Wierd distortion?

[OphelianAshe]

Hi,
I used to play zdoom and skulltag about 20 years ago or so, made some crappy .wads on newdoom forums etc etc, and I've just started getting back into things.
I got the latest version of zdoom, and I dunno if it's the aforementioned 20 years messing with my memories, or if something has changed in a setting I'm not finding, but is it *supposed* to look super-distorted when I look up and down? The sectors closer to me being shorter, the sectors further away stretching out to the horizon? Sprites looking super crushed and leaning?

I obviously know that Doom was originally just side-to-side look, with no up-down movement, but I don't remember the old zdoom I used to use looking this weird?

[drfrag]

I guess you mean UZDoom and you're using a different renderer. ZDoom only had a software renderer and you could switch to it. And hi.

[Kappes Buur]

Welcome back

ZDoom is hopelessly outdated, has just a limited range of looking up/down. Distortion can happen when using some wideangle rendering.

In the last 20 years ZDoom has been upgrtaded with GZDoom 4.14.2 and more recentlky with UZDoom 4.14.3. They are extended versions of the samer software. For both you can choose software rendering or polymost (the original renderer upgraded) or hardware rendering with OpenGL or Vulcan which have dynamic lights, full 3D floors, smooth arches, slope control, etc.

Loking up/down in GZDoom or UZDoom is now 90° up and 90° down without distortion.

Making maps has also changed for the better. The latest preferred editor is either Ultimate Doom Builder or Slade3.

Most, about 98%, of features are explained in either the ZDoom Wiki or the Doom Wiki.

Since you had been using ZDoom in the past I gather that you passed on original DOOM/BOOM format maps.
Some other source ports worth mentioning are
LZDoom
ZZDoom

[OphelianAshe]

Yes! That worked, thank you. It was a renderer issue. It still doesn't quite match my memories, but it's much better than it was. Appreciated.

[drfrag]

ZDoom is hopelessly outdated

Are you sure?
I see you've posted some links, the last version of the old LZDoom was 3.88b and recently i released 4.14.3a. One of these days i'll release 4.14.4.
ZZDoom is the spiritual succesor of ZDoom (i don't know how to say this) and after the disaster with 3.0 i had to do something else xD. But i'll still do a hard reset to the master branch and release 3.0 eventually. But i also recently started working on 4.0 for the future.
Polymost was never completed, the original Softpoly was better than the new one i think but had limitations (didn't support rendering tricks) and then it was replaced with Softpoly 2 which was just a rasterizer for the hardware renderer. BTW i didn't merge the old Softpoly properly into LZDoom 3 back then.

[OphelianAshe]

I tried using Ultimate Doom Builder, and was hopelessly lost. I've gone back to Doom Builder 2, which I know better.

[Enjay]

I would suggest persevering with UDB. It actually isn't that different to DB2 once you get into it but it has the big advantage of being actively maintained which means it contains bug fixes and support for new game features that didn't even exist when DB2 was in active development. Your choice, of course.

[Kappes Buur]

I tried using Ultimate Doom Builder, and was hopelessly lost. I've gone back to Doom Builder 2, which I know better.

If you absolutely want to use DB2 because it is familiar to you than at least use DBX which is a more robust version.

However, if you want to give UDB another try than check out aRottenKomquat's playlist.

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For a visual representation:

https://imgbox.com/9eKfTbxA

But as Enjay mentioned: Your choice, of course.