Beautiful Doom 7.1.6 (June 2nd, 2021)

[drfrag]

Of course there's no point in adapting stuff, however ZDoom technically it's not exactly the same and has lower requirements.

What i want is to get rid of those error messages about missing states and show them only on the developer modes. In GZDoom they are never shown ingame not even on those modes. I don't know if that's a bug and when that change happened.

[pikio96]

Just wanted to say: the frames for the shotgun after firing aren't aligned properly. I don't mean to sound nitpicky but it's a little jarring. It's not hard to miss either, just shoot the shotgun and it's pretty clear that after pumping the weapon, the raising of the gun is off-center so it looks like it just twitches into place. If it means anything, I was playing on Vanilla Guns setting.

EDIT: Maybe I'm going crazy but I could have sworn the chaingun was raised higher in previous versions, if that's the case maybe you could make it that way again? I think it looks good on the Rocket Launcher and BFG so why not chaingun?

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

Just wanted to say: the frames for the shotgun after firing aren't aligned properly. I don't mean to sound nitpicky but it's a little jarring. It's not hard to miss either, just shoot the shotgun and it's pretty clear that after pumping the weapon, the raising of the gun is off-center so it looks like it just twitches into place. If it means anything, I was playing on Vanilla Guns setting.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean. Are you referring to the fact that after pumping it goes a little lower before being raised back into default position? That's sort of intended, although I guess it could look better if actually added some more modified sprites instead of just repositioned ones.

EDIT: Maybe I'm going crazy but I could have sworn the chaingun was raised higher in previous versions, if that's the case maybe you could make it that way again? I think it looks good on the Rocket Launcher and BFG so why not chaingun?

No, it's the same as it was before but it is a bit higher than in standard Doom. I guess I could go a bit higher but I'm not sure that'd look that great.

[pikio96]

Well after pumping the shotgun, it starts at the bottom and as the weapon is raised it shifts to right the out of nowhere. As for the chaingun: it's ultimately up to you, no point in trying to change something if you don't feel it needs to be changed.

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

Well after pumping the shotgun, it starts at the bottom and as the weapon is raised it shifts to right the out of nowhere. As for the chaingun: it's ultimately up to you, no point in trying to change something if you don't feel it needs to be changed.

I'll look into the chaingun and test it out. But as for shotgun... I'll be honest, I'm still not really seeing any suddent shifts. Perhaps you could modify the animation the way that seems better to you and send it to me so I could compare. If you know your way around SLADE3 it shouldn't be difficult, the state you're looking for is Fire in Bdoom_weapons.wad/BW_SHOT and the frames are SHOG*. That is, if you mean the positioning of the frames, not the contents of the images themselves.

[Echelon5]

So I know the whole point is to keep things vanilla, but I was wondering if you'd be open to adding something like an assault rifle to share the chaingun slot (maybe in just the enhanced weapons mode? or make it a togglable element?) in order to make the chaingun more specialized?

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

So I know the whole point is to keep things vanilla, but I was wondering if you'd be open to adding something like an assault rifle to share the chaingun slot (maybe in just the enhanced weapons mode? or make it a togglable element?) in order to make the chaingun more specialized?

I have been considering the concept of an assault rifle. However, right now I don't really see a place for it in the mod. If I decided to introduce an assault rifle as an alternative or an additional weapon, I can see several possible ways to do that and each is accompanied by certain difficulties. Here are some bad ways to do that:

• I make an assault rifle as a replacement for the chaingun in the Enhanced weapon set so that it looks different but acts basically the same.
  Problem: first, many people wouldn't like and for a good reason; second, there's just no good excuse for that replacement. Did I make it because I think "it looks good"? It's subjective. Because "a chaingun and a pistol can't share the same ammo?" Neither can an assault rifle and a pistol. None of the other weapons have a different look, why does this one? However you look at it, it's just kinda odd.
• Same as above but I include a toggle option to disable the rifle in the menus. Problem: first, again, this replacement doesn't seem to have a solid reason, why is it there at all? (And if I make it off by default not many would even notice.) Second, I'm loyal to the concept where toggleable options exist only for special effects, not for actual gameplay functions (apart from having two weapon sets, of course). Also I don't make options to toggle between one single minor feature, like a skin for one single weapon. Introducing a toggle between an assault rifle and a chaingun would be a step away from that concept. So I'd either end up with a single toggle option that doesn't really fit anywhere concept-wise, or the opposite: I'd start getting requests to introduce more toggles or, even more likely, I'd start thinking in that direction myself, and as a result I'd end up with a menu with a whole array of switches and toggles akin to ZDoom compatibility menu. Neither sounds great, to be honest. And too many toggles aren't really that fun for the player.
• I make an assault rifle as a secondary weapon in the same slot. Problem: again, no clear reason for that. How is it different from the chaingun? The chaingun is easy to use, responsive, pretty fast, can be used for sniping and it shares ammo with the pistol. To make a reasonable weapon in the same slot it would have to be different in some of those features. Is it more powerful or faster? Makes the chaingun obsolete. Doesn't share ammo with the pistol? I'm definitely not introducing new ammo types, those would affect the game's core balance. Do I take some features away from the chaingun to make it more specialized? Looks like I'm making a solid weapon weaker for no good reason. Do I add something to the chaingun, like make it more powerful or faster? Then it'd make the assault rifle obsolete.
  In addition to that I'd have to come up with a way to spawn it in the game. Would it sometimes spawn instead of a chaingun? Or dropped by a new assault rifle zombie that in its turn has a chance to spawn instead of a chaingunner? I'm not a fan of chance-based spawners; the only exception is the second pistol that sometimes spawns next to a chainsaw or is dropped by a zombie, but I only made it because pistol, even dual-wielded is the least important weapon in the game that quickly becomes obsolete, so playing with it felt harmless enough.

Those were the bad options. Now a couple of good ones:

• I introduce a set of alternative skins for weapons, an assault rifle skin for the chaingun among them. Makes sense but I'm not really an artist, I'm not sure which skins I'd include. Also not really sure it would really add much to the mod. But it is not an unreasonable concept.
• The most likely option: I introduce a whole new weapon set. I have been considering adding a set of "Modern" guns that would act somewhat more realistic and would change the gameplay to a greater degree: like, they would have some recoil, would require reloading, would have somewhat different power characteristics, etc. It's not a minor endeavor but not unfathomable. Those guns would probably have slightly different looks, and yes, an assault rifle instead of a chaingun would make a lot of sense there. Or, quite possibly, some sort of an SMG (considering they share ammo with the pistol).

I'm taking a break from the mod for some time 'cause I'm pretty busy right now and then I'm going on holiday, so no promises for now. Also, I have another pretty big idea related to the looks of the mod, that I'm going to keep a secret for now, but if I decide to implement it, it'll require rather a lot of time and would be of greater priority to me than another weapon set. Nevertheless, like I said, it is a possibility — I do like this idea myself.

I hope I successfully provided a look into my reasoning behind some of the design decisions!

[DarkkOne]

The most likely option: I introduce a whole new weapon set. I have been considering adding a set of "Modern" guns that would act somewhat more realistic and would change the gameplay to a greater degree: like, they would have some recoil, would require reloading, would have somewhat different power characteristics, etc. It's not a minor endeavor but not unfathomable. Those guns would probably have slightly different looks, and yes, an assault rifle instead of a chaingun would make a lot of sense there. Or, quite possibly, some sort of an SMG (considering they share ammo with the pistol).

This idea sounds really good, in a sense. I love that one of the key factors of this mod is "doesn't change vanilla gameplay." Honestly, were I doing this, I would add a second option, "Modern weapons." If you had "Modern weapons" on, but "Enhanced weapons" off, you'd get modern looking skins that behaved exactly as the vanilla guns did. It'd basically be like "why do space soldiers carry around chainguns but no assault rifles?" and "you should probably have military styled shotguns rather than ones that look like they're intended for hunting." Then with "Enhanced guns" on, this set of weapon skills can have all new behaviors for ones where it seems suitable, and the traditional "enhanced guns" behaviors where it doesn't.

[Echelon5]

An alternate skin for the chaingun does sound nice, and there's plenty of really great ones that fit the Doom aesthetic hanging around these very forums.

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

This idea sounds really good, in a sense. I love that one of the key factors of this mod is "doesn't change vanilla gameplay." Honestly, were I doing this, I would add a second option, "Modern weapons." If you had "Modern weapons" on, but "Enhanced weapons" off, you'd get modern looking skins that behaved exactly as the vanilla guns did. It'd basically be like "why do space soldiers carry around chainguns but no assault rifles?" and "you should probably have military styled shotguns rather than ones that look like they're intended for hunting." Then with "Enhanced guns" on, this set of weapon skills can have all new behaviors for ones where it seems suitable, and the traditional "enhanced guns" behaviors where it doesn't.

Possible but it'd be really rather hard to implement. Plus if I did start making modern guns, their looks would probably be somewhat intertwined with their different behavior, so pulling their skins over vanilla guns might not work. Also, having Vanilla vs Enhanced as one option as Modern on/off as another would be pretty confusing to the player. But anyway, since I'm not actually planning anything like that in the nearest future, it's too soon to discuss.

[DarkkOne]

Honestly not a feature I wanted anyway. Love this mod, and basically a requirement when I want a basic Doom experience.

[pikio96]

So I went ahead and tried SLADE and I did what I thought looked best. It wasn't the animation, but the positioning of the frames. Originally the frame I was mostly complaining about was SHOGC0. It had offsets of -115,-123. The problem with that is that the other shotgun raising animations are all aligned with the first offset at -118. So after noticing that I changed offset -115 to -118. It already looked better but I decided to spend the next 45 minutes messing with the secondary offsets for SHOGC0 and SHOGB0 as I still thought the animations seemed juttery. I feel that adding an extra still frame of raising the shotgun would look better but I have no real clue how to go about doing that. So I just settled on trying to make SHOGC0 and SHOGB0 look better, in my opinion at least.

I settled on the following offsets:
SHOGB0: -118,-113
SHOGC0: -118,-117

I don't think uploading the files is necessary as I merely shifted the frames. Try it out and tell me what you think. Regarding assault rifles: I'd rather you leave it out of the mod. The whole point of this particular mod is to just pretty up Doom but keep the gameplay. And you gave all the right reasons to keep it out.

I look forward to the next update.

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

The problem with that is that the other shotgun raising animations are all aligned with the first offset at -118. So after noticing that I changed offset -115 to -118. It already looked better but I decided to spend the next 45 minutes messing with the secondary offsets for SHOGC0 and SHOGB0 as I still thought the animations seemed juttery. I feel that adding an extra still frame of raising the shotgun would look better but I have no real clue how to go about doing that.

So, if I understand you correctly, you were talking about the part of animation of the shotgun being put back into its basic position after it's been pumped, right?
If that's so, I can see your point, but... I can't say I see it as something noticeable. I mean, if you think about it, the whole shotgun is moved to the left (and downwards) it's being pumped, so it kinda makes sense that the sprites are moving from left to right (and upwards) as it goes back. So, it's not being literally "raised" back into position, it's being moved back. And in that sense I don't see much difference between my variant and yours. Of course, additional I could try to create another couple of different frames to represent this movement better.

[pikio96]

I completely agree with you in that the shotgun is being moved down-left, if anything your original vision is better than my attempt at straightening it out, the problem is basically the lack of frames. I'm sorry if I'm causing you issues but I just felt like it looked off. I realized after I messed with the frames that what you were trying to do is to add a sense of momentum, something I had never thought. I compared your frames to Smooth Doom's and the Smooth Doom frames are aiming to simply be smoother versions of Doom's usual frames, whereas you are trying to add a sense of weight to the weapon animations. I assumed you were trying to be like the former but I see now why you had the frames the way you did.

In that case, I would just add another frame or two.

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

Well, it is worth paying some attention to, so I'll try