[Release] Gene-Tech: Before the Storm

[Zanieon]

Really? More of this? Have you considered he may have bills, food or donations to use his money on instead, or would you prefer he pirate it?

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I despise when someone gets pointed out for not having played, watched something etc.

Me either, and yeah, i thought in that even when i was going post that, but i did anyway cuz i'm very impressed that he don't played Quake for this so long, well..., any of the 5.


btw

Also, I noticed that for the final boss' BFG attack, his entire texture changes to have a glow-like appearance... care to share your MODELDEF trickery? I'm pretty sure GZDoom doesn't allow an easy way to switch out model textures on the fly...

That is kinda easy, you just set a new Model Definition just for that sprites of that attack using other textures than the regular in the model, remember, a single actor can have more than one definition on modeldef, and Enjay used this to reach that effect.

[Nash]

So basically something like this right?

Code: Select all

Model GlowingMonster
{
    Path "models\monsters"
    
    Model 0 "monstr.md3" // use embedded skin path
    
    Model 1 "monstr.md3"
    Skin 1 "glow.png"
    
    FrameIndex 0000 A 0 0 // normal texture
    
    FrameIndex 0000 B 1 0 // glowing texture
}
 

Seems easy for a model with only 1 mesh group, but for models with multiple groups (that require you to leave out the "skin" property altogether) it's probably a little more complicated...

Also, doing it this way... wouldn't it allocate the model into memory twice? So you're basically wasting resources loading the mesh twice just for the texture variation.

GZDoom really needs more advanced model manipulation features... :(

[Enjay]

No, it's a totally separate model definition for those frames, not an additional model added within a definition. I'm not sure how that would be done for a multiple skinned and grouped model. All the models that I used are single skin ones allocated using modeldef.

As for the invis powerup, I can't check it ATM. However, I didn't see anything that I would describe as "screwed up" but the rendering is a little odd versus how sprites work with an invis powerup. I'm not sure that there is much I can do about that. I just assumed that's how GZDoom handles the powerup translucency with models. Perhaps it looks different on your system to mine? Anyway, I'll take a look when I get home.

[Zanieon]

So basically something like this right?

Code: Select all

Model GlowingMonster
{
    Path "models\monsters"
    
    Model 0 "monstr.md3" // use embedded skin path
    
    Model 1 "monstr.md3"
    Skin 1 "glow.png"
    
    FrameIndex 0000 A 0 0 // normal texture
    
    FrameIndex 0000 B 1 0 // glowing texture
}

Seems easy for a model with only 1 mesh group, but for models with multiple groups (that require you to leave out the "skin" property altogether) it's probably a little more complicated...

Also, doing it this way... wouldn't it allocate the model into memory twice? So you're basically wasting resources loading the mesh twice just for the texture variation.

GZDoom really needs more advanced model manipulation features...

Almost like this, but as Enjay said is a entire block specifically for that frame set.

Something like...

Code: Select all

Model GlowingLostSoul //Normal Skin here
{ 
   Path "MD3/LOSTSOUL"
   SKIN 0 "LSTexture.png"
   MODEL 0 "LSidle.md3"
   
   //All non-glowing frames here
   FrameIndex SKUL A 0 0
}

Model GlowingLostSoul //Glowing Skin here
{ 
   Path "MD3/LOSTSOUL"
   SKIN 0 "LSTexture_G.png" //change to a skin with brightmaps
   MODEL 0 "LSidle.md3"
   
   //All glowing frames here
   FrameIndex SKUG A 0 0
}
 

Well, at least i handle glowing frames for models as this way, prolly Enjay did the same.
In this way, isn't so hard to manipulate multiple model definitions as you mentioned.

[Enjay]

Yes, that's how I did it. However, I think Nash is missing out the skin property and relying on the .C file to allocate different graphics/skins to different groups in the model (something I haven't messed around with). I don't know what, if any, facility exists to allow changing skin graphics for different frames with that kind of setup.

As for the invisibility powerup, here's how it looks for me.

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Like I said, perhaps a bit odd, but not entirely an unexpected appearance. I didn't try other invisibility modes and, to be fair, there isn't an invisibility powerup in the main map to my memory anyway.



Thanks to the various people who responded on the plot/Quake 2 thing. I'm surprised that knowledge of Quake 2 is relatively cursory but it's no big deal. It seems as if what I included at least gets across some flavour of what is meant to be going on, so that's fine. Personally, I always quite liked Quake 2 and it was also the first game I played after getting a 3D accelerated graphics card - which totally blew me away. I always preferred it to Quake (first game) which, to me, was a less imaginative rehash of Doom with horribly blocky, indistinct models and far too much brown. At least Quake 2 was a whole new scenario and plot type. Not being much of an online gamer, I didn't do much with ET:QW. I thought that, despite its faults, relatively tedious sections and wasted opportunities (I thought the results of Stroggification on the player could have been made much more of), Quake 4 was a vastly better game than Doom3 and a reasonable continuation of the Quake 2 plot.

[Average]

Maybe I'm strange but the vibe I picked up from the WAD (though, admittedly, I've only played a little) was Blake Stone. Nobody else get that?

[Enjay]

That wasn't intentional but, thinking about it, a lot of the colours I used have a similar feel to the colours in Blake Stone and I can see how the Gene-Tech enemies (and even the story to a certain extent) could give off that vibe.

Kinda wish I'd done that now actually.

[Nash]

As for the invisibility powerup, here's how it looks for me.

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Like I said, perhaps a bit odd, but not entirely an unexpected appearance. I didn't try other invisibility modes and, to be fair, there isn't an invisibility powerup in the main map to my memory anyway.

Whoa... it looks nothing like that for me.




(In the second shot, the polygons seem to be drawn in reverse order... the gun model is bleeding through the player, when it shouldn't be visible in normal circumstances because it is obscured by the player's body)

Running GZDoom 2.0.3 official with -noautoload so I have no idea why this happens to me. Going to post a bug report on DRDTeam.

[Tormentor667]

OMG! AN ENJAY RELEASE!

You know that the wad is good when even Tormentor comes from the shadows to comment.

I'm still lurking around here, don't worry. Not posting doesn't mean that I don't read things

[Enjay]

pictures

OK, yeah, that's different. I have tried the other translucency modes and I don't get that, but I can get something close. "Fuzz" and "Shadow" look much like the images I already posted but "translucent looks like your shot except that I actually have translucency.

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It's worth pointing out that some of the horribleness will be due to the terrible skins on the Quake 2 models. Many of the faces that are normally out of sight are just filled in with garish blocks of colour rather than being nicely skinned. I guess that the invis powerup allows you to see through the model and exposes these awful-looking surfaces. IIRC, GZDoom culls the back faces when a model is translucent so perhaps that's another part of what's going on?

[Zanieon]

I'm still lurking around here, don't worry. Not posting doesn't mean that I don't read things

I know that, that "shadows" i was exactly refering to you just navigating around the topics just seeing what's going on and when something really takes your attention, you comment.

[Player701]

This is a very interesting and great-looking map. "Hard" difficulty is hard, by the way - there were a few moments where I kept running out of ammo, and sometimes almost out of health. Didn't try "Too Hard?" though. Anyway, this map made me start replaying Quake 2 and its mission packs - I hope I'll finally complete the Ground Zero MP which I was playing a year ago or so but never completed.

The only bug I was able to find is in this area:

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This is somewhere after you open the yellow doors. You can easily squeeze between the middle two... things (I don't know what are they called - do they even have a name?) by jumping there - but if you do, you will become trapped and you won't be able to leave the corner.

[Enjay]

Oooh, good catch. Thank you. I'll address that. I call them things "strut pumps". I'm not sure why. The original model that I used as a base came from Jedi Academy so maybe that's what they were called in that game.

[edit] On the difficulty thing, I know there is a tendency among many Doom players to dive in to "Ultra Violence" mode because that's what they always play (regardless of whether the map has bee set up for present day players or not (not saying you did that BTW)). That's one of the reasons for me renaming the modes. If hard is indeed hard, then it's about right I guess. [/edit]

[PFL]

This is a fine gem, Enjay.

[wolf00]

this is a very nice mod[but on pc it is a untstable mostly] GZDoom g2.1.pre-61 mostly ctd ...