ZDoom

DECORATE is perfectly capable of using the random() function just about anywhere you'd care to think. This allows for monsters to be made a lot more interesting without the use of jumps and ACS.

Slightly off-topic, but I'm wondering what the stance on other projects using CAH resources is. The text file states that "Authors may NOT use this level as a base to build additional levels"; does the word 'level' refer to the entire mod, or are resources other than the actual levels (such as textures and sprites) free for use, as long as credit is given? The main reason I ask is because some the blood splatter textures are very nice indeed .

NiGHTMARE wrote:Slightly off-topic, but I'm wondering what the stance on other projects using CAH resources is. The text file states that "Authors may NOT use this level as a base to build additional levels"; does the word 'level' refer to the entire mod, or are resources other than the actual levels (such as textures and sprites) free for use, as long as credit is given? The main reason I ask is because some the blood splatter textures are very nice indeed .

You like 'em?

Well, as the original author of this mod I hereby give you (and anyone else who wants to use those resources) permission to go ahead and do what they want with them.

Bad news is that the "turning off snow" thing doesn't seem to be working so well. Anyone know any more about A_JumpIfCloser?

A_JumpIfCloser is inferring closer to the target of the actor, and I don't believe static decoration actors have targets, so that might be what's doing it. You could give them the basics to make them seek the player as a target or use Thing_Hate to focus them on the player. Be warned that all this won't work in co-op where there are multiple targets.

Have you tried making the snow lightweight non-interactive actors and seeing if that cleans up most of the problem? If the whole snow area isn't visible at once, you can combine that with manually turning on and off snow in different areas.

My old rain and snow weather effects wad is out of date with the latest SVN features, but is still up to date for 2.2.0 I think. I could poke around that to see if I have anything useful to serve as an example.

If you want to disable snow based on distance I think it's better to use GetActorX and GetActorY in ACS - or use different tids in different parts of the map and enable them selectively.

Non-interactive things are not that good for snow because it disables all collision detection - so it can go through walls.

This has been one of my favorite wads for some time, really happy to see it improving.

Graf Zahl wrote:If you want to disable snow based on distance I think it's better to use GetActorX and GetActorY in ACS - or use different tids in different parts of the map and enable them selectively.

Non-interactive things are not that good for snow because it disables all collision detection - so it can go through walls.

I'll have to see if I can get that to work as well. I can't seem to get the MAPSPOT or snow object to "target" the player, even using Thing_Hate, so I'm probably doing something wrong.

Actually, most of the old problems might be fixed by the addition of garbage collection in ZDoom. Sure, the snow would lag old computers, but I'm fixing the option to turn it off, and the average computer is probably a bit faster these days anyway. What would really drag things down is about 3/4 of the way through the WAD when all the objects in the hub started to bog down the memory. If ZDoom does a better job of handling this issue, a lot of the problems might be gone already.

Too bad about the non-interactive flag, I thought that might be a good solution.

Graf Zahl wrote:Non-interactive things are not that good for snow because it disables all collision detection - so it can go through walls.

I'd solve that by making sure the actor removes itself before it ever falls below a ceiling. Of course, my snow would have to have a predetermined falling pattern in order for that to work...

I found the solution. Apparently you need the whole A_Look thing to make sure the object "sees" the player as a target. That, plus a Thing_Hate that references the object itself in the Spawn state (along with the player TID, which is set in each level for some other effects like the bleeding effect) make it so that the snow will only spawn for more than 1 tic if the player is within range. I have the distance set at 1408 right now, which seems to be about perfect. Maybe I'll extend it if the larger levels don't fill up enough.

Works like a charm.

So far, everything is going well. A lot of major issues have been corrected, and I'm making some small tweaks to things.

I'm looking at making some major revisions as well, so I'll bump this thing when I have some actual visuals for everyone.

Also, I'm going to make the plane in the beginning actually look like a proper period plane instead of "random Doom sector plane."

Screen shots of the enhanced GZDoom version of Cold as Hell are up in the first post.

No release schedule, but I'm making decent progress on this thing. All the major bugs are gone and I'm working on tuning the whole mess up with GZDoom, with three actual gameplay levels basically finished.

I just realized I have an edit of the default shotgun made to look like a Winchesher M97 trench gun, which was the kind used during WWII. I made it originally for my enhanced KDiZD weapons mod, but I'd be more than willing to donate it to you if you're interested. :)

Snarboo wrote:I just realized I have an edit of the default shotgun made to look like a Winchesher M97 trench gun, which was the kind used during WWII. I made it originally for my enhanced KDiZD weapons mod, but I'd be more than willing to donate it to you if you're interested.

Sure, PM me. I'd like to at least take a look at it.

Nice new screens. I love them. So this is now GZDoom-only? Not that it bothers me, but I'm sure some software-only users will cringe.

But then again, switching this to OpenGL does make the levels look nicer (I love that subtle snow fade) and no more ugly Doom palette... but best of all, the hardware rendering will make the map play slightly faster...

I, for one, agree on your choice. :) There is no reason to stick to the software renderer to sacrifice creativity.

Nash wrote:Nice new screens. I love them. So this is now GZDoom-only? Not that it bothers me, but I'm sure some software-only users will cringe.

But then again, switching this to OpenGL does make the levels look nicer (I love that subtle snow fade) and no more ugly Doom palette... but best of all, the hardware rendering will make the map play slightly faster...

I, for one, agree on your choice. There is no reason to stick to the software renderer to sacrifice creativity.

Well, I already finished bug-fixing the original versions of the levels, so I'll release them as an alternative levelset for those without the hardware to run GZDoom. The resource WAD retains a few things that are needed to run software (like normal skies instead of skyboxes) and it seems to work fine with the original style levels.