DarkDoomZ v1.10 [idgames]

[A_D_M_E_R_A_L]

I like the options EVP has for the flashlight you can change its color just a fun little tweak.

It's because I use Steve's Flashlight, instead of DDZ's one.

[BROS_ETT_311]

If it's not too late to request a feature and if no one has already suggested it, how about an auto-toggle for the flashlight based on the darkness of a sector?

[Caligari87]

I like the options EVP has for the flashlight you can change its color just a fun little tweak.

It's because I use Steve's Flashlight, instead of DDZ's one.

I'm not planning on adding more flashlight colors or customizable flashlight colors. I like the ones that are there. Plus Steve's Flashlight should work fine with DDZ's other functions anyway.

If it's not too late to request a feature and if no one has already suggested it, how about an auto-toggle for the flashlight based on the darkness of a sector?

That's actually a very interesting idea! I'll take a look, shouldn't be too hard to implement. I'll probably have it trigger based on the average of the sector you're standing in and the sector you're looking towards.

[Plasmazippo]

I like the options EVP has for the flashlight you can change its color just a fun little tweak.

It's because I use Steve's Flashlight, instead of DDZ's one.

I'm not planning on adding more flashlight colors or customizable flashlight colors. I like the ones that are there. Plus Steve's Flashlight should work fine with DDZ's other functions anyway.

I've used DDZ with SuaveSteve's "Steve's Flashlight Mod", the enhanced "Steve's Flashligt Plus" found in the same thread, and RicardoLuis0's "Flashlight+" (all ZScript, no ACS or DECORATE) mod. Never ever had any issues.

[00face]

Would you consider a mode where the sectors darken randomly and possibly blink at different intervals? As if sectors were losing power or have low power.

[Caligari87]

Sorry, I don't think so. That's way too dependent on assumptions about how the level's lighting is constructed so it'd look bad more often than not.

[00face]

Not sure what you mean by assumptions based on the level, I said that it would be applied randomly. The mod itself changes the tone of levels already.

[Caligari87]

DarkDoomZ v1.10

This is the final release of DarkDoomZ. After about a year of no major changes, I've decided that this project is stable and complete in every meaningful way. Here's a summary of the minor changes since last version:

* Update ZScript version to 4.5.
* Fix various minor warnings and error messages.
* Fix crash for unloaded players.
* Account for "Pulsing" sector light mode.
* Remove most sound files, use pitch-shifted click noise instead.
* Various minor tweaks to menu.
* Use player's actual camera Z for light placement.
* Add idgames template file.
* Update license year.

Barring any major bugfixes, development of DarkDoomZ is now halted and will be uploaded to /idgames (probably sometime this week). Thanks everyone for your input and feedback!

Also, I've spent a bit of time and energy on this over the last four years. I hope this isn't gauche, but if you like my work I do have a tip jar on Ko-Fi. Nothing is required but everything is appreciated.

EDIT: I considered the auto-flashlight and decided against it. There's so many possible situations which may or may not require a light, and I'd rather leave it to the player's choice since the flashlight can cause performance issues with highly detailed geometry.

[Enjay]

Congrats on getting DarkDoomZ to this point.

One thing I forgot to mention as a suggestion - the possibility of the flashlight alerting enemies (possibly just optionally). Doom2 MAP01 is a good example of why. Start the game, enable the flashlight and the zombies standing in front of you are bathed in light - but they seem to be blissfully unaware of this.

A while back, I messed around with this and came up with two modifications that I thought worked reasonably well:
1) as soon as the light is switched on, it alerts enemies (much like a regular weapon does).
2) I added an invisible projectile that the flashlight spawns at a regular (but not too frequent) interval that alerts enemies when it hits something. Its death sequence alerts enemies - so there is an alert where the flashlight is shining on as well as from the player position.

[Caligari87]

I feel like alerting monsters treads into "gameplay mod" territory so I'm not keen on adding it canonically (it's actually in my previous list of things I've turned down already).

That said, I think creating a mutator which enables monster alerting would be easy. I'll include that as an optional add-on, to give an example of how "plugins" can be done.

[Enjay]

Fair enough. I had a feeling that it had been discussed before. I understand the logic behind not including it.

Including the mutator is a good idea.

[Enjay]

I don't know if you are interested in this but I came across a minor problem with DarkDoomZ the other day.

I was using an ACS script to plunge the player into darkness. As part of this, I used the script to take the DarkDoomZ inventory actor away from the player. However, if the flashlight was active when the script was run, the item was indeed taken from the inventory but the dynamic light remained attached to the player. With the inventory item gone, it was now impossible for the player to switch the light off/on so they were just left there glowing in the dark (definitely not what I was trying to achieve).

Anyway, I mentioned it in the following thread and Jarewill posted a solution - a simple addition to the ZScript code which, after a couple of days of testing, certainly works for me with no issues. So I thought it might be worth posting about it here.

viewtopic.php?f=122&t=75136&p=1217271

I mention in that thread that it is version 1.9b that I noticed this with (I'm using that simply because I'd already integrated it with the mod that I am working on) but I think the same thing probably still happens with 1.10. I realise that having a setup like this is probably quite a rare occurrence but seeing as how it can be fixed nice and easily, it might be worth adding into DarkDoomZ officially to prevent the problem happening for anyone else.

[Caligari87]

Seems like a reasonable and simple change, I've gone ahead and added it on the git version.

[june gloom]

I've run into a nasty bug. I was using the mod with Ashes Afterglow and at some point -- after the biodome level, I think, or after talking to the Baron, it was around then -- everything got much darker, and attempting to fiddle with either the mode or preset thrusts the entire map into darkness and any further changes do nothing. I can make changes via pre-gain and post-gain, but it's not perfect. Minimum lightlevel never seemed to do much of anything, but it does nothing now.

ETA: A little testing shows that my one save from before the Biodome has the same issue, it was just not immediately noticeable (though I do remember having to change the fog setting from 0 to 8 because the Biodome was just a white mess otherwise) and that if I start a new game the issue isn't present.

[Caligari87]

Honestly I don't think this is something I could even remotely fix, if Ashes has some kind of script that messes with the brightness or fog. DDZ tries to make sane assumptions (such as always working from the original light levels the map loaded with) but it's impossible to check whether a certain light/fog amount is intentionally part of the map or if it's the result of a bad script interaction.

Maybe ask Vost if that map does something with the brightness/fog. If I can see what's causing it that might help.