Another release of "GADoom"

[GameArena]

For those of you interested, here is another release of "GADoom". There are several significant changes in this version, along with various requested features. If you find any bugs, if you'd mention them it'd help a lot, I kind of rushed this release because I promised some people I'd have it out last week, which obviously didn't happen . Here are the changes:


Version 1.0.0.1-

*Added: New cvar cl_hitsplatsize, available values are 1-6, basically this sets the size of particles emitted from weapon hits.

*Added: New cvar sv_allowdexit, if set to true, players can activate specials to exit levels even if dead. This was requested, as to why I'm really not sure.

*Added: "Game Enhancement" menu to options.

*Added: A new system to assign sounds for enviromentally mapped footsteps (sounds), it hasn't been tested fully, but hopefully it works fine. Two global modfile properties must be used when assigning sounds, first is <env_fs_texture> which requires a string value of a valid texture. Then, you may use <env_fs_sound>, it also requires a string value and must be set to a sound "declaration" within the sndinfo lump. For example:

<env_fs_texture>GRASS1
<env_fs_sound>misc/whatever

Currently you may have up to 64 textures assigned to the same sound, and 64 DIFFERENT sounds in total. So 4096 different textures may be mapped to sounds.

*Added: New effect which takes place when the player picks up health, it's nothing really noticable, but now the screen will "flash" blue, the length and intensity of the flash is also set by both previous health pickups and the amount of health used. A lot of games new than doom use it, so why shouldn't GADoom ?

*Added: Support for custom fire types with most DOOM monsters (Except, Keens, Boss Brains, Archviles, and Spider Masterminds and Demons). I was rushed to release this version, so I haven't added custom melee support yet, meaning you can't change melee attacks or use type "melee". Don't worry it'll come in due time, just not right now . Also another thing to watch out for is the fact that attack states are played in their original layout, meaning the delay between firing will remain the same unless dehacked.

*Fixed: Custom firetypes which were Plasma based or BFG based didn't work correctly when more than one projectile was assigned, now they do.

*Improved: Now all custom firetypes can be set to deal a user defined amount of damage, even missile based attacks. No longer are individual damage specifiers like <bulletdamage> needed, now just use <damage> as <bulletdamage> and such are still available but obsolete.

*Improved: Increased limit on custom firetypes.

*Fixed: No longer do "floating" monsters and snakes have footsteps.

*Fixed: Flash states for custom firetypes would not allows show up correctly.

*Fixed: When assigning a fire sound to plasma gun or chaingun overrides sometimes the sound would "crackle", now it no longer does.

*Added: Two new Mod File global properties, <doom_skipskill> allows for any doom based game player to bypass the skill selection screen (no value required). You may use <doom_defskill> to specify the skill level that is automatically set when using <doom_skipskill>, available values are 0-4, 0 being easy and 4 being nightmare.

*Added: New "Projectile" type for weapon streams, the new type is "melee" and signifies a non projectile based attack. Range is by default 1, but it can be altered with <meleerange> (uses the same rules as bulletrange, see below). You may specify damage the damage amount by using <damage>.

*Added: New weapon stream modifier labeled <nodecal>, no value is required. I feel the objective of this modifier is pretty straight forward, it will turn off decals for the current weapon stream. Maybe useful for melee attacks or perhaps missile based weapons (although it does not toggle scorch marks) for overrides.

*Added: Mod File Weapon stream modifier <bulletrange>, it may only be used with new fire types using bullet projectiles. It sets the max range of the bullet (isn't it obvious?), values of <bulletrange> may be set to 1-* , each single value of 1 is 64 units. The default value is 32.

*Added: Double Slash comment support within modfiles.

*Added: New Mod File modifier for Actor streams (monsters only) which allows for changing of their blood decals. Two modifiers are available, they are <blood_decal> (normal blood splat) and <blood_decal_heavy> (heavy damage blood splat). Either a single decal or a decal group can be assigned, all decals assigned must be delared in the decaldef lump.

*Added: Mod File Actor modifier <blood_color> (controls blood puff color), which may be assigned an RGB value. All values must contain 3 place digits, (for example, instead of 20, use 020), they may be seperated by commas, colons, spaces, or no seperation if you wish.

Example: <blood_color>000:255:000

This would set the based blood puff color to green.

*Added: Mod File Actor modifier <health>, which sets the current open Actor stream object health. Default player health is 100, so setting <health> to 200 would make the monster twice as healthly as the default player. I really didn't see any point in this since Dehacked already has it, but it was requested, so here it is.

*Added: New transparency value added to drawpic in ACS and via the console command. New syntax: drawpic (name, x, y, tics, transparency), transparency can be set to a value between one (1 percent visible) and 100 (opaque). Be warned, if you choose to display a ton of transparent images at once, slowdown may become evident due to heavy rasterization operations.

*Added: New Drawpic function which allows for stretched graphics. In ACS the appropriate command is drawpic_stretched(name, x, y, tics, transparency, width, height). If you'd like to use stretching via the console command use: drawpic(name, x, y, tics, transparency, 1, width, height).

*Improved?: Rockets fired by players and cyberdemons can now be shot out of the air.


Requests would be great because I don't have as much time to work on this anymore, and it goes a lot faster when I know what I'm about to do. If you look in the game enhancement menu, you'll notice it's a little bit shallow. I originally had options to set the default damage for each individual weapon, but decided it may lead to unwanted cheating on excellent single-player wads, therefore I removed them.

If you're new to modfiles, then you can find more info over at this old topic: http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=1026&start=0

The new GADoom can be downloaded from http://modarchive.gnlive.com/files/gadoom.zip

[Nanami]

By the way, you made it so punching with the fist doesn't wake monsters right? Well...

You should make it so idling with the chainsaw will wake monsters. If you're going for realism, it's dumb to think that monsters only hear the chainsaw when it's slightly tilted downward.

[GameArena]

I'm not exactly going for realism, besided being attacked by mutated monsters kind of throws that idea out of the way . But I suppose I could increase the enemy alert radius when the player is holding the chainsaw.

[Lexus Alyus]

Wow, you implemented blood colour! You ROCK!!! Can you now make it so MP3's, Ogg's and Mod music can crossfade... so when you change to a certain music file from another it crossfades between the two, creating a more seemless flow of music? That would be sereously cool!

[Enjay]

OK, started playing around with some stuff. I like <doom_skipskill> Now to make a skill selection level.

I have tried to give a few flats different footstep sounds. Am I doing something wrong, because they still use the default:

<env_fs_texture>FLOOR3_3
<env_fs_sound>world/tile

<env_fs_texture>FWATER1
<env_fs_sound>world/watersplash

<env_fs_texture>FWATER2
<env_fs_sound>world/watersplash

<env_fs_texture>FWATER3
<env_fs_sound>world/watersplash

<env_fs_texture>FWATER4
<env_fs_sound>world/watersplash

And yes, the sounds are present, defined in SNDINFO and work (I checked by playing them at the console). And the mod was loaded because other effects in it worked.

I noticed changing blood colour only affects the particles generated when an enemy is hit. Would it be desirable/make sense/possible to extend this function so that if a blood colour was specified, the new colour was automatically transfered to a translation value for the blood splat item generated by the monster and the blood splat decals for the monster?

Hmmm... you also seem to have changed the player death effect. Just a personal gripe, but I liked the way Randy had it. Possibly make it a togglable option?

Your blue health flash - I like, but if you do something like pick up a bunch of health bottles that have been stacked on top of each other to give the effect of a single, powerfull health potion, you are almost blinded by the effect - for quite some time.

[GameArena]

I didn't know if the new footstep system would work correctly when I released it, I never really tested it, but it must just be a small error somewhere that'll be easy to fix.

As for the player death changes, what do you think is different? I didn't change anything.

Blood decals can be set via an actor stream using <blood_decal> and <blood_decal_heavy>, but they must point to a decal. I'll get right to work on just a blood translation for splats also, it may be worth it .

Lexus: I could look into "crossfading", but I can't promise anything...

I'll try to fix everything and get another version out today.

[Enjay]

As for the player death changes, what do you think is different? I didn't change anything.

In ZDoom - for the last, I dunno, 8 versions or so the old doom system of your view dropping and spinning round to face whichever monster killed you was changed. The view now also pulls back to a sort of chasecam view and you see your own character falling down and dying.

In GADoom you no longer see your body dying.

Hang on, I think there is more...

Yes, there is something screwy with chasecam mode (could be related). If you go into chasecam mode you cannot see yourself. However, I noticed things also became very hard to control. On checking with the automap, and making sure I was standing right in front of an easily identifyable feature, it seems that the chasecam position is about 64 units to the right of where it should be. Perhaps that explains why you can't see your own death. The chase cam is looking in the wrong place.

Hmmm, increasing the chase_dist option seems to move the camera further to the right, rather than further back.

Edit: Oh, and I think you are still bundling GADoom with the bugged version of fmod that didn't play mp3s.

[Hirogen2]

Your blue health flash - I like, but if you do something like pick up a bunch of health bottles that have been stacked on top of each other to give the effect of a single, powerfull health potion, you are almost blinded by the effect - for quite some time.

There is a similar "problem" with the general pickup color in vanilla Doom (and ports thereof), like in E2M1 when you run over the row of armor and health items, you have a yellow tint for quite a time.
So do not blame the blue, blame the original effect.

[Enjay]

Ah, but this blue flash behaves a little differently. The more health you get, the more intense the flash, as well as its length increasing. Drop 20 blue bottles in one place and your view goes bluer than the strongest red effect you see when picking up the berserk.

Just by way of an experiment I dropped 100 blue bottles in one place. That was enough to have me almost blind for around about a minute.

[GameArena]

Oh, I had forgotten to switch the chase cam feature I was working on back to the original. I had it set so you could choose the angle, but I must not have switched everything back to normal. I've fixed everything else, I'll ulpload it soon, but it's on my build computer and it'll take a while to transfer it.

[GameArena]

Alright here it is. These are the changes/additions:

Version 1.0.0.1b-

*Added: Stats menu (options->player stats), it contains the following statistics:

-Total Time Played
-Total Kills
-Total Player Kills
-Total Player Deaths
-Shots/Attacks
-Levels Passed

*Fixed: Setting enviroment footsteps using modfile properties should now work.

*Fixed: Chasecam is no longer angled towards 90 degrees.

*Improved: The health pickup effect has been toned down a little bit, meaning it won't be as bright or last as long.

*Improved: When the player gets hurt any health pickup effect will subside.

*Improved?: If the player has a chainsaw other enemies will hear him/her coming from a greater distance than when the player is equipped with a silent weapon.


You can download it from http://modarchive.gnlive.com/files/gadoom.zip , this time I used the mp3 functional fmod version (thanks Enjay).

[Nanami]

The health flash is still a bit intense. I know Legacy had this problem, where if you picked up a lot of things at once, the screen became very bright for a very long time.

The normal pickup flash will change to the same intensity no matter how many items you pick up, and I imagine this is what the behavior should be changed to. Right now, if you put about 20 health potions in one spot and walk over it, the screen becomes very very blue.

Also, although I like the "Player Stats," I think it's out of place in the "options" menu.

[Enjay]

OK footstep sounds are remapping properly now. However, I have a request/problem...

Currently you may have up to 64 textures assigned to the same sound, and 64 DIFFERENT sounds in total. So 4096 different textures may be mapped to sounds.

Although 4096 sounds a lot - most of the time it will not be a practical 4096 because it requires the 64 sounds to each be allocated to 64 flats. I have just spent a little time setting up a mod to remap all the flats in my WAD to have footstep sounds. Currently, I just use the TERRAIN lump to give these flats sounds when you drop onto them, but I'd like to see how it works with footsteps.

At present, I have 22 different sound groups (which easily covers all the flat appearances in Doom2 and a whole bunch more besides) but I need to allocate them to 842 flats. Now, if I could divide the flats up amongst the sounds evenly, I'd be able to allocate just under 40 flats to each of the 22 sounds - well within the current setup. However, some sounds are only used by a handful of flats whereas others may be required by a hundred or so - much more than the 64 limit.

I have set up my MOD with how I would like each flat to sound, however, the current build simply crashes when I load it. I guess I could make duplicates of the sounds that have more than 64 flats allocated and use the duplicates for the excess but I think it would be neater to increase the limit. Any chance the limits could be extended?

Also, could you add a mod "flag" to tell GADoom not to use footstep sounds for specified items? I'm assuming all enemies make footstep sounds (except for the ones that have already been made exceptions), including enemies made from non-enemy items using dehacked. Also, it might be worthwhile adding an "enable footsteps" "flag" for enemies that don't normally have them so that if someone uses a cacodemon (etc) to make a walking enemy, it will still make footstep sounds.

Oh, and can mod files be put into a WAD and be auto-read like the dehacked lump? If not, take that as another suggestion.

[GameArena]

Alright all great ideas . I'll try toning down the blue effect even more, I believe the current max is roughly 3 seconds (which only occurs when you pick up a lot of health, I could brink it down to 2. Enjay: You found the bug I was hoping noone would find , you can solve it by duplicated sounds with different names, but I understand that can sometimes be confusing. I know how to create a solution, but I didn't think anybody would use more than 64 flats per sound. Basically I can either have the sounds overflow into another map or I could move the texture names off the stack and into the freestore, but the latter may be pointless as too using more memory when I really doubt anyone will use all of the allocated map depths. I guess I'm kind of thinking out load now (well typing ), so nevermind any of that because I know what I'm going to do .

I'll go ahead and create a non-overridable switch for monster footsteps, it won't be very difficult at all.

Loading mod files from within a mod may soon be available too, first I have to look into how lumps are loaded and if they can make use of file IO functions (if not I'll just have them transfer to a temp file).

Nanami, yes I thought the stats were out of place as well, but I didn't know if it would be fitting to have a main menu item direct the player to a single page menu.

[Enjay]

Oh yeah, been meaning to ask - is this the port where you implemented crouching? If so, how do I use it? If not, would it be possible to add it so I could give it a whirl? I'd like to try it and see for myself the kind of impact it has on the game.