Exhumed / Powerslave MOD - Questions

[Torn]

(Information)
Many of you probably doesn't know me as I have never worked on projects for ZDoom. (some of you have however probably played aminesii.wad, fbdemo.wad or fbdemo2.wad plus various 32in24 or speedmapping maps by me. I guess some of you have seen me on Doomworld too).

But I have stepped into it because I wanted to make a mod. A powerslave / Exhumed mod. I have added this as a basic thread for me to ask questions in about my switch to the dark force.
Here is a youtube video of the game. It is BUILD engine. I haven't really gone far with it, but my questions show that.



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I will start off with a few questions (or rather many ), I hope someone will answer them.I also hope some of you have played the game.

1) I wanted to make a zipped folder as it would make editing easier, but my sprites in-game shows up with a solid background color instead of transparentency. When I tried to edit the .PK3 with SlumpED (for alignment of the sprite, etc...) it fucked up and showed a blue background color. What format should I save the sprites in? (I used .PNG)

2) I am trying to do a custom status bar.


(I probably also need a new custom palette)

As you can see I have got it working kinda. However I need to define some variables. In the original game it had a health and mana bar. Plus it also had lungs for underwater so when you were underwater you would die if they got full. It also feature an ammo bar with rotating numbers. In the middle it had a compass that showed the angle the player was turned. Finally it also had 4 slots for the 4 keys in the game (Earth, time, power and war keys)


I guess this divides into several questions under question 2
2a) How would I get health and mana bar working. From what I could see about SBARINFO, I could use some kind of same bar like hexen featured. But I am not sure what to do with it. The liquier in both bars is animated btw, is it possible to make it do that in Zdoom?

2b) The lungs. They are also animated (so I guess the same from before goes here too) However they become full underwater (I have read a bit about transfer_heights, but I am a zdoom noob so I haven't really played around with that yet). What function would I use to switch the graphics for this underwater plus the function for drowning?

2C) Ammo bar: This graphic should get changed based on player's amount of ammo, but I am not sure what to do. Is there a function for this?

2D) Compass: I tried to search for this one on the forums (yesterday I think), but I didn't really find anything I could use. If I missed something, please link me.
I found this one, but I couldn't really understand it.
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f= ... ss#p316867

2E) The keys. I guess I should use something like Doom's keys on the status bar. But I would still need to understand how the variable for keys on status bar work.

Okay, I guess these were the questions for now. I will put questions in this thread because it would easier than posting 100 of threads. (to prevent too much garbage on the forums)

Thanks for your help.

(I hope it is not a fault I am asking these questions, I am just a zdoom noob )

[wildweasel]

1) Editing with zipped folders is easy enough; the reason SlumpED is "fucking up" your background color is that you haven't saved the proper transparency in your PNG files. I recommend IrfanView, or if you're feeling adventurous/rich, Paint Shop Pro (the more recent versions at least) have a pretty simple Optimizer function that will help you set transparency and other things in your PNG files.

2a) I wouldn't know how to get the bars to be animated, but DrawBar will help with the basic functionality.

2c) An entry in FONTDEFS that contains the reel numbers as numbers 0-9 will enable you to display them using DrawNumber (with the Ammo1 argument, so it changes based on which weapon you use), but unfortunately it can't be animated to my knowledge.

2e) The keys will be simple: just do a DrawSwitchableImage that checks for the presence of each key.

[Torn]

1) Editing with zipped folders is easy enough; the reason SlumpED is "fraking up" your background color is that you haven't saved the proper transparency in your PNG files. I recommend IrfanView, or if you're feeling adventurous/rich, Paint Shop Pro (the more recent versions at least) have a pretty simple Optimizer function that will help you set transparency and other things in your PNG files.

Weird, I do use irfanview and set the transparency. I wonder what I did wrong then.

2a) I wouldn't know how to get the bars to be animated, but DrawBar will help with the basic functionality.

Yeah, but I am not sure how I would have one graphic the "bar" is behind.
Here is the graphic for the "blood".

What would I do if I want something set before it, because there is a graphic for the "container" of the blood.

2c) An entry in FONTDEFS that contains the reel numbers as numbers 0-9 will enable you to display them using DrawNumber (with the Ammo1 argument, so it changes based on which weapon you use), but unfortunately it can't be animated to my knowledge.

Ah, I would have to look into this more. So I am not able to the "betwen numbers" graphics then, if it can't be animated. There is a graphic between all number graphics, from 0 to 1, 1 to 2, etc...

2e) The keys will be simple: just do a DrawSwitchableImage that checks for the presence of each key.

Yeah I thought that. I guess it should be easy to do. I will look into that later.

[Torn]

Does no one know about animation in stbars? Can I use SBARINFO or do I need to use ACS? Eg: The lungs which would cycle through 3 frames each 1-2 secs (I guess it is around that).

Without this, I wouldn't come far as most of the things on the stbar uses some kind of animation.

[wildweasel]

Unfortunately I don't think it's very possible to animate a bar - most things on the status bar are pretty static, with the only real exception being the player mugshot.

[Torn]

I wonder if Drawmugshot would be a way to kinda hack this feature in.

[Ryan Cordell]

That's probably the closest thing you'll be able to get to an animated bar, barring suggesting a method to Blzut.