Planet Descent
Community => Descent Levels/ Mods => Topic started by: Naphtha on March 28, 2012, 09:40:43 PM
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After about a month and a half of trying to balance working on this with staying caught up in my college classes, I think "The Outer Reaches" is ready to be unveiled... at least in a beta form.
http://www.enspiar.com/dmdb/viewMission.php?id=494 (http://www.enspiar.com/dmdb/viewMission.php?id=494)
Note the "version 0.9." There are some glaring issues I want help with, but being a newbie and not really knowing my way around, I wasn't sure who to ask and I thought it would be better to see if somebody would volunteer. ^^;
But as this is my first level set, I'm really not sure if I got the difficulty down for a Descent 1 mission. I've tried the levels out myself mostly on Hotshot, where they seemed a bit tougher than "First Strike," but still very feasible, but me being the creator probably means I'm too familiar with them to really judge. There are also a couple issues I couldn't seem to iron out with DLE-XP, one being a faulty secret in Level 5 and another being a load of bad cubes in the boss room, which is why I tried to keep the action away from that part of the room. The problems should be more obvious once you see them; I don't want to spoil too much here without anyone playing first. :P
But there is a .txt file included in the download that lists more of the issues. Some of them I couldn't seem to fix with DLE-XP and some of them are probably just my own mistakes, but ones which I don't really know how to fix. I hope it's not too much trouble.
EDIT 06.04.12: Version 1.1 has just been uploaded. All the bugs mentioned in the .txt file on the older versions are now fixed, and the mission is no longer just single player, but also co-op, supporting up to three players. The same link given above still works, so please take a look and try it out if you haven't already. ;)
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I can take a look after I'm finished working today.
From the DMDB screenshot I can already tell you forgot to apply lighting in DLE-XP (this will affect Rebirth but not D2X-XL if lightmaps are on).
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Oh no, it's there and exactly as I wanted it. Maybe I should've chosen a different screenshot, but that was one of the room designs/angles I was happiest with. I can look for a different screenshot, but I did check the lighting very frequently. :P Some of the areas are intended to be unusually dark in Rebirth, but in D2X-XL... well, I'm not sure if they'd be even darker.
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Screenshot appears lit properly to me; nice contrast between light/dark areas... :)
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I haven't had time to play past the first two rooms of the first level; but I'm already getting a good impression.
But I feel the need to point out that you really don't need to use midi music anymore. Really.
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What's wrong with midi music? Personally I think it's fitting, seeing that's the media format the game is designed to use in the first place.
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There's nothing wrong with it from a listener's point of view.
From a composer's point of view, the player needs to listen to it on the exact same hardware as it was written on to hear it the way you meant it to be heard. And midi support is minimal on modern operating systems -- personally (on my main laptop with Vista and my netbook with Windows 7), I have a lot of problems with midi tracks, particularly in games, that I don't have with more conventional formats.
From the level designer's point of view, there's the fact that anyone who is using an addon soundtrack with Rebirth or a custom playlist with D2X-XL (and I think that's most people nowadays) will hear their regular addon or playlist instead of midi music; but if you use ogg music both source ports will always play the ogg music no matter whether the player has actually selected to use midi music or not. So if you use ogg music you always get the player to hear what you want them to hear, unless they're using dosbox (raise your hand if you still use dosbox :P).
Plus I have this wierd feeling that nowadays it would be much easier to find free-to-use ogg, mp3 or wav tracks than midi. So you don't need to go to the trouble.
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Bah Humbug!
My Descent 1 and 2 setups are configured for midi, and that's the way I prefer it, plus that's the way many people already have their Descent 1 and 2 setup configured. Sure, they don't have to, but if a level author wants to have EVERYONE who tries their level able to get the desired experience on the first run of the level, you can be sure of that by using midi.
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Umm... no you can't be sure of that using midi. Unless you assume everyone is using Vanilla Descent. Read my wall of text again. Because that was the entire point of my post. And ask Karx or Zico how it works if you think I'm wrong.
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I'm not disagreeing, I'm just saying that most users are set to midi ... unless they intentionally take extra steps and even then it's a simple settings toggle to switch to midi. By using midi, you nearly insure that everyone can hear the music provided with the level.
Also, they don't have to be using "vanilla" Descent in order to use midi. They can use any Descent 1 or 2 flavor they wish.
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If they're not set up to use midi it will just keep playing the music it usually plays in their installation though. I know because that's what I normally do and I don't really care about custom midi music unless I know it's there. And everyone else I know in r/l who plays Descent does the same.
Vanilla Descent is the only Descent where you will always hear custom midi music. For Rebirth and XL, it will only play custom midi music if you have it set up to play the regular midi music; otherwise the only way they will play custom soundtracks is if they're NOT midi.
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Well that explains why I can't seem to hear the custom midis anymore. I'm gonna have to fix this now...whose bright idea was that anyway?
At any rate, though, I'm more than aware of the fact that the music we're hearing may not be heard the way the composer may have heard it when composing it when it comes to midis, but I don't mind anyway. In my experience, it is still more than close enough to get the idea. Point is that clearly not everyone minds, so save the fact that Rebirth and XL apparently don't play custom midis for reasons that allude me that I will be quickly fixing with my own setup (once I figure out how), I see no problem with using midis.
I could also play the "we're off-topic" card for this too.
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I'm trying to work through the bugs at this point. I managed to fix the concave cubes in Level 5, which I believe created a negative space you could get stuck in close to the ice rock in the middle of the main room with the three bridges. There's a lot more of those negative space bugs in the boss room in Level 6, and I'll probably end up spending a long time fixing those cubes as well...
The boss room required more than 450 cubes for all of its detail, and DLE-XP would crash if I went over 700 in the entire level, which is why it's relatively short aside from the final fight. The item placement was tricky, too, because I tried to place most of the powerups in the boss room... symbolically, for lack of a better term, but I also tried to keep the action from getting too close to the parts with the buggy cubes. I don't know if I completely accomplished that, so fixing that is going to be one of the toughest and most time-consuming issues. :/
The reactors not displaying properly on the automaps (they display as either matcens or normal cubes in Rebirth's automap, at least) is kind of a minor gripe I wish I could figure out, but the biggest issue is the unreachable secret level. No matter what I do to the alternate exit door, DLE-XP doesn't seem to acknowledge that it's there and treat it as anything other than a regular door. It also doesn't help that the editor seemed to forget at one point that the secret level was a secret level, and moved it into the Level 7 spot until I fixed it in the .MSN file. Even after that, the exit that should take you to it is still acting up, and I don't know why.
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I finished the first and second levels, and despite being small they were great. I'm very impressed especially because this is your first work -- I might finish it all this weekend because of the stupid flu which stops me from being useful.
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I wish I could take the time to play it, because I love good D1 SP level set, but it's finals week, and I expect I'll probably either too busy with homework/studying, or too burned out to play games.
As for the issues with the reactor not showing up correctly, is the reactor placed in a cube labeled as "reactor cube" in DLE-XP? Because these cubes are what show up as red in the automap, so if there is no cube set as "reactor," it's obviously not going to show up.
As for secret levels, that's a bit trickier, but it can be managed. What you want to do first is make sure both the level and the secret level it is to lead to in the same hog file (I have every belief you have this done already, but I'm just making sure). Then bring up the mission toolbar (http://www.descent2.de/dle-xp-missions.html), which should list all the levels that are in the hog file in the window on the left. Find the level that is to connect to your secret level, add a comma at the end, then add on the file name for your secret level. If I remember correctly, that should do it, but if not, I'm sure someone will say so. Unfortunately, I do not have DLE-XP on the computer I'm writing this from, so I have to go from memory here, and it's been awhile since I've messed with secret levels.
As for the alternate exit door, I believe you have to make sure it's trigger is a secret exit and not an exit-exit, but again, I'm just going from memory.
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Wish I had looked at this yesterday. Might not have time today to look at it (weekends are always bad for me, but this one is worse). Probably wouldn't be able to help you out till Monday and that's a while to wait.
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I pretty much already tried exactly what you said for the secret exit, Scyphi. The door was generated as a secret exit, but when it's open, nothing happens. You can go down the small stretch of a tunnel and back, but even after creating the door again, only the regular exit takes you out of the level. It didn't even acknowledge that the reactor was supposed to open it at first, until I told it to. :/
Likewise, I tried to insert the reactors as cubes at first, but I get a warning message that "flag goals are not available in Descent 1," and nothing about the level appearance changes. I figured that was pretty much what I had to do, so now the problem is that the editor's not letting me do it. This was the same across all the versions of DLE-XP I've used (1.8.92 to 1.9.02).
If I can't get it to work, I'll probably at least try to fix the concave cubes in the last level and upload an updated version to DMDB. Hopefully then, someone could help me fix the rest. ^^;
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Hmm...well it sounds like there's a problem with the trigger, but I can't think of what it might be...
Nor for the reactor cubes, dunno what the whole deal with the 'flag goals' is. Might be a problem with the editor itself...but again I just don't know.
Maybe I'll have to download DLE-XP and open up your level set and see if I can see the problem there, assuming I can find the time...
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I've just posted an updated version of the beta. There are no more concave cubes, so nobody should end up getting stuck in the boss room any more. ;) I ended up having to reconstruct the entire room because of conflicts between adjacent cubes that couldn't be simply fixed by changing the coordinates, so you'll probably notice that the boss room looks somewhat different now.
The secret exit is still an unresolved issue, but as it stands, I've done just about all I can to fix the beta. I believe everything that's still not quite right is the fault of my copy of the editor...
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Going to look at it.
I was able to get a secret mission door to work, complete with "alternate exit found, proceeding to secret level" or whatever it says. But when I entered the regular exit, I'd go into the secret level at the same time.
With DMB2 I never had this kind of hassle.
edit: found the problem. Your mission does not have a single "secret exit" trigger. Trigger 17 seems to be the one for the secret exit, but there is no trigger type selected. Check the secret exit type on Trigger 17 and you should be good to go.
edit: indeed, this does the job.
edit: I used to be able to do custom exit tunnels all the time. It's easy to do, but the way to do it is very specific, and you need to use briefing files for each level.
I also see that the custom music you supposedly wanted to use is not in there, but oh well.
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I can't modify my post for some reason. Here is what else I was going to add:
If I have the time, I'll look into how to do it again and then show you all the basic requirements. Bear in mind this may not be for a while.
What I do know is that your ship must enter each cube though side 6, and it may be that you must exit each cube through side 5...
Or maybe it's the other way around, but it is one or the other. Even if you do this, you must also supply a .txb file (type of briefing file) which has certain data such as where the end of the exit tunnel shows up on the heightmapped terrain, the terrain texture, and the heightmap texture itself (turns out you can use custom versions of these last two, but I haven't been able to successfully do this in years).
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I'd actually need a full copy of BriefEd or some other program that could be used to make them, if there is one. I've tried downloading BriefEd from a couple different places, but there always seems to be a file missing from the download, so I haven't been able to get it to work. If not for that...
As far as the secret exit goes... Well, now I feel dumb. I had no idea the problem was that simple. XD;; Anywho, it's now updated to work and can be accessed from the appropriate level. Good luck finding and clearing it!
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I recommend Yahoma 2.0, or 2.0b. You can get 2.0b off of descentvalhalla.com. I don't think you can get 2.0 anymore, I will have to upload it somewhere.
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Exit sequences have been added; although the reactors do not display properly on the automap, there are no problems otherwise, so I'd consider this mission complete and no longer just a beta. I really appreciate the feedback and help I got while I was looking to fix the last few problems; I think that really helped with the end result, especially since this is my first mission and I'm still learning the ropes. :)
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Are the reactors in the right kind of cubes?
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You should be able to change the cube "type" in the segment tab just like you might do so for an energy center. I almost never add robot spawners or energy centers or similar cubes through the menu item, I always simply make a cube and then set the type.
What I do know is that in the version of DLE I am using (which is outdated), I cannot create "reactor" cubes, nor set any cubes to be reactor cubes. I can set them, however, to be robot makers or energy centers. This may only be my version of DLE, but you may have to try out Devil or use DMB2, though the latter should only be if you can get the full version. Devil is free, however, and SDL Devil should do the job just fine.
Most people won't REALLY care but it wouldn't hurt to take a few extra steps to make them reactor cubes... though we shouldn't have to take said extra steps.
edit: latest version will add reactor cubes in d2, but not d1.
edit: since it is obvious that this problem is not limited to a single person, I put a bug ticket for DLE-XP on karx's tracker, so that issue may be fixed before long (It's almost crazy how often he updates this stuff).
edit: Go grab the latest version and you can turn those cubes into reactor cubes now.
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Naphtha,
You should make this co-op compatible, too.
There are several people who like a good co-op now and then.
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Done and done, plus the reactors are showing up properly now and I fixed a few textural errors I managed to catch. It now supports up to three players in co-op; four was a bit of a tight squeeze on some of the levels, so I decided against it. All I can say is I'll try to be more careful of that with future levels, but hopefully it's not too bad of a setup as it is.
And hopefully this is the last time I need to update it. XD
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Well, I suppose I should actually get around to downloading it and playing it then. :P
In my defense, though, I have had a bit of a busy week, but thankfully it's starting to wind down now.
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Awesome!
Although I prefer 4 player, I agree that it would be a tight squeeze. Three is probably best for these levels.
I'll have to play through it as soon as I get the chance. I will say that on one level, either level 3 or 4, I forget which, where there is a robot maker right at the beginning, I think you went overboard with spawning robots from that one robot maker because I pass through the room and there's three spawnings worth of bots there, and the room is pretty small at that. After this, it never goes off because it is exhausted. That particular part doesn't play very well.
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Ok :)
I am stuck in level 2 with a red key and a blue door ;D
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Ah yes, the elusive blue key.
There is a glitch in the game which replaces the blue key with the red one, meaning you will have to completely reinstall everything.
Nah, not really.
Go to the first room and look for seams in the wall, you might find something.
Personally, I didn't like this, but I had forgotten about it.
Not only that, I've seen much worse, such as in Levels of the World.
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Hahah, a few of those choices were basically to mess with players the first time through. Sounds like I succeeded so far.
As for the matcen thing in Level 3... I'm not sure, but there might have been a misplaced trigger. When I played through after editing in some of the earlier DLE-XP versions I used, sometimes a trigger for a different matcen would activate other specific ones. That usually happened to me in the room with the yellow key in Level 4 and the yellow room in Level 6; that is, I'd enter the room and the matcens would already have gone off, even without me flying through what was supposed to be the trigger. I think that stopped happening after upgrading DLE-XP a few times, but I never really noticed that much of a problem with Level 3, if the two are going off more than they're supposed to.
The levels were supposed to climb in difficulty pretty quickly, though, since there were only six. For a while, I had trouble beating Level 4 on Hotshot from a cold start, and the final boss still gives me a bit of trouble, so make of that what you will. :P