Marathon Eternal 1.3b #51 Where Giants Have Fallen–#52 The Near Side of Everywhere, 2022-05-22
294 بار بازدید -
2 سال پیش
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Eternal 1.3 remains a WIP,
Eternal 1.3 remains a WIP, but preview 3 was released on 2022-06-02.
0:00 #51 Where Giants Have Fallen
This level was the main hurdle left to clear for preview 3, & it’s nearly done now; only refinements to shading, monster placement, & scripting remain. As viewers who played older versions of Eternal will see immediately, we’ve completely remade it. (CryoS did the inner structure & its surrounding ring; I did everything outside that). One impetus for this was that the previous version had next to no negative space, which is a poor design choice for a portal engine like Marathon’s; it thus dipped below 30 fps on my system, which is only a few years old. That might’ve been acceptable before frame interpolation, but certainly isn’t now.
It may not look like it, but this version has far more negative space. It has seven discrete segments: the central structure & six outer segments divided by crossbeams with only small gaps. Thus, despite having 2,028 polygons – more than twice the old version’s 979 – it still runs at least twice as fast as the old one did in areas players are meant to access… with an added snow script.
The treacherous cliffs are this version’s other immediately conspicuous difference. If a player falls off, a few things may occur:
1. If players have inserted a chip & hit a secret switch under the chip slot, the player gets 3x shields & is teleported to a secret credit terminal; this in turn teleports the player back to Leela’s terminal. Thus far, I’ve written characteristically tl;dr thanks, & RADIX has written a brief message; other contributors will add their own messages as time permits.
2. Solo players who haven’t activated the secret are sent to the last level. (Preview 4 will just kill them: I’d planned to preserve the level state, but I’d forgotten about the save at the end of the last level.)
3. In network games where the secret isn’t activated:
a. Players without chips in their possession are killed (they lose ammo, but not progression).
b. If the player possesses a chip, everyone gets sent back to the last map, as stranding a chip at the bottom of the level could render the game unwinnable. (Preview 4 will kill them, strip their weapons & ammo, & teleport their corpse & the chip to the level start.)
Other notes:
• Like the previous version, this is meant to be a trek up an artificial mountain to a spaceport. (In case the sky didn’t give it away, the structure is basically a Dyson sphere.) The obviously unnatural rock colours are deliberately arranged in concentric circles around the spaceport; this was meant to impress visitors as they arrived, but the footpath has eroded over centuries of disuse, so the terrain is a mix of natural & artificial.
• The new version’s combat (which I’m still balancing) is more challenging, so I decided to be polite & give players more health & ammo on vid starts. The previous level’s final charger is also now 3x instead of 2x.
• In this level’s dream counterparts, jumping off the mountain takes you to the dream terminal, just as jumping down the well did in older versions (& still does). To spice them up, they also now have “ghosts” of the real version’s enemies that show up 50% transparent (as do players themselves). The ghosts can’t hurt you but can hurt each other, & you can hurt them. They also drop ammo & respawn (at least for now).
• We’ve hue-shifted the Jjaro & Forerunner sets again. Previews 1 & 2 swapped their hues from 1.2:
- Forerunner used 30° (orange), 120° (green), 210° (azure), & 300° (magenta) (Eternal’s ‘main’ hues)
- Jjaro used 30° (orange), 180° (cyan), 210° (azure), & 240° (blue) (±60° to green/magenta)
However, green & magenta clashed in Forerunner even after we desaturated it 25%, & desaturating it 50% looked bad. I considered restoring 1.2.x’s hues until further experimentation yielded a middle ground:
- Both sets use 30° (orange), 150° (spring green), 210° (azure), & 270° (purple) (±30° to green/magenta)
Eternal thus no longer has a ‘neutral’ texture set; Jjaro & Forerunner instead collectively balance out the Human set:
- Human uses 30° (orange), 60° (yellow), 210° (azure), & 0° (red) (±60° to green/magenta)
This also feels like better colour theory, & the new Forerunner set matches Tacticus’ new landscape better to boot.
• This is the first time I’ve made a map with this many polygons without ever exceeding the map index limit. I’m low key a bit proud of that. Maybe I’m finally developing an intuition for this stuff.
9:10 #52 The Near Side of Everywhere
The KYT term now fits on three pages & is formatted more like Jason Jones’ original (i.e., not KYT’s garbled version), which I think looks & reads better. When I posted this video, I planned to update my (sloppy) Latin translation to match, but after preview 3, I generated a metric ton of MidJourney art for both versions instead.
0:00 #51 Where Giants Have Fallen
This level was the main hurdle left to clear for preview 3, & it’s nearly done now; only refinements to shading, monster placement, & scripting remain. As viewers who played older versions of Eternal will see immediately, we’ve completely remade it. (CryoS did the inner structure & its surrounding ring; I did everything outside that). One impetus for this was that the previous version had next to no negative space, which is a poor design choice for a portal engine like Marathon’s; it thus dipped below 30 fps on my system, which is only a few years old. That might’ve been acceptable before frame interpolation, but certainly isn’t now.
It may not look like it, but this version has far more negative space. It has seven discrete segments: the central structure & six outer segments divided by crossbeams with only small gaps. Thus, despite having 2,028 polygons – more than twice the old version’s 979 – it still runs at least twice as fast as the old one did in areas players are meant to access… with an added snow script.
The treacherous cliffs are this version’s other immediately conspicuous difference. If a player falls off, a few things may occur:
1. If players have inserted a chip & hit a secret switch under the chip slot, the player gets 3x shields & is teleported to a secret credit terminal; this in turn teleports the player back to Leela’s terminal. Thus far, I’ve written characteristically tl;dr thanks, & RADIX has written a brief message; other contributors will add their own messages as time permits.
2. Solo players who haven’t activated the secret are sent to the last level. (Preview 4 will just kill them: I’d planned to preserve the level state, but I’d forgotten about the save at the end of the last level.)
3. In network games where the secret isn’t activated:
a. Players without chips in their possession are killed (they lose ammo, but not progression).
b. If the player possesses a chip, everyone gets sent back to the last map, as stranding a chip at the bottom of the level could render the game unwinnable. (Preview 4 will kill them, strip their weapons & ammo, & teleport their corpse & the chip to the level start.)
Other notes:
• Like the previous version, this is meant to be a trek up an artificial mountain to a spaceport. (In case the sky didn’t give it away, the structure is basically a Dyson sphere.) The obviously unnatural rock colours are deliberately arranged in concentric circles around the spaceport; this was meant to impress visitors as they arrived, but the footpath has eroded over centuries of disuse, so the terrain is a mix of natural & artificial.
• The new version’s combat (which I’m still balancing) is more challenging, so I decided to be polite & give players more health & ammo on vid starts. The previous level’s final charger is also now 3x instead of 2x.
• In this level’s dream counterparts, jumping off the mountain takes you to the dream terminal, just as jumping down the well did in older versions (& still does). To spice them up, they also now have “ghosts” of the real version’s enemies that show up 50% transparent (as do players themselves). The ghosts can’t hurt you but can hurt each other, & you can hurt them. They also drop ammo & respawn (at least for now).
• We’ve hue-shifted the Jjaro & Forerunner sets again. Previews 1 & 2 swapped their hues from 1.2:
- Forerunner used 30° (orange), 120° (green), 210° (azure), & 300° (magenta) (Eternal’s ‘main’ hues)
- Jjaro used 30° (orange), 180° (cyan), 210° (azure), & 240° (blue) (±60° to green/magenta)
However, green & magenta clashed in Forerunner even after we desaturated it 25%, & desaturating it 50% looked bad. I considered restoring 1.2.x’s hues until further experimentation yielded a middle ground:
- Both sets use 30° (orange), 150° (spring green), 210° (azure), & 270° (purple) (±30° to green/magenta)
Eternal thus no longer has a ‘neutral’ texture set; Jjaro & Forerunner instead collectively balance out the Human set:
- Human uses 30° (orange), 60° (yellow), 210° (azure), & 0° (red) (±60° to green/magenta)
This also feels like better colour theory, & the new Forerunner set matches Tacticus’ new landscape better to boot.
• This is the first time I’ve made a map with this many polygons without ever exceeding the map index limit. I’m low key a bit proud of that. Maybe I’m finally developing an intuition for this stuff.
9:10 #52 The Near Side of Everywhere
The KYT term now fits on three pages & is formatted more like Jason Jones’ original (i.e., not KYT’s garbled version), which I think looks & reads better. When I posted this video, I planned to update my (sloppy) Latin translation to match, but after preview 3, I generated a metric ton of MidJourney art for both versions instead.
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