ESSEL.txt

For historical purposes only. Do not edit.

Permalink: https://github.com/caligari87/Oblige/blob/e3dbc44e1649e40a65df8da0cc65d13be592fa03/notes/ESSEL.txt

Esselfortium's overly ambitious suggestions for OBLIGE:

- separate theme settings:

  * e1 techbase
	- star*, brown1/brown96/browngrn textures mostly, with some stone/stone2, metal1, sladwall, etc...
	- only using textures, monsters, and things found in the shareware wad, for authenticity.
	- no crates!
	- no plasma rifle or bfg. (maybe have separate settings for design theme, monsters and weapons)
	- lots of computers: big and small, in walls, hanging from the ceiling like in e1m1, etc.
	- lots of nukage. no water, lava, or blood.
	- support2 instead of support3 and metal
	- big sky ceilings, not the small X ones
	- blue carpet
	- brn* midtextures in windows! these things are episode 1 as hell.
	- mostly somewhat open areas

  * e2 subverted base
	- for tech areas: stone/stone2/stone3, cement*, gray*/ickwall*, brown1/brown96/browngrn, pipe*, metal1...
	- for subverted areas: wood*, gstone*, marble*, etc.
	- crates! yay!
	- crushing ceilings, preferably wood ones but not necessarily all of them
	- computers in techy areas
	- skin, fire, and demon faces in subverted areas
	- vines!
	- support3 and metal, with much less support2
	- mostly nukage....the water, lava, and blood would be more e3 material, i think.
	- midgrate and midbrn1 in windows, especially in more demonic/subverted sections
	- some 112-128 brightness, cramped underground areas would be really neat!
	- maybe a couple of separate theme settings for this, one without the demon stuff and just the e2 techbase textures

  * e3 gothic/hell theme
	- gstone*, marble*, wood*, pipe*, rockred1/sp_rock1/2, sp_hot1, stone3, ashwall, etc...
	- no techy textures. just because sandy petersen did it in the real e3 doesn't mean you should too :P
	- midbrn1 and midgrate in windows
	- demon faces, fire, skin, sp_dude*, skspine*, skulwal*, etc., for decorations
	- mostly lava and blood. no nukage. some water.
	- support3 and metal. no support2.
	- no e2 crates (no UAC logos or anything silvery anywhere in this theme, preferably), but wood crates would be cool.

  * doom2 starport theme
	- primary textures: bronze*, tekgren*, metal*, brown1/96/grn
	- other textures: stone/stone4/5/6/7, pipe*, gray*, cement*, brownpip, bigbrik*
	- a bit of ashwall is okay too (look at the big room in map01, for example)
	- mostly water, but some nukage is good.
	- support2.
	- e2m2-style crates are okay :)

  * doom2 brick/metal theme
	- pretty simple concept here. tan bricks and lots of 'em, and metal* looks great with them.
	- brick5/6/7/8/9/lit, metal2 and its variants, bstone1/2/3, stone6/7 and tanrock5 could work here too.
	- maybe some zimmer1/2/7 in outdoor areas
	- support3 and metal.
	- pick either nukage or lava and stick with it, for each map.
	- decorations: tekwall, comptall/compwerd, sp_dude7/8, spacew3, etc.
	- crates are a-ok :)

  * okay, i'm not writing all that crap out for any more themes, but here are some other possibilities:
	- doom2 gothic (similar to the gothic areas in doom1 e2, but with more panel* and tan-colored stuff)
	- doom2 hell (similar to the doom1 e3 stuff, but with doom2's zimmer* and other hell rock crap)
	- doom2 wolf3d textures only (keep everything square and 128x128 for this) :P

- considerations for more interesting and humanlike design:

  * 45-degree angles. these are especially important in e1 maps. if there's any way you can get it to even just put
    a 64x64 45-degree angle on some outwards-pointing corners, checking to make sure it didn't make anything get stuck
    or block a path, it'd make a huge difference.

  * in rockred/sp_rock/ashwall/zimmer/etc. areas, split each line a random number of times (like 2 or 3) and move the
    vertices around a bit randomly, for a natural look. do the same checking to make sure no paths are blocked and no
    things are stuck. run the 45-degree angle code in these areas before doing this, though, for added naturalness.

  * give it a database of which flats look good touching which textures, preferably with priority listings
    (i.e. a brown96 wall looks fine with floor7_1, ceil5_2, flat1, and a bunch of other things, but ceil5_2 matches it best.
     so it'd use ceil5_2 whenever building out a small section of wall, like for a computer or something, but for larger areas
     it'd use any of them from the list).

  * tell it which textures and flats to only use on certain sized walls and surfaces. mostly just tell it not to put lighting
    flats on anything that doesn't fit the grid (i noticed lots of light flats in doorways, getting cut off)

  * use support2 or support3 when changing textures (unless they're variants of each other, i guess you could group them for
    that if you haven't already).

  * maybe determine lighting levels based on the number of light textures/things/flats/sky windows in a room, the size of the room,
    and the light levels of the surrounding rooms.

  * wolf3d textures don't look completely terrible if used well, but it's extremely rare to see them in well-made maps nowadays.
    maybe do a separate theme setting that uses mostly or all wolf3d textures?

  * ability to adjust prefabs based on sector height. i notice this one doom1 computer prefab getting used a lot and sticking out
    above the room it's in :P

  * maybe determine ceiling height based on the size of the sector. put a bit of randomness into it, but i think smaller sectors
    are more likely to work well with short ceilings.

  * when using grate textures, make the light level 1 unit higher (or lower, your choice) on one side of it. the 1-unit light
    difference will not be visible at all ingame, but it will prevent the midtexture from bleeding into the ceiling or floor if
    the sector is not as tall as the midtexture is.

  * not a necessary thing, but if you could have it add outer borders to rooms, tormentor667 would be out of a job. :p

  * make sure it only uses poison signs if there is actually nukage in the room :P

  * ditch the custom textures and stuff. they're exceptionally cheesy. the Oblige signs are okay, of course.
    if you absolutely must have a waterfall texture, there's a much better-matching one floating around. if i remember right, either
    plutonia or tnt has it, but i could be wrong about that.

I know you're not actually going to implement all this stuff, but they'd be pretty nice I think :)


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Pinkies work well as monsters when they're used to their advantage:
they're space-blockers. They don't provide much of a threat in and of
themselves, but when combined with the rest of the monster ensemble,
they limit and control the player's movement in order to keep players
confined, where necessary, and keep them from running laps around the
opposition