Wrong Skyboxes on Master Levels for Doom II

[Stella Veritas]

COMBINE.WAD, GERYON.WAD, MINOS.WAD, VESPARAS.WAD, VIRGIL.WAD all simultaneously replace the RSKY1 skybox texture with their own custom skyboxes, so attempting to merge the Master Levels into one wad file or loading all of the individual wads simultaneously will result in some incorrect behavior, which can be most easily seen in the first level, ATTACK, where the skybox will be replaced with one of starry sky rather than the expected cloudy sky when loading it in individually or as seen in the PS1 version of Final Doom, which also includes a few of the Master Levels for Doom II.

This behavior wasn't in the previous Doom 2 Unity port, where the Master Level wads are loaded individually rather than simultaneously. I think being able to play as an episode, like done currently, is the better method, particularly since you can enable a pistol start anyways, but it would be nice to see this extremely minor issue corrected.

As an aside, all of the levels that do replace RSKY1 have an identical skybox texture, except for COMBINE.WAD, which has a similar texture with less stars.

[fbbraganca]

Second this,

Also, the soundtrack for ATTACK is wrong too, afaik

[BlackxZodiac13]

I’m sure they’ll patch this eventually. Not a fan of Black Tower with stars sky box

[AWMonopolyMan]

Originally posted by fbbraganca:

Second this,

Also, the soundtrack for ATTACK is wrong too, afaik

A lot of the maps seemingly changed whatever music they had since, well, originally, there were 11 maps that shared Map slot 1, so you heard Running from Fear, a lot.

[GamerXT]

They made the skys match the right order or something, rather than going from night to day, to night again, etc.

[fbbraganca]

Figured out the right way to play Master Levels. Just load this mod: https://mods.bethesda.net/en/doom_doomii/details/7c3fd854-0f09-44fb-8695-7e77845c72f4/Masterpack_for_Doom_II

[Valiento]

I loaded up Slade and checked it... It seems that the designer of this episode really just loves starry skies motif... THere are actually three different RSKY backdrops being used... RSKY1 is the version of RSKY1 used in 4 (Combine), RSKY2 is the version of RSKY1 that was used in fiive levels originally. And RSKY3 was originally called "Stars" and used in 7 (Titan Manor) and 11 (Trapped on Titan).

They intentionally reworked them so that RSKY1 now used for first 3rd of the episode, RSKY2 is used for middle levels and RSKY3 is used for the 3rd.

Master Levels of Doom II (2024)
RSKY1 (Map 1-9)
RSKY2 (Map 10-15)
RSKY3 (Map 16-17, 19-20)
NULL (Map 18, 21)

So not a 'bug' apparently a specifically curated 'feature' this time around...

I think the PS3 did a different layout where it put the cloud sky levels at star,t then moved onto the 'night levels' and then ended with Black Tower (hell), and Teeth (two levels) at the end.

PSX version order is more or less all over the place... Day and night levels put into a single campaign but they have their skybox types.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loqn0rnkCCM

0:01:11 - Master Levels: Attack
0:09:26 - Master Levels: Virgil
0:17:47 - Master Levels: Canyon
0:28:45 - Master Levels: Combine
0:35:33 - Master Levels: Catwalk
0:47:12 - Master Levels: Fistula
0:54:30 - Master Levels: Gerton
1:05:22 - Master Levels: Minos
1:18:19 - Master Levels: Nessus
1:24:42 - Master Levels: Paradox
1:34:59 - Master Levels: Subspace
1:42:10 - Master Levels: Subterra
1:51:30 - Master Levels: Vesperas

As for Xbox Master Levels (Resurrection of Evil).... not sure what it did... It cut a few levels, but the order didn't seem to follow much of any purpose...

https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Sky?file=RSKY1.png (this is the version originally used in Combine)

https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/File:RSKY2.png (this is the one used in five levels)


https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/File:RSKY3.png (originally called Stars used 7 and 11 originally)

They also specifically curated the music this time around, so it isn't just replacing Entryway, Bloodfalls, or Wolfenstein/Grosse levels borrowing those levels specific music. But it now has its own soundtrack with its own unique order of music (not just recycling some other campaigns exact soundtrack order).

Since its designed to be a episode from the ground up, the map names are also fixed when you load map name. Whereas the versions that are based on original dos Master Levels just show Entryway.

Keep in mind I think other releases that have master levels strung together as a campaign often had their own soundtracks as well (PSX Final Doom, Doom Complete Edition on PS3, and Resurrection of Evil Bonus disk on Xbox), but most of those chose to keep the old skies, but they did fix the map names. I think they might have given them their own curated soundtracks though, PSX Final Doom did at least.

[Valiento]

Originally posted by fbbraganca:

Second this,

Also, the soundtrack for ATTACK is wrong too, afaik

Originally posted by BlackxZodiac13:

I’m sure they’ll patch this eventually. Not a fan of Black Tower with stars sky box

Technically it was originally just the music from Entryway, because when the original map was released most of the levels simply replaced Map 1 when loaded up through the launcher. The only exception being Black Tower that replaced Map 25: Bloodfalls, and Teeth.wad that replaced 31 Wolfenstein and 32 Grosse. So that meat 90% of them used music from entryway, Black Tower just used music from Bloodfalls, and Teeth just used music from WOlfenstien and Grosse.

This time around they specifically choose different songs for each level. It doesn't just borrow a soundtrack order from some other campaign, but specifically given its own special order. I don't now if it has any 'original' music though....

[fbbraganca]

Originally posted by Valiento:

I loaded up Slade and checked it... It seems that the designer of this episode really just loves starry skies motif... THere are actually three different RSKY backdrops being used... RSKY1 is the version of RSKY1 used in 4 (Combine), RSKY2 is the version of RSKY1 that was used in fiive levels originally. And RSKY3 was originally called "Stars" and used in 7 (Titan Manor) and 11 (Trapped on Titan).

They intentionally reworked them so that RSKY1 now used for first 3rd of the episode, RSKY2 is used for middle levels and RSKY3 is used for the 3rd.

Master Levels of Doom II (2024)
RSKY1 (Map 1-9)
RSKY2 (Map 10-15)
RSKY3 (Map 16-17, 19-20)
NULL (Map 18, 21)

So not a 'bug' apparently a specifically curated 'feature' this time around...

I think the PS3 did a different layout where it put the cloud sky levels at star,t then moved onto the 'night levels' and then ended with Black Tower (hell), and Teeth (two levels) at the end.

PSX version order is more or less all over the place... Day and night levels put into a single campaign but they have their skybox types.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loqn0rnkCCM

0:01:11 - Master Levels: Attack
0:09:26 - Master Levels: Virgil
0:17:47 - Master Levels: Canyon
0:28:45 - Master Levels: Combine
0:35:33 - Master Levels: Catwalk
0:47:12 - Master Levels: Fistula
0:54:30 - Master Levels: Gerton
1:05:22 - Master Levels: Minos
1:18:19 - Master Levels: Nessus
1:24:42 - Master Levels: Paradox
1:34:59 - Master Levels: Subspace
1:42:10 - Master Levels: Subterra
1:51:30 - Master Levels: Vesperas

As for Xbox Master Levels (Resurrection of Evil).... not sure what it did... It cut a few levels, but the order didn't seem to follow much of any purpose...

https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Sky?file=RSKY1.png (this is the version originally used in Combine)

https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/File:RSKY2.png (this is the one used in five levels)


https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/File:RSKY3.png (originally called Stars used 7 and 11 originally)

They also specifically curated the music this time around, so it isn't just replacing Entryway, Bloodfalls, or Wolfenstein/Grosse levels borrowing those levels specific music. But it now has its own soundtrack with its own unique order of music (not just recycling some other campaigns exact soundtrack order).

Since its designed to be a episode from the ground up, the map names are also fixed when you load map name. Whereas the versions that are based on original dos Master Levels just show Entryway.

Keep in mind I think other releases that have master levels strung together as a campaign often had their own soundtracks as well (PSX Final Doom, Doom Complete Edition on PS3, and Resurrection of Evil Bonus disk on Xbox), but most of those chose to keep the old skies, but they did fix the map names. I think they might have given them their own curated soundtracks though, PSX Final Doom did at least.

Thanks for the info. I wonder why they made that decision, as the original skyboxes felt much more vivid. Still a great game

[Valiento]

They should have worked in pSX final doom master levels starry skies, tnt nite and doom 64 space too lmao. And moon from doom rpg 2. And really played up the stars theme lol.

Psx
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/doom/images/0/0e/SKY08.png/revision/latest?cb=20240829004837

evilution pc
https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Sky?file=NiteTNT.png

Doom64
https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/File:SpaceDoom64.png

Doom ii rpg.
https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/File:MoonSkyboxD2RPG.png

[Valiento]

I found out some more details about the PSN (PS3) release Doom Classic Complete edition....

The master levels in that version removed star skies completely instead assigned cloud skies for first half of the campaign, and the city skies for the second half of the game. Then attached a boring congratulations screen at the end...

As for xbox ROE extras version of Master Levels, I examined the files... Its basically the PC version individual pwads all of them are in the base/masterlevels folder, with all the same content in the wads. The masterlevels.xbe apparently loads the launcher used to string them together into a single campaign. Three levels aren't loaded. There is not ending, once you complete "Level 18", it just resets back to Level 1.

As for the skies, it mostly has cloudy skies. While the data is there for the starry skies the launcher can't seem to load them. Black Tower has the hell skies though.

Also weird bug in this collection and Doom 3 classic doom extras is that in Doom 1 phobos background appears in all three episodes.

[Baskiat]

I've just opened "masterlevels.wad" in slade and deleted the rsky1 2 and 3, now the first sky from map01 is correct but black tower uses seems like a apocaliptic city, buildins destroyed and ♥♥♥♥. i think the rest will use defaults from doom2.wad anyway, better then those ugly "stars"

[superboo07]

is this going to be fixed officially, I hope so

[AWMonopolyMan]

Originally posted by superboo07:

is this going to be fixed officially, I hope so

As valiento mentioned, these skyboxes seem to be intentional, so its unlikely to be fixed whatsoever, there is an UnCookedMoa mod pack that restores the skyboxes and gives classic medkits as well if you are so inclined.

[AWMonopolyMan]

Alright, can at least confirm Black Tower now has its red sky back.

[Mr_Fantastic]

the link posted says content not found on bethesda net