Let's Make a Level for Duke Nukem 3D, Part 26

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Last time we added the room where the player can obtain a medkit and rocket launcher. I've changed it up a little since then, now the rocket launcher is behind the explodable wall where the steroids used to be, and the steroids are obtainable by blowing up the glass tube.

This is just to require more backtracking, since before, the steroids were right next to the crusher hallway where you use them. Anyway this is how our map is looking so far. Pretty good if I do say so myself, and in fact I just did:

Not much remains to be done. I'll be adding ambient sounds this time, to spice up the atmosphere. But I've also made a lot of little tweaks and done some polishing here and there.

For example, the textures on the sides of the slanted pillars in the end boss room get darker now as they get further from the light sources. If you go back and look at how it used to be, it was too "flat" before, lighting wise.

Had to go ingame to get a screenshot of this effect because it's animated. The green slime now has bubbles that rise from it, grow, then burst. There's a specific sound that goes with this effect too.

Having placed the music and sound effect sprites, I give them a lotag of 88 which corresponds to the ambient bubbling noise in the sound list, and a hitag which defines the radius of effect.

Since it's always circular and walls don't stop sound, I have to place multiple in the long corridor rather than just one. The faint dotted circles are the radius of the ambient sound from each sprite, which grows louder as you approach and fainter as you move away.

I've used a single ambient sound sprite in the jumping puzzle room because I can completely fill that space with a circle and not have it overlap into other rooms. It will sound like "energy flow" or the hum of a reactor.

Another bubbling sound effect here because of the slime. I didn't go with that for the jumping puzzle room despite the slime at the bottom because it's further from the player than the reactor rods are.

The vertical platforming shafts will have a generic tech ambience to them. Of course the radius and choice of sounds will change after this and require fine tuning, just like the textures and lighting did.

This one's a little different from the rest. It's an echo effect. It emits no noise of its own but makes it so any sound within that radius echoes by an amount specified in the hitag value of the sprite.

I also added echoes to the slime corridor and crusher corridor, as long corridors typically do have an echo to them. I won't overuse this effect or it'll become noticeable and irritating. Just a little bit goes a long way.

Now the outside area and it's duplicate. There's an ambient wind sound audible everywhere in the actual outdoor area the player is able to get to. But in the duplicate, all that matters is what's audible from inside the ship. So the wind sound is only audible next to the cockpit windows, along with soft computer ambiance.

Now some dripping ambiance for the cave area with the glass tunnel, and some soft computer ambiance near the medical console behind the beds in the "sick bay".

I think that's enough, at least for starters. I'll go through the level later and listen carefully to see if any of it is overbearing, or needs to be increased. That's all for now though. I'd say we're about 90% of the way done at this point.

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^{Stay Cozy!}