DECK: Doom Engine Creator's Kit

[Gez]

I'd suggest using the greyscale palette from SLADE 3 actually. Not the Freedoom palette because it's actually the Doom palette. Since the aim is to use OpenGL, the palette will be ignored and is there just to silence warnings; and the greyscale palette is absolutely neutral and cannot be claimed to be derived from a game in particular.

[mallo]

I'm pretty sure GZDoom uses palette for some things tho...

[XCVG]

There are some paletted Doom-format images in gzdoom.pk3, but they seem to be game-specific, so perhaps I was mistaken. It also seems to contain its own palettes, but it will NOT run if the IWAD is missing the PLAYPAL lump.

[The Zombie Killer]

There are some paletted Doom-format images in gzdoom.pk3, but they seem to be game-specific, so perhaps I was mistaken. It also seems to contain its own palettes, but it will NOT run if the IWAD is missing the PLAYPAL lump.

I'm assuming that's because GZDoom is just ZDoom with an optional GL renderer. Since the software renderer still exists in GZDoom, the PLAYPAL requirement does too

[XCVG]

The PLAYPAL lump is not just for rendering. It's necessary to deal with Doom-format graphics, which don't contain their own palettes.

[torridgristle]

Sorry, managed to read your message as ZDoom will display everything in a palette as in truecolour images would be matched to the palette in-game, not ZDoom needs PLAYPAL in the IWAD to start up.

[JPL]

Thanks for the input folks! I'll be updating the asset page with some recent submissions and clarifications soon.

I agree the "green cross" is probably the safest to use on medkits, I've seen it in other games and couldn't find any evidence it's copyrighted. It's also pretty easy to change down the line if need be.

I had an idea for a community project for DECK, see what everyone thinks. Instead of throwing resources with varying art styles at a singular iwad / depository, keep the iwad stripped down to just nuts and bolts. Just the minimal amount of graphics, and definition files to run with a generic player avatar and a few basic resources to be commonly used packed in. For a community project, it could be submit a .pk3 with scratch decorate and open resources with the goal of showcasing GZDoom as an engine. Each pk3 and it's resources could be used as a base for an aspiring dev / modder or used as an example of how you would go about doing it yourself in the engine. A cool camera demonstration, Pong, a basic MSPaint rpg, Pogostick like side-scroller example. Whatever you think is something cool or unique you could do within the engine. All the .pk3 files could be compiled as a resource archive with an example wad provided in each entry. Like a GZDoom science fair.

I think it's fair to assume that most people will know that a Doom clone could be done with a modified version of the original engine. Having a diversified collection of smaller examples might be more beneficial in really showing what you can do with the engine. That, and artistic continuity between resources wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Thank Ed, I've definitely been leaning in this direction. A base IWAD with minimal content (UI, etc) makes sense. Thing about doing multiple supplementary PK3s though is I'd want to make sure that people could mix and match content from them - taking a particular decorate object from one PK3 and pairing it with art content from another, for example. This may be a simple matter of archive management and good documentation though... SLADE3 is very powerful at the former and any common use cases would be reprented by a How To doc.

Some cases could get more complicated but we'll see. I'm pretty sure ZDoom supports "common across all levels" ACS scripts, which would hopefully cover anything fancy we wanted to do in that regard - I really want to provide Marathon-style text terminal functionality, for example.

One of the biggest reasons I'm leaning towards one base PK3 with multiple addon packs is that the submissions I've received so far are fairly different in terms of style, and I'd rather let them coexist and each be good options for users.

Art is not paletted. Nobody has pointed it out yet, but even if the art is all truecolor ZDoom still needs a palette to run. I would go with the (Free)Doom palette or a slight variation of it.

Yes, I copied Doom's palette lump into the PK3 as I'm pretty sure you can't copyright a series of 256 specific colors, but the engine doesn't really use it so SLADE's greyscale one should work fine too.

Doom's player is about 56 pixels tall, characters can be a wide range of sizes relative to that.

Ambiguous, get clarification on that.

I just meant that creatures can vary in size depending on whether they're big baddies or small ones, and that Doomguy's height fluctuates somewhere around 56 pixels depending on specific animation frame. Let's definitely use that as a base player scale though.

[XCVG]

Ideally, the basic pack should be sufficient to build a game, and supplementary packs should be consistent enough to mix and match. If they can't be used together without making a Frankenstein of a game then they are next to useless.

Do you intend to divide packs based on theme?

Doom's player is about 56 pixels tall, characters can be a wide range of sizes relative to that.

Ambiguous, get clarification on that.

I just meant that creatures can vary in size depending on whether they're big baddies or small ones, and that Doomguy's height fluctuates somewhere around 56 pixels depending on specific animation frame. Let's definitely use that as a base player scale though.

You'll want to raise the eye height of the player, though. By default, Doomguy's viewpoint is in his chest, not his head. Moving it will alter the appearance of maps somewhat but if you're dealing with RPG-type NPC interactions it's nice to be roughly eye-to-eye.

For reference, this is what I use for Ascension Revolution:

Code: Select all

  Player.ViewHeight 49
  Player.AttackZOffset 17

It's very close to, if not the same as, WWHC-Diaz.

This is closer to reality, but I found it threw the aim point off a lot. Maybe someone can tweak it.

Code: Select all

  //Player.ViewHeight 52
  //Player.AttackZOffset 24

I think Enjay came up with that combination, but I'm not sure.

[darkhaven3]

Waiting on inline assembly support in ACC before I contribute anything meaningful codewise, but I am interested and want to contribute

[.+:icytux:+.]

https://db.tt/7CwArYeg

I'm up for doing original sound design and music! Above is just a quick example of a few monster sounds.

I can do both midi compositions and .ogg with live instruments but i'll wait a while to see what kind of style this whole thing is going for before i can get the right mood for the tracks!

[darkhaven3]

On that subject I can also do music, I'd be glad to contribute that any time.

[XCVG]

On a less critical note, I mocked up all the medkits posted in this thread so far with the green cross.



I also tried my hand at keycards. I think these turned out pretty well. Leftmost is before any coloring, the next four are recolored. They're not as bright as the original Doom ones but it's fairly easy to adjust.



I might do ammo magazines or more keys for another theme. I'm finding these little items are within my ability. Just don't ask me to do monsters.

[Ed_C]

XCVG: Those are pretty nice! I'll try my hand at some lamps / tech objects in the same vein. As far as the textures I've submitted, I'll scale them down to standard and palatalize to format. I think they will convert well.

Edit:

[JPL]

Update: I'm not dead, just busy with life and other stuff. I'll update the project's page soon with recent submissions and more info. I think getting everything needed will be a slow burn... thanks so much so far for the feedback and work!

[Amuscaria]

Just sent the DE weapons sprites via e-mail.