Hideous Destructor 4.10.0b

[Josh771]

Has anyone tried pulling this off by altering the player's angle/pitch, firing, then resetting them all in 0 tics? Does the player even see his camera shift, or would it just produce the offset on the bullet? ...er, maybe you should just use user_vars and calculate an offset value for A_CustomMissile.

[Jack Mackerel]

ArmA's vector aiming is actually much, much more tame compared to Operation Flashpoint's. Red Orchestra would be another good example.

At least you can hit stuff in ArmA. :V

Aiming deadzone might be a little janky-looking with DooM, but we'll see if it works.

[Somagu]

ArmA's vector aiming is actually much, much more tame compared to Operation Flashpoint's. Red Orchestra would be another good example.

At least you can hit stuff in ArmA. :V

Aiming deadzone might be a little janky-looking with DooM, but we'll see if it works.

I'll have you know I was damn good at that horrible grid-based vector aiming in Operation Flashpoint, heheheh.

I have my doubts that it will be possible in with zdoom, but I absolutely would LOVE to see it if it is!

[Jack Mackerel]

Personally, I do like the weird, stiff way HD handles it, since it's a weird love child of deadzone aiming and classic FPS stuff, and fits in perfectly with DooM's mechanics.

[Matt]

Someone please explain what these fancy terms "aiming deadzone" and "vector aiming" mean, I feel like I understand the morphemes in isolation but not in these sequences.

Has anyone tried pulling this off by altering the player's angle/pitch, firing, then resetting them all in 0 tics? Does the player even see his camera shift, or would it just produce the offset on the bullet? ...er, maybe you should just use user_vars and calculate an offset value for A_CustomMissile.

If this means what I think it means... I tried this, but there was no option to do this in ACS and I was trying it in the days before A_SetPitch, etc., so the result was, for those who remember (and shudder), that if you fired while moving your entire view would jerk randomly just before the gun went off.

Nowadays if you look at the bullet code you'll see that when it spawns its velocity is randomized if its shooter has too much of the "IsMoving" inventory flag.


EDIT: Looked up what deadzone was. I've actually tried this in ACS (player views through a camera that lags slightly behind the player, HudMessage a cursor indicating where the player is pointing - in fact you can see some of this code in HD now but it's only used for the scopes) and it kinda-sorta works, BUT:

1. HUD weapon sprite can only be done through HudMessage, which means any attempt at a fully animated weapon would be a gigantic twisted spaghetto made of barrels welded together each one filled with spaghetti.
2. You're likely to get all sorts of weird artefacts when it comes to actually lining up your shot.
3. Everything feels an order of magnitude slower and clunkier - imagine the first time you ever played HD, especially if it was before May 2012 and the above described gun-jerk thing was still in, compare that to vanilla Doom, and that is what adding that deadzone felt like compared to how HD plays now. The sense of immersion plummeted and I felt less like someone in a firefight and more like someone operating a 500-ton war mech (which is a real problem I've found with a lot of "realistic" FPSes that get too fine-grained while only allowing keyboard and mouse input).

So yes,

Personally, I do like the weird, stiff way HD handles it, since it's a weird love child of deadzone aiming and classic FPS stuff, and fits in perfectly with DooM's mechanics.

this is one of the things I have to consider when I try to realistify anything new. (That and of course Doom engine limitations which probably contribute a lot more to HD's feel than any principled design decision.)

I still have no idea what "vector aiming" is in this context.

[Abba Zabba]

Question, does manual short-stroking have a chance of jamming even if you don't hit fire too soon?

[Matt]

Yes, it depends not on when you fire but how long you hold the altfire.

[Abba Zabba]

Not that, I mean jamming in the same vein as semi-auto jamming even when you fire slowly.

Also just noticed that caco corpses block you but can be pushed. Can you climb over them?

[Somagu]

I still have no idea what "vector aiming" is in this context.

Vector aiming is similar to an aim deadzone, except moving the mouse still turns your screen, but it also points your gun in a certain separate radius. So you'd turn your head to the left, and also point your gun a bit further to the left. Typically this is best accomplished without a crosshair to make firing accurately without aiming down sights next to impossible without tons of practice.

Unless I'm remembering wrong and I've been using the wrong term for years, which is most likely the case. Either way, that's what I meant by it.

[Josh771]

...moving the mouse still turns your screen, but it also points your gun in a certain separate radius. So you'd turn your head to the left, and also point your gun a bit further to the left. Typically this is best accomplished without a crosshair to make firing accurately without aiming down sights next to impossible without tons of practice.

Yeah, the only thing I was getting at in my post about bullet offsets was pretty much related to the kind of aiming system Somagu is describing here. Strangely enough, this reminds me of Goldeneye (if you disabled auto-aim), as the player's weapon would lead every camera movement.

Since (G)ZDoom isn't going to allow us drifting HUD weapon models, I guess you'd need an actual separate crosshair or something, otherwise the bullet would appear to magically stray from its path for no apparent reason.

Anyway, if it messes too much with HD's gameplay, then it messes too much with HD's gameplay. I can understand that.

[Jack Mackerel]

I still have no idea what "vector aiming" is in this context.

Vector aiming is similar to an aim deadzone, except moving the mouse still turns your screen, but it also points your gun in a certain separate radius. So you'd turn your head to the left, and also point your gun a bit further to the left. Typically this is best accomplished without a crosshair to make firing accurately without aiming down sights next to impossible without tons of practice.

Unless I'm remembering wrong and I've been using the wrong term for years, which is most likely the case. Either way, that's what I meant by it.

What he said. :V Basically, ArmA-style aiming. I probably confused deadzone and vector aiming, though.

If anything, it'd probably look kinda weird with HD, though the centered sprites will work a heck of a lot better than any other sprite. But, yeah, as is, I think HD's current aim system (and ZDooM's aiming style in general) works just as fine without vector/deadzone.

But, yeah, HD's gameplay, while realistic, is kind of a different kettle of fish. (Strangely, I think it handles sprint and walking speeds a bit better than ArmA...)

[Matt]

Just for the record, HD's entire aiming "system" is no more and no less than this:

1. The starting assumption is that you shoot where you point.
2. There is a hidden "IsMoving" counter that checks for various circumstances under which you cannot be firing from a stable, steady position.
3. If that counter is over a certain threshold (which varies depending on the gun), your crosshair disappears and whatever projectile spawns from your shot is taken slightly off target in a random direction.
4. Various other factors explicitly affect where you are pointing, some of which (e.g. recoil) interact with the IsMoving counter.

Having the shot go at an angle slightly ahead of where you're turning should actually not be too difficult. More difficult, though, would be trying to get the crosshair to line up with where the shot is going - my inability to non-wild-guessingly figure out which is one of the other reasons (on top of the "mech effect" and the need for HudMessage weapon sprites) that I eventually abandoned my dead zone project.

One thing I always wonder, though, with these aiming systems: isn't it, like, way easier and faster IRL to turn your eyes and head and change your view and have your gun follow?

::paces back and forth for a while in the office, coffee mug in hand, alternately leading with head and leading with mug:: ::holds pen up to eye and pretends to read something on a wall chart pointing at random things:: ::it is noted that no co-worker currently has LOS with him::

...I can see how fine movements would imply moving the gun and gross movements imply moving the head, and nothing is going to simulate something as in-your-head as eye movement, but it still doesn't "feel" right. A separate "aim mode" where you move v. slowly and there is a dead zone while you are looking down the sights seems to be a reasonable compromise.

...frankly it all seems like a terrible amount of trouble for very little gain over the status quo. @_@
(and I'm reminded of why I didn't do a separate aim mode in the first place - given altfire has a meaning for almost every single gun, I'm out of obvious and well-known binds and the only way not to bog everything down and end up with the mech effect was to handle the appearance of the crosshair completely passive.)

[Big C]

RE: Separate aim modes:

Yeaaah, I think the current system is fine. I always assumed that when the player was standing still he was taking time to aim down the sights, and when on the move he was always hipfiring.

[Matt]

NEW UPDATE!

Changes:

• Bugfix(?): New GZDoom versions apparently will exit with an error message at you if you define an actor with a uservar, then have something inherit from that actor and then define that uservar again. I am not using that fully up to date version, but since commenting out this redundancy does not break the older version (as I had previously assumed it would for whatever reason) those offending lines have been commented out.
• Toned down the tree crazy, namely by making sure that it only happens when certain other objects appear on the map: carved columns, floaty skull rocks, evil eyes, "stalagtite" thorns, boss brain or spider mastermind.
• Tweaked appearance of stalagmites, "stalagtite" thorns and trees. They're now random x and y scales, have a 50% chance of showing a horizontally flipped sprite, and (along with the tech column) are forced Y billboard.
• New Liberator sprite!
• Your movement counter now goes up when you turn beyond your "must step" threshold.

[m4lmaster]

this mod is absolutely amazing. 11/10, cannot wait to convince my friend to play with me, the only downside is serious immersion, how about trying to make this (http://www.moddb.com/mods/brutal-doom/a ... ki113r-v51) compatable (on screen inventory and such, having to tab to view my medkits, stims and stuff makes me feel as if i have to check a backpack for my stuff and completely take my eyes off my surroundings) EDIT: i know the maker of this HUD, its only listed in the brutal-doom section because it was originally made for brutal doom, its actually decently compatable with this since all other ammo types appear as UKWN. if you dont want to actually work with it, i can always talk to him and have him check it out. HD is byfar the best WAD ive ever played for difficulty and immersion.