope you will use it on mission packs =)
RaVeN-05(WhiteMagicRaven)

Nice to see everyone in action here, you have amazing progress =0

[Bloodshot]

I'll have to check those resources out

Interconnecting layouts are a bitch to set up

It's starting to make the map truly feel big though, it's got a topside cliff level, an indoor rock cave level, and an ice level all in one





I'd like to thank bsp2 for seeing me through

[Mathuzzz]

This is one of the maps Iīm working on right now. It started as a test map for me to learn how to use Trenchbroom, but quickly evolved into larger map, so I decided to finish it. It is kind of reimagination of Docks map from Heretic/Heretic 2.

[Mathuzzz]

Additional screens.

[WhiteMagicRaven]

I am very like your work =0

[Bloodshot]

Some light platforming inspired by some hexen 1 segments

This is one of the maps Iīm working on right now. It started as a test map for me to learn how to use Trenchbroom, but quickly evolved into larger map, so I decided to finish it. It is kind of reimagination of Docks map from Heretic/Heretic 2.

Wow, that looks great. Seriously great.

If I have one crit, maybe double the size of the rock texture on the cliffs so it doesn't look as repetitive?

[Mathuzzz]

Wow, that looks great. Seriously great.

If I have one crit, maybe double the size of the rock texture on the cliffs so it doesn't look as repetitive?

Thanks. Yeah, itīs work in progress and yes, to double the size on rock bushes is on the to-do list.

One of the issues I have with mapping is SKY. Or actually a horizon. Some engines support skybox. Iīm not fan of those, because they are static and lifeless, however, standard Hexen 2/Quake sky is a bit unrealistic and the sphere makes exteriors mapping a bit harder. Best solution is the the SKY that was used in Quake 3 engine games, Daikatana or Thief, where you have some static horizon with moving clouds, fading in distance. What trick do you use for this?

Also, platforming. I missed it in Hexen 2, it made Hexen 1 felt much more dangerous, the way you could die not only by enemies hands, but also by not progressing through the environment carefully.

[Bloodshot]

The problem with the Quake skies as you said is the sphere, so it looks like you are on a floating island.

The first way i kinda get around this is by making the cliff so high that it looks like you are above the clouds when you look down, which helps the illusion a bit



The other way is like you did with the towers in your map, I stick things out of the immediate area as "skybox" decoration. Q3 and HL2 have the best skyboxes because they support sky portals, which let you use real geometry as skybox detail so it looks like those mountains are really there, but Hexen 2 can't do that so you have to add things in the actual level to mask it.



Your cliffs look like they help a lot, but you could probably even take it one step further and add slightly smaller structures behind them, or do things like place a statue with a "scale" value of 0.5 and stuff like that to produce the illusion of size

Also if i were you i'd turn off multitexturing in video options and set r_skyalpha to 0.3, looks much nicer IMO

[Mathuzzz]

Yes, the sky looks better this way, but I would still welcome external texture support in HoT. In addition to much better looking sky, it would help resolving the issue with some textures loosing their essence when converted to Hexen 2 pallete.

[Mathuzzz]

About the alpha, I was playing with it some time ago when I wanted to put some vegetation into my map or fake 2D fire (Iīm not fan of polygon fire), however, it acts a bit strangely. For example- when you use the web entity, from one side it works ok, but from the back side it blocks the view of other entities, only showing the map geometry.

[Bloodshot]

HoT seems to have rendering issues for 3d objects with alpha

For fires, you could always make a new entity and use sprites



2d sprites have no rendering issues. There's even a way to make them into flat planes, so you could use 2 entities that are flat 2d sprites (one facing each direction) and not have the regular transparency issues from models

I made decapitation fatalities for the archer and berserker since they are the most common, and I made enemies produce blood pools when hit and gibbed. Think of it like nashgore for doom mods, but 3d

[Mathuzzz]

I think I had the exact same alpha issues with jsHexen.

About you screenshots:
-Fire looks good, though one have to place it carefully, to not see it from above, what may be difficult if you donīt want to mix polygon fire with sprite fire in your map.
-Blood pools are nice idea, though they also would look better as sprites, but would have to be on flat floor to no clip I guess.
-One suggestion about your ice level. I would put som texture diversity into the ice caves. At least to floor and ceiling, maybe add some rocks poking out from ice here and there.

Also, those berserkers are your monsters? I also plan to put some basic melee monster, which would appear in larger numbers, something like mummy from Heretic or ettin from first Hexen.

[Bloodshot]

Yep, not my model though. He's the boss from the roman hub, i deleted the horse and completely reanimated him. He functions sort of like a charging ettin. I've expanded the roster with a few hexen 1 monsters as well as backported some PoP stuff.

I'm not sure how to get flat sprites that face up, but using a model with alpha for blood was glitchy and it stretched the texture across the model the wrong way when i did

Is this an improvement? I decided to model a more detailed blood puddle since it's so low poly anyway







Also the sword now gets bloody and it only comes off if you go in water, or change levels

Thanks for the feedback, originally i planned for just the ice texture since you go from snowy rock caves to ice cavern in the same areas, but I probably should have rocks jutting out here and there, i actually have one room that has that even.

[Mathuzzz]

Yeah, the blood looks definitely better. Especially the bloody sword. Do you plan to add this effect to other melee weapons as well?

Also, the coloured lights you have there are achieved using the LIT files or is there other method? It can be rather time-consuming to achieve the right colour, or?

[Bloodshot]

Ericw's compilers support colored lights, add an argument to a light called _color, and make sure colored lights and external lit files are enabled in the game options

It's pretty quick to do