Ultimate Doom Builder

[boris]

Update your GZDoom to 4.8.

[axredneck]

Ultimate Doom Builder lets me edit the brightness of sidedefs in visual mode (i.e. make a wall much darker or lighter than the sector it is attached to), but when I save and test my level (in GZDoom or Zdoom), the sidedef brightness doesn't take effect, and the wall is stuck at the brightness of the sector it is attached to. Could someone please help me with this?

Do you use UDMF ?
Do you use 3D Floors?

[Enjay]

To perhaps amplify boris' answer. It has been possible to set siddef brightness for some time (perhaps even as long as GZDoom has supported UDMF?). However, during the development of 4.8, setting upper/mid/lower brightness separately was added.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=74529&p=1211636

So, ideally update to 4.8 for full functionality. However, 4.7.1 and earlier supported whole siddef brightness setting and it works for me™.

[boris]

So, ideally update to 4.8 for full functionality. However, 4.7.1 and earlier supported whole siddef brightness setting and it works for me™.

It's been indeed possible since a long time. The difference is that since the 4.8 feature to independently change the brightness levels of upper/middle/lower was implemented into UDB the hotkeys to change brightness work on those parts, not on the global brightness level of the sidedef.
So the solution is to upgrade to GZDoom 4.8 (or disable the feature in the game config).

[Enjay]

Makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

[3t0]

Hello again!

I have just couple of questions:

• would it at least be possible to git tag version releases? It would help me teeny bit what to rewind to. So far there are only two tags which I guess are not really representative of anything.
• do I presume correctly boris is the main dev?
• finally how do I edit this thing? I would like to try experiment with some minimal edits first. Would this free cross platform visual studio ms is pushing work? Or does one need some bigboy like VS3030 (sorry I am not current with windows ides)?

Thank you for replies.

[boris]

• would it at least be possible to git tag version releases? It would help me teeny bit what to rewind to. So far there are only two tags which I guess are not really representative of anything.

That's not how development and releases of UDB work. Currently every push to the master branch will trigger a new build that's a "release". The two current tags are just points of radical changes.

• do I presume correctly boris is the main dev?

I guess you could say that at the moment.

• finally how do I edit this thing? I would like to try experiment with some minimal edits first. Would this free cross platform visual studio ms is pushing work? Or does one need some bigboy like VS3030 (sorry I am not current with windows ides)?

[/list][/list]

If by "free cross platform visual studio ms is pushing" you mean Visual Studio Code, then I assume the compiling part would be the issue. I don't know if there's a way to let VSCode build VS solutions. Also UDB needs Microsoft's C++ compiler for some stuff. The easiest way would be to use Visual Studio 2019 (that's what I'm currently using) or Visual Studio 2022. Both are available as free Community Editions. When installing make sure it installs both C# and C++.
Building it with Visual Studio (without "Code") should be very easy, i.e. just open the solution ("Builder.sln") and hit the "Run" button.

[3t0]

That's not how development and releases of UDB work. Currently every push to the master branch will trigger a new build that's a "release". The two current tags are just points of radical changes.

Okay, so in this project each commit into github repo is de-facto fully buildable?

I guess you could say that at the moment.

Thank you for confirming your status on the project.

If by "free cross platform visual studio ms is pushing" you mean Visual Studio Code, then I assume the compiling part would be the issue. I don't know if there's a way to let VSCode build VS solutions. Also UDB needs Microsoft's C++ compiler for some stuff.

Yes, Visual Studio Code, I think is the name - albeit limited, it understands c#, or not? I am using the msbuild thing mentioned in Linux build part - I understand it's some make invoked thingy which actually understands and reads big visual studio project files and builds the solution. This should be enough to build, or may I hit issues this way?

The easiest way would be to use Visual Studio 2019 (that's what I'm currently using) or Visual Studio 2022. Both are available as free Community Editions. When installing make sure it installs both C# and C++. Building it with Visual Studio (without "Code") should be very easy, i.e. just open the solution ("Builder.sln") and hit the "Run" button.

You probably don't know whether this "Community Edition" (etiher 2019 or 2020) would work natively under Linux, right? I guess the compilers are part of mono instead, because how would I otherwise succeed with make+msbuild only? I will look into whether "Community Edition" works natively, because if not, that way seems like dead end.

Thanks for the insights.

[dpJudas]

I don't think anyone can help you with the specifics. When I ported UDB over to linux/mono I used a command prompt to build it.

Honestly, if you want to make it as a software developer you will have to find out to solve these kinds of problems on your own as this profession is too complex to cover every use-case and tools available out there.

If your goal is to just run UDB on Linux then note the mono native version got several outstanding issues and you may be better off if you use wine to run UDB as that seem to work better for a lot of Linux users.

[boris]

That's not how development and releases of UDB work. Currently every push to the master branch will trigger a new build that's a "release". The two current tags are just points of radical changes.

Okay, so in this project each commit into github repo is de-facto fully buildable?

Only the ones in the "master" branch.

If by "free cross platform visual studio ms is pushing" you mean Visual Studio Code, then I assume the compiling part would be the issue. I don't know if there's a way to let VSCode build VS solutions. Also UDB needs Microsoft's C++ compiler for some stuff.

Yes, Visual Studio Code, I think is the name - albeit limited, it understands c#, or not? I am using the msbuild thing mentioned in Linux build part - I understand it's some make invoked thingy which actually understands and reads big visual studio project files and builds the solution. This should be enough to build, or may I hit issues this way?

The easiest way would be to use Visual Studio 2019 (that's what I'm currently using) or Visual Studio 2022. Both are available as free Community Editions. When installing make sure it installs both C# and C++. Building it with Visual Studio (without "Code") should be very easy, i.e. just open the solution ("Builder.sln") and hit the "Run" button.

You probably don't know whether this "Community Edition" (etiher 2019 or 2020) would work natively under Linux, right? I guess the compilers are part of mono instead, because how would I otherwise succeed with make+msbuild only? I will look into whether "Community Edition" works natively, because if not, that way seems like dead end.

The VSCode support for C# seems to be quite powerful, including IntelliSense, so using VSCode for C# projects seems to be fine. I assume there are still limitations like debugging or the WinForms designer. I'm not aware of the full Visual Studio being available on Linux, but I didn't look for it.

And yes, msbuild is enough, so you'd just make your changes and run "make" as explained in the build instructions on https://github.com/jewalky/UltimateDoomBuilder/

[3t0]

Only the ones in the "master" branch.

Roger.

The VSCode support for C# seems to be quite powerful, including IntelliSense, so using VSCode for C# projects seems to be fine. I assume there are still limitations like debugging or the WinForms designer. I'm not aware of the full Visual Studio being available on Linux, but I didn't look for it.

And yes, msbuild is enough, so you'd just make your changes and run "make" as explained in the build instructions on https://github.com/jewalky/UltimateDoomBuilder/

Yeah, it seems "Visual Studio XXYY" is avalible only for Mac. Thank you for input I will try VSCode.

Honestly, if you want to make it as a software developer you will have to find out to solve these kinds of problems on your own as this profession is too complex to cover every use-case and tools available out there.

Me a professional software developer? Thank god no! I am long past that. I am now "happy" elder sysadmin (by modern standards), and I even get to yell on software developers when their micro-services throw hissy fits (very fulfilling part of operations job ). It's just, that my last windows was XP and I didn't have real contact with windows world for very, very long time, and even you have to admit quite lot of happened in the meantime: HyperV, WSL, Azure, this VSCode thing etc. So why not ask windows guys who are much more current with the tides first? I would be like elephant in the porcelain.

I don't think anyone can help you with the specifics. When I ported UDB over to linux/mono I used a command prompt to build it.

It seems you did stellar job there, also I don't remember visual studio .sln files being directly buildable with cli helper only, back in the day.
I rebuild semi regularly (I was not aware about "all commits are buildable" policy till now - I will increase frequency probably), but I admit do it only in several month intervals, as time allows.

If your goal is to just run UDB on Linux then note the mono native version got several outstanding issues and you may be better off if you use wine to run UDB as that seem to work better for a lot of Linux users.

I am very stubborn, yes, I have read there are issues, yes, I intentionally gave up on wine (I don't like it), here is semi native build that works all right (I have yet to hit any problem), I will use it in this form. Otherwise all your hard work was for nothing, no?

[doomzie]

Hi,

Not sure where exactly to ask this, but I'm looking for an explanation on why certain imported custom items are showing up in UDB's "Edit Thing" window (list) with an icon in a non-standard color, such as blue, light blue, red, yellow, ... instead of the standard greenish color. I can't seem to find any documentation on that. If one or a few of the imported custom items has a red or yellow circle arrow icon, what exactly does it mean? Is there any documentation on this?

[boris]

Sound like whoever did the custom items used editor keys to configure them: https://zdoom.org/wiki/Editor_keys

[doomzie]

Sound like whoever did the custom items used editor keys to configure them: https://zdoom.org/wiki/Editor_keys

Actually I found out it's because an Actor is based on an IWAD Actor. The different colours for the custom items then relate to the category (or group?) the IWAD Actor belongs to. Was not obvious, but eventually figured it out. It gives the impression in UDB that something is wrong with some custom items.

https://zdoom.org/wiki/Using_inheritance

With your input I now know how to override the colour for these actors that are using inheritance.

//$Color 18

Now all the custom items are Dark Khaki. Woohoo.

[doomzie]

Boris,

I've noticed an issue with dragging and dropping directories into the "resources" frame in the "Map Options" menu (when you create a new map).
It seems that when doing so only the .wad files are processed and not the .pk3 files. When you go into the map, none of the custom items (actors) from the .pk3 files are showing up in the "Edit Thing" list.

When you select all the files inside the directory and drag and drop them, then there is no issue. All items show up.