News from 9 September 2001

Post by **randi** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 2:44 pm

Sorry, I don't know why this site is so slow, either.

Want to play ZDoom in Russian? Andrew SheparD has a site with Russian translations.

I feel another ZDoom beta release is near. Missiles can now leave behind decals on walls, the mouse is grabbed at startup again without setting in_mouse to 1, other bugs have been addressed, and I even added the option of using Blood's announcer (provided you have at least Blood's sounds.rff on your hard drive if you want to actually hear The Voice and not just see the messages).

What remains is to create some decals for the missile weapons and clean up a few other things. Provided I don't send out any more private betas, you should expect 1.23 beta 28 sometime before the end of the week. Hopefully it will be release candidate-worthy, and I can finally annouce a new non-beta version of ZDoom. Then TeamTNT will be able to release Daedalus.

Once I have a non-beta post-1.22 ZDoom out, I can start adding new features again. Much of the time I've spent with ZDoom this year has been spent tweaking and fixing bugs with little time spent on new features. Some things that I really wanted to add to 1.23 but have had to hold back on because they would push back the release of 1.23 even later are:

Using wall textures and flats interchangeably.
Placing decals on ceilings and floors.
A non-BSP renderer like Build. This would let me do all sorts of cool stuff: Moving sectors (no more need for polyobjects! yay!), true room-over-room, mirrors in the middle of rooms, etc.
Flat sprites and wall sprites, ala Build.
A new map format and editor to provide easier access to some of ZDoom's map extensions, such as slopes and flat scaling and rotating. This would also let me add new features that are too impractical with the current Hexen map format. The thought of creating a new editor from scratch is rather daunting, though. (ZETH is <b>not</b> a good basis for a new editor.)
Full Hexen support. I did add a few more Hexen monsters since beta 25 because I was bored one night, but it's still a far cry from being fully playable.
A scripting language like UnrealScript. This will probably entail a significant rewriting of much of the game code, but it will be well worth it. In the meantime, I recently realized that I should be able implement a significantly cut-down variant of the language without too much hassle that could be used to add new actors similarly to DDF, so that will be at the top of my to-do list after the endless stream of betas is finally finished.
And, of course, lots of other stuff I don't want to reveal yet.

Sphagne · Post by **Sphagne** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 3:11 am

Randy, Dont you want to add Monster-Sight-Calculation and AI-Network to the list?

Hey, I seem to be unable to access the Unreal Script page, can anyone help me to read it?

OK. I got it.

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:14 am

Don't bump newsposts from 2 years ago, thanks.

Sphagne · Post by **Sphagne** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 1:14 pm

Well, there was some nice worksheet in which some items where not out yet, and I wanted to ask a request, you know?

Post by **randi** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 6:15 pm

Heh, every time you write "Monster-Sight-Calculation" I think of the point-to-point check that's there already.

Sphagne · Post by **Sphagne** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 2:28 am

What's that?

I meant the distance and darkness calculation that allows for stealth themed levels.

Hirogen2 · Post by **Hirogen2** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 5:24 am

This was once said somewhere; sight calculation is just .., for the daemons are
*daemons* and thus have advantages over humans.

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 1:09 pm

And the zombies are humans made stupid, and should have *less* sight than a normal human . . .

Sphagne · Post by **Sphagne** » Wed Aug 06, 2003 2:27 pm

Can anyone help me find a decompiled version of first unreal's "U" files in the system directory, especially "engine.u" I have UTPT that has some problems when working with old unreal files and UnrealEd does not work at all even avter VB runtime library instalation.

I want to take a look at unreal script core structure but currently I cannot.

Thanx in advance.

Post by **Kate** » Wed Aug 06, 2003 7:18 pm

If you're trying to edit UnrealScript, You'll have to open UnrealEd, then at the right-hand side of the screen, you'll find a drop-down box. In the list of choices, click "Classes". You'll see a list of actors appear in the box below. Double-Click an actor name to edit the script for that actor or click the white plus next to it(if there is one) to see a list of sub-classes. Somehow they seemed to have forgotten the UnrealEd help file that's supposed to come with the editor.

Sphagne · Post by **Sphagne** » Wed Aug 06, 2003 8:58 pm

Well, I must be able to run unrealEd first to be able to do other things within it, but it does not run.

Post by **Kate** » Wed Aug 06, 2003 9:30 pm

Well it is a beta version, so I was kind of expecting that...

I don't know what to do, though... I wish I could help but I'm not exactly good with those things...

Sphagne · Post by **Sphagne** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 3:15 am

If someone sent me Actor,Pawn,Weapon,InventoryItem,StatusItem... (and anything you thought useful) as a text format to me, I would be greatly thankful to him.

Hirogen2 · Post by **Hirogen2** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 5:19 am

Get patch 436, it's the first one which runs Ued2.

Sphagne · Post by **Sphagne** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 9:29 am

Thanx, I'll try it.