StrifePlayer additional states?

[Skippy]

According to the [wiki=Classes:StrifePlayer]StrifePlayer[/wiki] article, two new states were added to the class in r1125 - 'Firehands' and 'Firehandslower'. I assume this is in relation to the special player burn death discussed in the past. Can anyone shed some light on their function, and wether or not this is part of an effort to implement POV death sprites or similar?

[Skippy]

I'll give this a bump. Anyone (particularly devs) able to assist?

[Graf Zahl]

Those are the burning hand 'weapon' sprites. They are referenced by the StrifePlayer's A_ItBurnsItBurns and A_CrispyPlayer code pointers (great names, btw.)

[Skippy]

Thanks for replying, Graf. Sorry for not being clear enough - I know what they do and that they are referenced by the aforementioned action functions, but I was curious as to why they only appeared as part of the player's DECORATE definition recently (at least in relation to how long we've had Strife support). Is there a generic POV death sprite implementation in the works / is A_ItBurnsItBurns et al being exposed for generalised DECORATE usage?

Based on your comments in the linked thread above, it appears that a generic implementation of 'death hands' was feasible from as far back as May 2007.

[InsaneFury]

I'm bumping this one a bit, as I'm looking into using the A_ItBurnsItBurns() and A_CrispyPlayer() for a playerclass-based DooM2 project. I'd like to have some light shed on how these features can be used, as the Wiki is quiet about them so far...

[XutaWoo]

From what I'm guessing, A_ItBurnsItBurns causes your weapon to go to the player's Firehands state, while A_CripsyPlayer causes it to go to the Firehandslower state.

You'll need to inhereit from StrifePlayer if you want to use them, I'm guessing.

[NeuralStunner]

You'll need to inhereit from StrifePlayer if you want to use them, I'm guessing.

Yes. These code pointers are declared native to StrifePlayer in Decorate.

[InsaneFury]

I'd like to see if I can use the effect in DooM2, but I can't seem to get it to work.

The player displays the Burn animation, but the Waving hands only seem to display very shortly. Basically in the Death state, I put Goto Fire state, which plays correctly until A_CrispyPlayer is called. ZDoom crashes right there (Report).


I uploaded a test wad here, could anyone have a look & see what's broken?
Note that I copied the sprites from Strife 1:1 without touching the palette (which for demonstration purpose shouldn't matter much).

[NeuralStunner]

Hmm...
A_ItBurnsItBurns is what tells the engine not to immediately drop dead, and is supposed to start the hand waving animation (FireHands) instead. A_CrispyPlayer apparently tells it that the player is now dead, and to drop him to the floor immobile, while lowering the waving arms (FireHandsLower). Without it, you can still "walk" around and open doors after "dying".

Since the hand wave animation doesn't play, (and God only knows why,) I think this might be why the latter codepointer crashes.

[Gez]

Here's some code. Note that P_SetPsprite is the function that sets the "player sprite", that is to say, the various HUD sprite thingies (weapons, weapon flashes, targeter powerup, etc.).

Code: Select all

DEFINE_ACTION_FUNCTION(AActor, A_CrispyPlayer)
{
	if (self->player != NULL && self->player->mo == self)
	{
		self->player->playerstate = PST_DEAD;
		P_SetPsprite (self->player, ps_weapon,
			self->player->psprites[ps_weapon].state +
			(self->FindState("FireHandsLower") - self->FindState("FireHands")));
	}
}

Okay, so yes, A_CrispyPlayer does set the player state to "dead" (the PST_DEAD line).

The interesting thing is after that. There's a horrible hack. It adds up the state numbers of the current weapon sprite and the FireHandsLower state, and substract from that the state number of the FireHands state. So, be sure to declare the states in the same sequence as they are in StrifePlayer: FireHands then FireHandsLower, and as many states for either.

Code: Select all

DEFINE_ACTION_FUNCTION(AActor, A_ItBurnsItBurns)
{
	S_Sound (self, CHAN_VOICE, "human/imonfire", 1, ATTN_NORM);

	if (self->player != NULL && self->player->mo == self)
	{
		P_SetPsprite (self->player, ps_weapon, self->FindState("FireHands"));
		P_SetPsprite (self->player, ps_flash, NULL);
		self->player->ReadyWeapon = NULL;
		self->player->PendingWeapon = WP_NOCHANGE;
		self->player->playerstate = PST_LIVE;
		self->player->extralight = 3;
	}
}

Seems pretty straightforward. Little hack as it sets the player to be still alive. Then it hijacks the Psprite weapon "channel" to display the fire hands, while nullifying your weapon so you can't attack, and preventing you from changing to another weapon. Also makes you all shiny (extralight = 3).

Code: Select all

DEFINE_ACTION_FUNCTION(AActor, A_HandLower)
{
	if (self->player != NULL)
	{
		pspdef_t *psp = &self->player->psprites[ps_weapon];
		psp->sy += FRACUNIT*9;
		if (psp->sy > WEAPONBOTTOM*2)
		{
			P_SetPsprite (self->player, ps_weapon, NULL);
		}
		if (self->player->extralight > 0) self->player->extralight--;
	}
}

Rather simple as well: it lowers the vertical offset of the weapon Psprite (remember that 0 is at the top, so increasing the offset means going further downward, so a high value means a low offset), and if the Psprite offset becomes so low that the weapon can't be seen anymore, then just remove that sprite altogether. Also, makes the player less shiny by decreasing extralight.

[Ceeb]

So the Strife burning hands are the most hacktacular thing ever made.

[NeuralStunner]

The interesting thing is after that. There's a horrible hack. It adds up the state numbers of the current weapon sprite and the FireHandsLower state, and substract from that the state number of the FireHands state. So, be sure to declare the states in the same sequence as they are in StrifePlayer: FireHands then FireHandsLower, and as many states for either.

Aha! So, cutting the AltSkin* states and stuff, adding the Disintegrate state, and removing the state jump from Death makes it work. Thanks Gez!

So, this works as it should:

---

Code: Select all

Actor PL_BurnBurn : StrifePlayer Replaces DoomPlayer
{

  // Override Strife properties with Doom properties to simulate DoomPlayer motions
  Radius 16
  Player.ColorRange 112, 127
  MaxStepHeight 24
  Player.RunHealth 0

  // Original DooMPlayer properties:
  Player.StartItem "Pistol"
  Player.StartItem "Fist"
  Player.StartItem "Clip", 50
  Player.WeaponSlot 1, Fist, Chainsaw
  Player.WeaponSlot 2, Pistol
  Player.WeaponSlot 3, Shotgun, SuperShotgun
  Player.WeaponSlot 4, Chaingun
  Player.WeaponSlot 5, RocketLauncher
  Player.WeaponSlot 6, PlasmaRifle
  Player.WeaponSlot 7, BFG9000

  Player.DisplayName "Marine"
  Player.CrouchSprite "PLYC"

  States
  {
  Spawn:
    PLAY A -1
    Loop
  See:
    PLAY ABCD 4 
    Loop
  Missile:
    PLAY E 12 
    Goto Spawn
  Melee:
    PLAY F 6 BRIGHT
    Goto Missile
  Pain:
    PLAY G 4 
    PLAY G 4 A_Pain
    Goto Spawn
  Death:
    PLAY H 10
    PLAY I 10 A_PlayerScream
    PLAY J 10 A_NoBlocking
    PLAY KLM 10
    PLAY N -1
    Stop
  XDeath:
    PLAY O 5
    PLAY P 5 A_XScream
    PLAY Q 5 A_NoBlocking
    PLAY RSTUV 5
    PLAY W -1
    Stop
  Burn:
    BURN A 3 Bright A_ItBurnsItBurns
    BURN B 3 Bright A_DropFire
    BURN C 3 Bright A_Wander
    BURN D 3 Bright A_NoBlocking
    BURN E 5 Bright A_DropFire
    BURN FGH 5 Bright A_Wander
    BURN I 5 Bright A_DropFire
    BURN JKL 5 Bright A_Wander
    BURN M 5 Bright A_DropFire
    BURN N 5 Bright A_CrispyPlayer
    BURN OPQPQ 5 Bright
    BURN RSTU 7 Bright
    BURN V -1
    Stop
  Disintegrate: // Need Sprites here.
    DISR A 5 A_PlaySoundEx("misc/disruptordeath", "Voice")
    DISR BC 5
    DISR D 5 A_NoBlocking
    DISR EF 5
    DISR GHIJ 4
    MEAT D -1
    Stop
  FireHands:
    WAVE ABCD 3
    Loop
  FireHandsLower:
    WAVE ABCD 3 A_HandLower
    Loop
  }

}

In the future though, I'd hope a much less hacky method could be adopted...

[Graf Zahl]

So the Strife burning hands are the most hacktacular thing ever made.

Not the most but this a pretty dirty effect. So dirty in fact that ZDoom had to add some new code pointers to do them. Strife originally did some of this effect in an even more hackish way. What ZDoom does is rather tame by comparison.

[InsaneFury]

Ok, so in order for people to (ab)use these functions, they'll have to steer clear of any new player states (like freeze-/fire death, per-damagetype pain-/deathstates?

[Graf Zahl]

No. If you inherit from the Strife player all you need to do is call these functions in the proper places. They don't depend on anything external.