[WIP] SGT GnarKill's SHGM updated 6 Feb

[SergeantGnarKill]

Sergeant GnarKill's Super Happy Gun Mod
A Weapon Mod for Doom
ZDoom 2.4.0+ is required

Updated 6 Feb 2010

Updates:
*Added pickup sprites
*Fixed AGL Ammo issues
*Fixed Shotgun and AGL reloading issues
*Finished Airstrike

This is a weapon mod using screenshots and sounds from Counter-Strike: Source. Some of the weapons are directly from the game and some are from skins from FPS Banana. See the credits.txt for detailed credits. The weapons featured on this mod are:

weapon slot 1: Desert Eagle
weapon slot 2: MP5
weapon slot 3: M4 Carbine
weapon slot 4: M60
weapon slot 5: Winchester Shotgun
weapon slot 6: Automatic Grenade Launcher
weapon slot 7: M82 Barrett
weapon slot 8: M82 Scoped
weapon slot 9: Airstrike

All weapons have reload functions. I decided to forgo a melee weapon. You are given a Desert Eagle with 100 rounds, and 10 airstrikes. Also, all the ZombieMen drop Deagles now. You shouldn't run out of ammo, but if you do, just try to survive and let the monsters fight amongst themselves. I think this adds extra challenge to the game. Be careful with that airstrike. Best used outdoors or in a huge room.


Current WAD: http://www.sendspace.com/file/7ici5a


History

---

This is the very first version of the WAD http://www.sendspace.com/file/azxexc and screenshots

---

Screenshots:

Desert Eagle:
MP5:
P90:
M4:
G36:
M249 SAW:
ARES Shrike:
M60:
M82 Barrett:
Enjoy

Updated 30 Jan 2010:
Fixed some P90 sprites
Changed rates of fire for several weapons
Added frames during reloading anims
Added recoil
Changed power of weapons
Added a section to MAP01 for stocking up on weapons (temporary fix until I learn ACS)
Found out why the M249 SAW was acting [censored word], SAWGD0 was showing up as the chainsaw, fixed the problem
Added M82 pickup sprite

http://www.sendspace.com/file/mffnp6

Updated 5 Feb 2010
Updates:
*Deleted FN P90, G36, M249 SAW, ARES Shrike
*Added Winchester Shotgun, Auto Grenade Launcher
*Shrunk reloading and action sprites
*Updated rates of fire and weapon power
*Added intermediate sprites
*Updated DoomPlayer

http://www.sendspace.com/file/6k8cr4

[wildweasel]

Looks good from screenshots; I'll have more opinions on it as soon as it finishes downloading. Also, kudos for including a Credits.txt with it at least.

[XutaWoo]

Animations look really crappy, especially the muzzleflashes.

You quite litterally have to cheat, even with replacements; you don't start with any ammo, and you don't have a weapon with infinity ammo.

Also, with the exception of the Deagle and the Barrett, everything's a clone, pretty much. And there's no explosive weaponry, making it impossible to beat DOOM 2.

And sure, making shotguns not the best things are a good idea if they're not useless, but not having shotguns and have them replaced(?) by clones? Seriously, put in a SPAS or something.

[wildweasel]

Here's my complete list of feedback, in a format that a few people here might recognize from my using it before...The List of Grievances!

1. You start with no ammo, no melee weapon, and basically you're screwed if you're starting off a megawad that sticks you in a room with monsters and expects you to be able to fight them off (like say, TNT.wad Map01, which has no ammo in its first room, only a Berserk pack).
2. It's been mentioned, but the animations really need some work. I'm not asking for 35 FPS silky smooth weapon rips (that'd bloat the wad quite a bit), but you might want to look into how to take advantage of the OFFSET function or duplicating/realigning frames using the TEXTURES lump. I could show you an example of that from an abandoned mod of mine.
3. As has also been mentioned, the muzzle flashes need some work too - Scuba Steve's got a good tutorial about that here.
4. When you do find some ammo (the backpack helps a lot for that at the moment), the Desert Eagle is...obscenely powerful. It took about 13 shots to kill the Cacodemon at the start of Vrack2b.wad. That's one and a half clips. That's insane for a pistol.
5. I'm not sure why you're not replacing items yet, since all it takes is a "replaces Shotgun" on the first line of your actor:

   Code: Select all

   ACTOR DesertEagleWoot : Weapon replaces Shotgun
   {
   [...]

6. On second thought...ALL of your weapons are way more powerful than they appear. One full clip of MP5 took down a cacodemon in about two seconds flat. I don't recall the MP5 being capable of 2100 rounds per minute...try adding an extra frame in there that doesn't do anything to slow it down a bit.
7. While your rips are all around much nicer than before, you still need to pay some attention to the white junk that's collecting on the edges of the sprites, particularly when the FN-P90 is firing.
8. There's no recoil in your sprites. Even shifting the weapon down and to the side a few pixels would be enough to convey that this weapon is not staying put when it's firing.
9. There's a single frame at the beginning of the M249's reload sequence where the weapon disappears. You should check your code for typos, because you might have misspelled the sprite name there (causing the game to not display anything).
10. The way you've got your weapons set up, there is practically no difference between all your rapid fire weapons outside of clip sizes and reload times. For example, I found little reason outside of aesthetics to go back to any of the assault rifles once I'd found out that I have an Ares Shrike in my inventory.
11. Okay, now the M60 is an excellent weapon. The only complaint I have about this one is that the muzzle flash still needs some work (and the reload could be a touch smoother). Otherwise, this weapon has recoil, a more sensible rate of fire, and a great sense that this weapon is frickin' powerful.

Essentially, this is actually pretty decent for something put together by a newcomer, but there are some issues that need to be ironed out before it'll be a sensible gameplay mod that someone could use regularly.

[SergeantGnarKill]

Awesome, good feedback. As I said, this is a work in progress, so I will address all of these points. I have the stuffs ready for an M79 and a Remington 870, so I will plug those in for the next go-round. I will look into the muzzle flash tutorial, I haven't seen it before, so hopefully that will help out.

[edit]So I've checked out the tutorial, and though it was helpful, I'm going to stick with my muzzle flashes, because though you may not like them, I like them better than the ones I could make using the techniques on the tutorial.[/edit]

[SergeantGnarKill]

Alright, let me address this point by point.

][*]You start with no ammo, no melee weapon, and basically you're screwed if you're starting off a megawad that sticks you in a room with monsters and expects you to be able to fight them off (like say, TNT.wad Map01, which has no ammo in its first room, only a Berserk pack).

I don't know how to do ACS quite yet, is there a quick and easy tutorial that I could do in like an hour?

[*]It's been mentioned, but the animations really need some work. I'm not asking for 35 FPS silky smooth weapon rips (that'd bloat the wad quite a bit), but you might want to look into how to take advantage of the OFFSET function or duplicating/realigning frames using the TEXTURES lump. I could show you an example of that from an abandoned mod of mine.]

I just figured out how to do this, so I will include those in my updated WAD

[*]As has also been mentioned, the muzzle flashes need some work too - Scuba Steve's got a good tutorial about that here.

See my last reply.

[*]When you do find some ammo (the backpack helps a lot for that at the moment), the Desert Eagle is...obscenely powerful. It took about 13 shots to kill the Cacodemon at the start of Vrack2b.wad. That's one and a half clips. That's insane for a pistol.

I agree, I overdid it a bit. Okay, maybe a lot.

[*]On second thought...ALL of your weapons are way more powerful than they appear. One full clip of MP5 took down a cacodemon in about two seconds flat. I don't recall the MP5 being capable of 2100 rounds per minute...try adding an extra frame in there that doesn't do anything to slow it down a bit.

What would be the best way to determine the rounds per minute from your WAD? I know that the MP5 really fires between 700 and 900rpm based on the model.

[*]While your rips are all around much nicer than before, you still need to pay some attention to the white junk that's collecting on the edges of the sprites, particularly when the FN-P90 is firing.
[*]There's no recoil in your sprites. Even shifting the weapon down and to the side a few pixels would be enough to convey that this weapon is not staying put when it's firing.

I will work on these.

[*]There's a single frame at the beginning of the M249's reload sequence where the weapon disappears. You should check your code for typos, because you might have misspelled the sprite name there (causing the game to not display anything).

I took a look and I can't seem to find it, I will keep looking.

[*]The way you've got your weapons set up, there is practically no difference between all your rapid fire weapons outside of clip sizes and reload times. For example, I found little reason outside of aesthetics to go back to any of the assault rifles once I'd found out that I have an Ares Shrike in my inventory.

I will update the sounds, accuracy, rates of fire, and tweak how powerful each one is.

Once again, many thanks to WildWeasel for his input and to everyone else for theirs.

[Davidos]

I never knew rips could be THIS incredibly well detailed...

... that's about the only thing I could say for this wad.

[SergeantGnarKill]

Just added some shite

[Davidos]

In fact, they're so detailed, and seeing Doom has no preloading option, it just lags as it loads every file individually.
Hell those sprites are 15 mb a piece so when it reloads it loads 100 something at one go. Is that correct?

This bloody thing is even lagging on my Quad Geforce GTX 295 >.>


And the rest is just absolute shite.

Are you just slamming random things out to get a higher post count or are you actually trying to make something decent for a change?

I'm done downloading your mods. Forever.

[wildweasel]

Are you just slamming random things out to get a higher post count or are you actually trying to make something decent for a change?

I'm done downloading your mods. Forever.

Hey now! Even if your criticisms are well grounded, that still gives you no right to insult the author!

Warn points++

[supergoofy]

And the author already warned us that this is a wip (a.k.a alpha), it's not even beta. So be patient and let the man do the work. I agree though with Davidos, that the current alpha version is bad.

When the final release will be out and it still is bad, then you can criticize him as much as you want. Lets see how it goes in the future...

[SergeantGnarKill]

So, like I've said, I'm still fairly new to all of this, so is there a way to shrink these down just a little bit without losing too much of the quality, because, as mentioned above, it causes a pretty severe lag. I would really rather not go in and remake all the sprites, so is there a nice easy way using SLumpEd or something? I mean, I will redo all of the sprites, but I'd really rather not. I tried converting to Doom GfX, but I lose the majority of the picture.

Never mind. I figured something out.

[hitmanx]

Not to echo wildweasel but the animations need a lot of work and good thing you shrinked it, the m4 took up the whole screen when reloading. Also the desert eagle sometimes fires blanks? like i used the whole 8 round clip and 3 bullets hit their target at point blank range. I then tested against a wall and it left 3 holes out of 8 shots.

[amv2k9]

Also the desert eagle sometimes fires blanks? like i used the whole 8 round clip and 3 bullets hit their target at point blank range. I then tested against a wall and it left 3 holes out of 8 shots.

I noticed this too. At first, I thought I was simply missing, but even at point-blank range, some bullets simply don't seem to hit: Enemy takes no damage, no blood sprites show, and the enemy doesn't go through its "pain" frame.

I know this has been said before, but... very samey batch of weapons: automatics mostly. Two of these could easily be replaced and the overall feel of the wad wouldn't be lost. An explosive weapon (for crowd control in wads with big fights, and because you NEED one to defeat Icon of Sin) and a shotgun to round out things. I've seen several styles of shotgun that could fit your wad.

Another point: Scrolling through the weapons shouldn't bring up the rifle's scope; very disorienting. There ought to be a dedicated button for zoom. And since other weapons don't have scopes, perhaps this could bring up ironsights for those weapons?

While we're talking about the scope: The crosshair for it is too obtrusive; makes it hard to see what you're shooting at. Also, the "x2" or "x3" showing what level you're zooming at is almost totally cut off. I had an idea for how to make the scope more useful: add a toggle-able night-vision feature for it that runs off a rechargeable battery.

[DoomRater]

No ACS is required to start a player off with ammo for a gun. All that is required is a new player class that starts with the appropriate ammo types, weapon, and so on. Look up DoomPlayer in the Wiki to see an example of how such a class is created from scratch, then if you don't need to do much editing you can just inherit from DoomPlayer and make changes to what you need. if you replace one StartItem you clear the original inherited list, too, so no need to worry about carrying over unneeded stuff.

To figure out a weapon's round per minute, you may want to convert to rounds per second so that it's easier to keep track of.