Level building Question....

[Duper]

Hey all,

I'm currently porting a level of DKH's to D3. (with permission of course)

Regardless of your feelings of d3, I would like a bit of input.

When playing a ported level, do you like to see the level:


As close to the original as possible?
--- including colors where possible


Slightly creative interpretation?
--- unaltered layout but elements incorporated that might lend to a theme
--- Athena in D3 is a good example.


A liberal interpretation?
--- similar layout with significant to radical altered construction
--- You have to squint to see the original layout through the "changes"


I could have made this a poll, but I'm looking for some real feedback here. While I only put down 3 options, there's a lot of middle ground between each. Oh, and straight up, I'm not good with implementing custom textures. About the only custom thing I'll be adding is the fast door and plasma cannon mod. Sirius, I believe those were your creations back in the day?
The more input the better. I doubt few outside this particular community will be using it so I'd like to produce something that will please those who would use it most. I had to reconstruct Keg Party for Descent 3, 3 separate times...from scratch. twice because what I wanted to build didn't meet expectations of beta testers. (I got some rather impassioned ...er... "feedback") and a 3rd do to a HD crash. >.<

Looking forward to hearing from you all. Raven, that includes you too bud.

[JinX]

Honestly I say it depends on the original design of the level. If the level has amazing architecture, texturing, and/or lighting, I would try to stay as true to it as possible. However, if it's an extremely blocky map (90 degree angles everywhere), it probably wouldn't hurt to spice up the geometry a bit while trying not to sacrifice the gameplay.

The there is, of course, the point of D3 feeling nothing like D2 or D1. I think this should be taken into account the most, because simply porting a level over and matching all of the vertices and weapon placements won't make it the same level. You'll have to actually change the size of halls, dogfight rooms, tunnels, etc in order to compensate for how long it normally takes to fly a given distance. So in other words don't recreate the length of a room in units, recreate the length in flight time.

Just my 2 cents.

[Duper]

Good! Thanks!

On thing about the size that I've found. If you build a D3 level like D1/D2 with 20x20xwhatever.. it's way too tight. If you open it up in D3 by 5, it has much the same feeling. so it becomes 25x25x(whatever +25%)

Nice point about feel. Weapon placement is an issue and takes testing.
Thanks JinX!

[JinX]

What I remember from when I was learning how to make D3 levels, that sounds about right. I quickly noticed that 20x20x20 in D3 was not the same as 20x20x20 in D1/2. Also it depends on which ship you're using, but I'd say the basis for ship size and speed should be the Pyro-GL since it's the all-around (and default) ship.

[Behemoth]

Actually duper, to make the space the right proportion each cube is 30x30x30.
And yes, making it as close to the original is the best, Athena and Vamped in D3 suck compared to the originals.

[Duper]

[Behemoth]

Well, forgive my frankness on my last post, D3 Vamped and Athena from hostile have way too much eye candy is the scale is not right, neither is the lighting.

[Duper]

No worries Behemoth! I get what you're saying. Thanks!

[JinX]

Remake Logic for D3 pretty please. With tons of new detail work.

[Duper]

lol ... I'll see what I can do once I relearn all the tools