WindowCaster: The Shadowcaster Source Port

[Fisk]

x-post from the Doomworld thread:

WindowCaster is, to my knowledge, the first attempt to create a Windows-native port of Shadowcaster. It is built with Game Maker: Studio and the objective is, upon 1.0 release, to read all game data from their associated archives and externalize as much of the game code as possible to human-readable files. If this is insufficient for the user to create their mod of choice, then a project source file containing the entire engine will be made available at a later date, allowing for complete and fundamental modification of the game in every way.

Current features:
+ Functions as a Shadowcaster level viewer
+ Renders the game at up to 1920x1080
+ From-scratch Direct3D renderer
+ Functional player morphing (use the number keys)
+ Mouse- or keyboard-based navigation controls
+ Easily portable to other platforms (courtesy of Game Maker)
+ OGG music support
+ Externally scripted
+ PK3 mod loading support

Planned features:
+ in-engine level and resource editor
+ externalized scripts for most of the game and engine code
+ the ability to statically link a mod to the executable at compile-time (create your own games using the engine)
+ full support for Shadowcaster 1.12F (floppy version) and Shadowcaster 1.01F (CD version)

download ver 0.25-PRE-3
download source code (0.25-PRE-3) (requires Game Maker Studio 1.4.1804 Standard Edition or better to compile)

I will continue to update this thread as I work on the project and I'll try to keep it 1:1 with the Doomworld thread

[Fisk]

https://static.doomworld.com/monthly_20 ... cfda38.png

New feature:

GZDoom-style dynamic lighting in a scene can be toggled on or off at any time. There is a hard limit of 8 lights which can be visible at a time (with no prospect of expanding on this limit), which are managed automatically with excess lights simply not being drawn until previous lights are dropped from the list. By default, this feature will be disabled in vanilla maps.

[NeuralStunner]

Native port? Modding? I am excited.

[Gez]

How close do you estimate you are from starting to implement gameplay (monsters to fight and so on)?

[Fisk]

Gameplay is intended to be in the next release, so I am basically implementing what I can right now. I am facing difficulty because I am not a very good programmer and learning as I go, and there are still several lumps that I have been trying my best to reverse engineer but I'm worried it is just above my skill level. I need to figure out the format of *.ojt, *.itm, *.arc, *.crt and probably another format or two I'm forgetting, and even then there is a lot of work to do on the UI side before gameplay will be all there.

I also have basically no idea what to do about the SC script system yet, and while wall graphics and flats are loaded from ravdata.dat, sprites are not (yet). So, tl;dr, "gameplay is coming ASAP but it's a tall order for someone of my skill level".

[Fisk]

New pre-0.25 test version available. As indicated in the above post, this version is not gameplay-complete. There is no need to download yet unless you are really interested in helping me debug the engine or something

[Fisk]

New pre-0.25 release.

This version contains a map editor. Check the readme for details. This release was not planned, but I figured since I had basically finished the backbone of the editor it would be smart to test it out publicly. Please inform me of any bugs you find, show me your creations, or just give me your opinions on how the interface should expand or change.

I would also like to ask the community for your opinions regarding a text-based map format for WindowCaster, similar in concept to UDMF. Binary maps will continue to be supported and I will do my best to enable writing your own .lib files, with the objective of being compatible with the original DOS executable.

If there is interest, I would also like to consider creating a Discord server to discuss future developments of this "source port" since I am sure one Discord server in particular is tired of hearing about it.

ver. 0.25-PRE-5
ver. 0.25-PRE-5 source code

[Fisk]

ver. 0.25-PRE-6

There was a previous version of 0.25-PRE-6 that I released on Doomworld which contains some rather nasty bugs. There is no PK3 update this time. You can save or load user maps by pressing F5 (save) or F6 (load) while the map editor is open.

Please feel free to post any maps you make with the editor in this thread, I would love to see them. Especially if they expose bugs in the map editor.