Marathon 1 Redux

[Lion O Cyborg]

Regarding the fans including the ones in Never Burn Money, will they actually spin in Redux, like they do in Rubicon? ...

Other than that, it still looked odd. The alpha I am playing of Redux doesn't have working fans in E1M3 (Arrival chapter map 3) so far, but it does add fan and pump sounds to their polygons.

I made an animated fan texture quite a while ago, but apparently I never got around to actually applying it.

http://pfhorums.com/download/file.php?id=7487&mode=view

Thanks. It looks great.

Also, please do not use DOOM-style level designations. I don't want none of that trash in here. Use the level name if you want anyone to know what you're talking about.

I will try do that in the future. I was a bit too used to using Halo and Doom terms in a couple of my steam screenshots and youtube comments just so people used to those games who might not have played the trilogy would understand. I'd forgotten I don't actually need to do that here. Sorry.

Please stop talking about DOOM. I absolutely detest DOOM, as do many Marathon fans, and have no intention of making anything DOOM-like. If you want something, put it in Marathon terms, don't point at DOOM.

Please stop referencing other games.

No I will not. I will put it in Marathon terms but some things I'd like originated in other shooters and I just used Doom as an example to illustrate what I mean. Please respect other people's rights to talk about other games too, even if you personally don't like them. If you hate Doom, that's fine I'm not going to judge. Do not tell people not to mention it just because you don't.

I happen to like both games (and I played Marathon first and prefer it to Doom I might add) and I really don't like this idea of rivalry between the two. Sonic and Mario grew out of it, Mass Effect and Halo get along, Doom and Marathon can do the same.

Another reason for my mentioning referencing other games specifically as examples for things to include is not "why can't you be like your older brother, X?" Or "It'd be amazing if X shooter did what y unrelated game or TV franchise does", but actually because Aleph One has been lagging behind those other 2.5D games on the modern improvements to the engine front for years now. I go into detail about that below. (in a spoiler tag)

I am only basing those ideas on what I've seen elsewhere because it's the only comparison I can come up with. It also provides a visual aid if there happens to be a video of it for that shooter.

If it makes you feel any better, a more appropriate way for me to suggest a realistic flamethrower would have been instead to point at this image of a real one in action: https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/ ... r-boat.jpg and use Halo 1's flamethrower in multiplayer and SVP3 as the game example, as it's a bit closer to Marathon in terms of source material.

Feel free to ignore the rest of this post below as it's just me venting something I've needed to get off my chest for a good while now. It's now in a spoiler tag so it's only visible if you actually want to read it. If you don't agree with new opinions, read the hidden parts at your own risk.

Spoiler:

CAUTION: DANGER ZONE.

The whole point of Marathon to begin with was to provide Doom style gameplay for Mac (and now Windows and Linux too) but improve all of it tenfold as well as having a proper, rich and deep story, that Doom and Duke 3D didn't even try, which the Vulcan/Forge engine and Vanilla games for Aleph One do indeed pull off. It's not unfair nor taboo to expect that way of thinking to spread to Marathon's engine port too, so it can really compete against the others such as GZ Doom and the EDuke32 Build engine and prove it's superior to them like I think it is. As it stands, Aleph One is more of a "Chocolate Marathon" as is described here: https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Chocolate_Doom

Aleph One isn't actually outdated compared to the others like I might imply: it's just slower going as it has at least been taking small steps, which are nonetheless still highly appreciated such as; infinite polygons in maps, multiple texture sets and liquids allowed per map, far less clunky plugin implementation than the other aforementioned games, comfortable cross platform play with all three major OS types, more intricate level design than Vulcan/Forge allow, use of scripting to spice things up and even true 3D model support and at one point, true 3D bridges (though I don't know how the last one was implemented, outside of the normal method of overlapping polygons with matching shapes).

PID Aleph One even implements the ability to go back and fourth between levels with saved level states as well as minor RPG elements, so it can recreate PID for Windows users who can't play the original nor can emulate it, so a potential fan remake of Strife for Aleph One is not far fetched. I'd play it. All of these improvements above are worth the time it was to include them and I am happy we have them. This is the reason for the "Chocolate Marathon" analogy above.

However, the Aleph One engine is still missing:

1. Jump and crouch keys, like every other modern 2.5D port of engines have. The jump cheat in Forge and the cheats script doesn't count as it's far too powerful, making the game too easy if you use it. Not surprising as that version of a jump button was intended for debugging/map making only.

2. The vertex grid in the editor is still too small despite the limits being removed: it's seems to be the same size as it is in Forge. If it were (hypothetically) increased by at least 5x or 7x the current size (ideal would be Microsoft Excel's cell limit distance but that's pushing it), levels could be even bigger and more complex, allowing even more awesome mods to be made that exploit that.

3. Sloped polygons

4. Vehicle support for use in really large maps, going hand in hand with the expanded grid space above. This one doesn't have to be used in map making, as vehicles are not a priority option but it's nice to have that option.

E.g. Marcus/SO etc tearing up a highway in a Pfhor occupied city on a quad bike like New Mombasa meets Speed Highway/Lethal Highway, or hijacking a parked juggernaut in a space map and playing the other ones at their own game, and even using a Randal Hovertank in a war sequence sound awesome.

5. Ladders and climbable wall polygon/line types. E.g. In maintenance access in installation maps, or having the player show off their cyborg prowess by scaling near vertical cliffs the Bobs can't in order to reach an objective e.g. open doors to let them in etc.

6. Conveyor belt physics that can be set in the editor, including for the aforementioned sloped polygons (e.g. for chutes). It is possible to have them now, thanks to editing polygons with scripting, (Eternal 1.2 is an example of such from what I've heard) but being able to easily set them either within weland or even within a new build of Vasara would be less hair-pulling for newbies like myself. Scripted conveyors can still be used too.

7. More interactive elements in the environments in brand new mods, like Duke Nukem 3D has.

If Aleph One were to include jumping and crouching controls (that you can toggle on and off so you don't actually have to use them, again like Doom's engine ports), Marathon's version of the Sprint of Faith in Vanilla actually works and is fun to do, unlike Doom. This is because of the better gravity physics and being able to look up and down, which vanilla Doom can't do. So Marathon's true jumping feature would have to be restricted only to reaching secret platforms that the sprint of faith, grenade jumping and wall-walking can't reach. Yes, jumping would be effected by momentum. Using the jump key willy nilly for crossing any gaps would indeed be counted as cheating, and forbidden when playing Vidmaster style.

Crouching is best used for small gaps and areas that the player is actually intended to go, like air vents and narrow gaps. If the player is not supposed to reach that area e.g. outside an open window, or into an out of bounds areas like the troll rooms in the original Marathon, the "window" gaps leading to them can be made impassable to players, to prevent cheating.

[ravenshining]

Yeah, I don't need to deal with this, and don't need to be seeing that diatribe at the top of this thread for the next page. Unfortunately, the best I can do is hide it from my personal view by putting you on my ignore list. If you'd like to delete or rewrite your post and PM me an apology I'll take you off.

[Ku-rin]

WORDS

You might be surprised by what you can do with Lua in Aleph One. I'm doing lots of awful disgusting things with Lua for MPDX right now... Jumping, swimming, and climbing (ledges *and* ladders) for starters. 3d terminals, swinging doors, sliding doors, composite monsters... So, you know, don't sell it short.

Yeah, I don't need to deal with this, and don't need to be seeing that diatribe at the top of this thread for the next page. Unfortunately, the best I can do is hide it from my personal view by putting you on my ignore list. If you'd like to delete or rewrite your post and PM me an apology I'll take you off.

You're doing really cool work, but you're going to give yourself an aneurysm if you take anything too seriously here for too long. Ah, what would you have done with a MoppyPuppy, I wonder? Hehe.

Keep on truckin'!

[ravenshining]

You might be surprised by what you can do with Lua in Aleph One. I'm doing lots of awful disgusting things with Lua for MPDX right now... Jumping, swimming, and climbing (ledges *and* ladders) for starters. 3d terminals, swinging doors, sliding doors, composite monsters... So, you know, don't sell it short.

I'm excited to start putting Lua to good use now that I'm starting to get a handle on it! A lot of those may be good ideas, on their own, but when it's put in the context of "well x game has this" and the matter-of-fact "you will do things this way," I'm not inclined to consider it.

You're doing really cool work, but you're going to give yourself an aneurysm if you take anything too seriously here for too long. Ah, what would you have done with a MoppyPuppy, I wonder? Hehe.

Keep on truckin'!

Thanks! I know, I'm really bad at not taking things seriously.

[Lion O Cyborg]

WORDS

You might be surprised by what you can do with Lua in Aleph One. I'm doing lots of awful disgusting things with Lua for MPDX right now... Jumping, swimming, and climbing (ledges *and* ladders) for starters. 3d terminals, swinging doors, sliding doors, composite monsters... So, you know, don't sell it short.

Thanks. I didn't actually realise Lua could do all that before. I really appricate what you're doing with it. I just can't code so it's harder for me to make use of those cool things. I can always learn how to.

I've hidden the rant in a spoiler tag while you were writing that so it's only visible if anyone actually wants to see it.

You're doing really cool work, but you're going to give yourself an aneurysm if you take anything too seriously here for too long. Ah, what would you have done with a MoppyPuppy, I wonder? Hehe.

Keep on truckin'!

Yeah, I've been on his end of the stick a few times myself, including a flame war I accidentally caused on the story forum a few years ago* so i can sort of see how Ravenshining feels. It's not pleasant having what you say challenged, especially if you have had a lot of time to grow attached to those ideas, which can make the anger one feels from it even worse. That's no reason for him to throw a hissy fit and demand someone censor their own criticism and apologise just because they said something they don't like. That's what people like Digital Homicide, Dentola Studios, Andrew Watt, other bad Steam developers and just recently EA do. I've also been guilty of that in the past.

I have at least reworded above a little on top of putting a spoiler tag around the really ranty part so the rest appears less cluttered and more civilised than it was before.

Also, you've seen how toxic MoppyPuppy is as well? I know of his reputation from his repeated trolling of Narcogen and Blackstar in their Marathon let's play. I called him out on it a while ago, but since then his comments appear to have vanished. He was like the Marathon version of Joseph Collins. (Joseph's infamy was him repeatedly harrassing the composer for the Rise of the Triad remake just because he didn't like the remastered music Andrew made for that game)


*

Spoiler:

This was caused just because I *shock and horror* suggested things that a full 3D remake of the Marathon Trilogy and Marathon 4 could do instead of simply copying the originals with little improvements like Halo 1 and 2 Anniversary do. (It works for the latter, but that's because they were only 10 years old instead of 20) Some of the things I suggested back then were admittedly a bit silly in hindsight but I was naive at the time. My responses back then could also have been more mature. I don't like to talk about it.

I'm excited to start putting Lua to good use now that I'm starting to get a handle on it! A lot of those may be good ideas, on their own, but when it's put in the context of "well x game has this" and the matter-of-fact "you will do things this way," I'm not inclined to consider it.

You'll be pleased to hear that the above has been worded better to illustrate my point in a less ranting sort of way, also explaining better why I chose Doom as my example and then suggesting a more appropriate one. I never actually meant it to sound like "you will do things this way", as i was never expecting those to actually be done. Sorry if it came across that way. I have no power there and it isn't my place to force people to do it. If I really want to see things that nobody will include, then it has to be for something I am making or I learn to do it myself. I just suck at coding and debugging so I've accepted I may never be able to actually code something I want myself.

(I struggled to debug a breakout clone I made in Game Maker for college and had to ask my dad for help so I could submit the finished game in time for the deadline. That shows how bad I am at understanding the more advanced computer code languages)

[treellama]

You guys act like MoppyPuppy isn't still here

[Ku-rin]

You guys act like MoppyPuppy isn't still here

Lalala~ I can't hear you~ lalala~! Out of sight out of mind!

[Lion O Cyborg]

You guys act like MoppyPuppy isn't still here

Lalala~ I can't hear you~ lalala~! Out of sight out of mind!

^

[General-RADIX]

He was like the Marathon version of Joseph Collins. (Joseph's infamy was him repeatedly harrassing the composer for the Rise of the Triad remake just because he didn't like the remastered music Andrew made for that game)

Oooooh dear; I used to be forum buddies with this person back in the day ("the day" being Rockman Perfect Memories). Not gonna go into detail over why I stopped talking to them, just that it was kind of an ugly shock.

[ravenshining]

I don't know who this MoppyPuppy was, but quick search of their posts doesn't yield anything objectionable. At least they were concise!

You'll be pleased to hear that the above has been worded better

Sure you did.

on top of putting (other people's) ego protection

Please stop talking about DOOM.

No I will not.

CAUTION: DANGER ZONE. People who can actually take criticism may proceed.

[Wrkncacnter]

I don't know why you guys are being so hard on MoppyPuppy. He's one of my favorite Pfhorums members.

[Lion O Cyborg]

I don't know who this MoppyPuppy was, but quick search of their posts doesn't yield anything objectionable. At least they were concise!

You'll be pleased to hear that the above has been worded better

Sure you did.

on top of putting (other people's) ego protection

Please stop talking about DOOM.

No I will not.

CAUTION: DANGER ZONE. People who can actually take criticism may proceed.

There we go. All fixed. (Except the second of those three. I can't be dishonest, can I?)

[ravenshining]

This weekend, I thought I'd take a page out of Pfhorrest's book and create some rotations and alternate colour variations of textures. Not for every single texture, that would be insane, and not as many colours, but a few here and there to satisfy those situations where I'm texturing and thinking, "I really wish this texture aligned this way instead of that," or "Why is there only one texture that fits this situation?"

Then I went and created a conversion key for M1R and the Eternal human set, as Pfhorrest has kindly given me permission to use Roots and Radicals:

I also started making some alternate terminals, since they're repeated three times. AI variations, like so:

And a busted[?obfuscated] terminal (WIP):

Next weekend I'll probably go through the 42 textures that didn't match anything in the Eternal human set...

...and see if I can match some of those Marathon textures to replace some of the Jjaro textures I used, and when that's done, delete some unused textures, and then once I get the numbers all sorted out, get that up there on Git. Then it's time to start having fun with Lua!

[ravenshining]

Someone on Discord complained that the elevator on Pfhoraphobia was busted. So, now it is fixed, and while I was at it, I played around with the throne room a bit:

The water is basically a stand-in to make the cyborg's immunity to explosion look better until I devise something more elaborate, but it fits in with the décor quite nicely. I'll have to make it more transparent so you can actually see the guy behind it though.

You probably can't tell, but I also started using the M2 organic green texture behind slime. Since that texture is solid, I'll be able to increase slime transparency a bit, too. The pool is now twice as deep (but still climb-out-able), and you can swim under those slimefalls on either side if you feel like sliming yourself to death.

These changes (but not the textures in my previous post) are now on Git, including a merge since the elevator bug was game-breaking:
https://github.com/ravenshining/M1R/blo ... 20Map.sceA

[ravenshining]

Over 50 "new" textures - mostly rotations and tints, really - are now integrated into the shapesfile, mml (sans animations), and DDS'd.

Here's how the Leela & Durandal static came out:

Tycho also has his own staticy term, all three AIs have fully-functional variants, there's a colony terminal, and one slightly rusty pattern buffer. Oh, and also a Jjaro terminal, but that's not 1024x1024 yet. Animations and panels still need to be mml'd, and levels need to be updated.

This split door was fun to make- I guess the lighting needs some work, but I can always mess with that later:

A selection of mundane rotations and tints, you get the idea:

And now that that's all that done, I auto-reskinned Roots & Radicals with JUICE:

all that's up on git.

[Pfhorrest]

that's really cool!

[ravenshining]

Thanks!

It would be trivial to run the conversion in reverse, if we wanted to add any M1 netmaps to Eternal's netpack. Results vary, but sometimes it looks all right.

[treellama]

I used a Weland plugin for M:W. Less chance of...JUICEiness

[ravenshining]

Heh. I'll use JUICE for brute-force work at the beginning of a process - half the polygons in the above map have been deleted for the adaptation - and it's a great information-gathering tool, but I'm a little leery of using it on something more finished and I always make a backup.

Where might I find this Weland plugin for texture conversion?

[Lion O Cyborg]

Say, will the Pfhor cyborg gain attacks in Pfhoraphobia in order to make it more of a boss fight? He

Spoiler:

already tries to dodge your shots

in the build I played and rockets no longer work on him so as to make it less of an anti climax than the original game, which I indeed approve of.

All he needs now is a way to fight back as well as dodge, which may be hard to get right, so the boss isn't too much harder than the level itself already was in vanilla M1.

[Bobwithkeycard]

Hey Lia, good job on the terminals with the static screen...one nit-pick, though: the top and left hand part of the metal frame around the terminal's screen show a greenish reflection of what is normally the terminal's text.

Now that there's mostly static visible on the screen it looks rather strange that the greenish stuff is still there and unaffected by it. Looks rather weird when you focus on it.

chances are that no one else is bothered by this, though

[ravenshining]

Thanks BoB! Yeah, I'll have to fix that at some point, either by altering the glow, or by making Leela's static green, as I did for Durandal - note also the now-animated lights on the left side of Leela, and that Durandal is on a "Maintenance Terminal." Leela's messed up "wirehead" terminal is still present, just moved to a different slot:

I did remove the green glow for the totally shut-down terms:

Apparently, Aleph One allows you to specify inactive frames, so that will be used for, well, inactive terminals and pattern buffers, like the light-controlled pattern buffer on Bigger Guns. If this works, it should only say "Success" when it is lit, and be blank when you can't use it. And if that works, I'll create some "Pattern Analysis: FAILED" graphics for it.

So, before I made those, I was all ready to start scripting them in, when I realised that A1 only allows you to have 5 scenario-wide terminal textures, not counting animation frames. However, pattern buffers do not need to share the same texture as terminals. Thus ensued much juggling to try and make them all fit. I had to squish the Pfhor terms back down to M2 size and combine them with Rampant Durandal:

And while I was at Pfhor terms, I made a blank pattern buffer, a super secret texture that I won't share because spoilers and may even consider withholding from git until release, and this 1x charger and oxygen panel. I think the oxygen panel is fine, but if I ever actually use a 1x charger on the scoutship I'll probably want a totally new texture rather than just kitbashing Tim Vogel's work like I've been doing:

And finally, I really, really love this texture from the M2 Preview - the one you see in the drone terminal on Waterloo but never in the game - and I'm determined to use it somewhere on the colony, or maybe an algae farm on the Marathon or something. However, it would look bad to have a 128x128 texture amidst all the 1024x1024s, so I doubled it up, ran it twice through a dcci algorithm, and normalised the levels:

Hopefully, I'll have this all on git later today, along with the necessary scripting. I did completely re-do the whole Scripts folder for better organisation, MML scripts now are split into separate files named for their elements, and a few bugs were fixed along the way. I was hoping to have levels updated this weekend to use the new terminals, but that's not happening. That'll have to wait for next weekend, unless someone finds a bug in Eternal that needs my attention.

[Pfhorrest]

Speaking of Eternal bugs, what’s the present story with that precipitation bug Raptor found? I know nothing about that script so I’m kinda entirely dependent on you or Aaron to fix it.

[ravenshining]

Oh! Right, that should be a simple one-line fix, I thought Aaron had already done that. I'm running out of weekend here but maybe in a couple days I might have time.

Meanwhile, I've shoved all the textures and new shapes onto git, and updated the appropriate MML so they work in-game. Unfortunately, the terminal and pattern buffer inactive frames don't work as I expected them to, so they'll just look like they're always on until/unless I work out a way to do that with Lua.

[treellama]

Where might I find this Weland plugin for texture conversion?

I can't find it anywhere. It might have been a Lua script, actually. Lua scripts are easier to write.

I do still have the mappings between texture sets.