The "How do I..." Thread

[Endless123]

Endless123.
I actually had the same exact problem with my helper marines that I made for my wad.
To be honest I don't know what I changed but sifted through some codes translated it over to mine and they stopped shooting the middle of the ground every time and started shooting verticle. I'll go through it and let you know. I'm not a doom wiz like gez or heracross but I've had this problem. Try switching them to bullets and see if it still does it. Also try changing out different tags and "face enemy" tags and stuff.
Now is this a weapon you are using or is it an enemy?

So far i tried the following projectiles

Plasma balls ==> which is having the behavior i mentioned
Rockets ==> same as plasma balls with the only difference it's doing it less often.
Bullets ==> haven't tried it yet

The weapons (Plasma Caster and Plasma Blaster) that are using that projectile are for the Predator(replacing the doomguy) so no enemies are using this one. However i'm thinking about adding rival Predators as mini-bosses after i solved a few issues with the weapons.

In case it could help to solve this issue, the problem is more important with the Plasma Blaster. Probably because it's a rapid fire weapon as oppose to the Plasma Caster that is a single shot with delay. The PC is having the same problem but it's occurring less often so obviously a rapid fire weapon makes the problem worse or it's just because it's firing more often that the problem is more evident and therefore more annoying.

I released my mod regardless of this problem but i'd like to solve this so this issue would be fixed for the next release.

Thanks for your help, i really appreciate it

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

Im trying to make a translation for the gothic99 but i very very bad at this

How i do to make the colour translation in white only in the gun?

You can't choose the section of the sprite to apply translation. Translation is only applied to colours.

You can take a look at the Doom palette numbers here. If you want, say, to replace all blues with green color, you'll need to specify it kinda like Translation "192:207=112:127", "240:246=9:12" (there are two translations applied because there are two ranges of blue in Doom, a lighter and a darker one).
If you want to recolor everything, you can try the simple way ("0:255 = your colors"), which will probably result in wrong gradients and contrasts, or the difficult one (replace every range, e.g. if you want to replace everything with green, you'll need "0:4=112:127","5:8=112:127","9:12=112:127","13:15=112:127" and so on, with every range).

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

A_SeekerMissile(0, 35, SMF_LOOK, 50, 10)

@ Jekyll Grim Payne : the first number i used for chance is 250 but it made things even worse. I changed it back to default to minimize the wrong behavior. i red the whole wiki before trying it.

Well, man, I just compiled a test wad with this simple code and it works fine. The projectile homes in on targets like a charm, you can try it yourself.

Code: Select all

Actor SeekerPlasmaball : Plasmaball replaces Plasmaball
{
speed 10
damage 20
+SEEKERMISSILE
states
	{
	Spawn:
		PLSS AB 2 bright A_SeekerMissile(20,15,SMF_LOOK, 256,10)
		loop
	}
}

Using SMF_PRECISE gives better behaviour, imo, so I recommend this. The ball still hits walls when turning round corners sometimes, if the corner is sharp enough, maybe playing around with maxturnangle may help (I don't recommend making it too high though), but I think it's normal.

Anyway, I haven't come across any problems you described, so check this code, and if it works fine, apparently there's some modded content in your mod which results in wrong monster behavior, not projectile's (prevents them from being properly recognized as dead).

[Endless123]

Odd because i don't have anything that change something about any monsters in my mod. Not even a gore thing like in Brutal Doom.

Thanks for the tip about using SMF_PRECISE instead of SMF_LOOK, it seems to work fine now. I won't say everything is solved because i still have to test it even further to be sure but the first test i did with it seems to indicate the problem is solved. Just for fun i'll try it with extreme settings (A_SeekerMissile(300, 300, SMF_PRECISE, 256, 10)) to see if it still works fine. I know those settings aren't recommended but i like extreme things and the Predator is kinda extreme himself isn't he

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

Odd because i don't have anything that change something about any monsters in my mod. Not even a gore thing like in Brutal Doom.

Thanks for the tip about using SMF_PRECISE instead of SMF_LOOK, it seems to work fine now. I won't say everything is solved because i still have to test it even further to be sure but the first test i did with it seems to indicate the problem is solved. Just for fun i'll try it with extreme settings (A_SeekerMissile(300, 300, SMF_PRECISE, 256, 10)) to see if it still works fine. I know those settings aren't recommended but i like extreme things and the Predator is kinda extreme himself isn't he

Consider the length of the frame too, i.e. how often the function is called. Maybe something is wrong there. Try to slow it down or speed it up.
Also I think you should be careful with the first arguments. After all, the first one dictates in what angle the missile homes in on the target when firing, so I think when the number is too high it can actually hit the shooter.
And it seems to me that maxturnangle of about 40-60 gives a rather smooth behaviour.

[Endless123]

Well the problem is solved

I set it at A_SeekerMissile(30, 50, SMF_PRECISE, 256, 10) and it's working perfectly now. Thanks to you the problem is solved and won't be present in my next mod update

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

Well the problem is solved

I set it at A_SeekerMissile(30, 50, SMF_PRECISE, 256, 10) and it's working perfectly now. Thanks to you the problem is solved and won't be present in my next mod update

I'm glad I could help.



Now, my own issues: does anyone know if it's possible to make monsters see player through portals? I'm talking about Sector_SetPortal. While I was able to achieve great illusion of seamless sectors which are actually connected via Sector_SetPortal and silent teleport lines, it still seems weird when a monster stops attacking the player and leaves (unless it also crosses the teleport line which is only possible if the monster was walking close behind).
I don't want to use Teleport In Sector, because it'd make things much more complicated (except monsters I have lots of other objects in the area which I don't want to be teleported, e.g. wall torches with dynamic lights, because dynamic lights tend to lose attachement to the actor when teleported, and so on).

[UnknownMaster21]

Code: Select all

actor ImpSpawner : RandomSpawner replaces DoomImp
{
	DropItem "DoomImp" 		256 8
}

That's a problem. If it spawns a DoomImp, the spawned DoomImp will be replaced by an ImpSpawner, so it'll spawn an ImpSpawner instead. Since you have some other choices as well, it should eventually spawn one of them, but if the RNG gods are fickle and it chooses DoomImp every time, you'll end up with an [wiki]error marker[/wiki] instead (after 32 recursions IIRC).

Heh, guess what, I removed it, but same error continues. It must be actor Impspawner is broken. Am I right?

(gosh how it felt that an easy problems changed to bigger one)


EDIT: Yup, every other spawner works as should do, except ImpSpawner. There is no conclusions either what would have gone wrong? corrupted? or?
EDIT2: or is it possible a any new monster which is added to .pk3 file as .wad file would cause a problem with it? GZDoom doesn't say an error of this nor ZDoon

What would cause it? Does anyone else came this problem? all the other spawners works what I create, except one which should definetily work.

I tried to have a "ready" - option use scalliano's 667 Shuffle! .pk3, there opening _mwr.wad and putting all the stuff similarly as mentioned. Guess what. Same problem! It doesn't give any error, it just won't randomize the imp class. It must be causing some other .wad files which comes from monsters? Do I need to change the random spawner coding or what is the problem?


Yes, I can put newimp spawners inside to zombieman and shotgunguy etc. etc., but that won't do a same. If someone have experience about this please tell me

[Blue Shadow]

What would cause it? Does anyone else came this problem? all the other spawners works what I create, except one which should definetily work.

I think uploading the WAD/PK3 so someone could check it would be a good idea at this point.

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

What would cause it? Does anyone else came this problem? all the other spawners works what I create, except one which should definetily work.

Sorry if it's been mentioned, but did you try not using inhertiance? I mean, just copying the whole of that RandomSpawner code and replacing manually the things you want different for this specific spawner?

[Endless123]

It's me again.

I wonder how i could do the following with SBARINFO

Displaying a red bar when health is between 1 to 100
"" "" "" a green bar when health is between 101-200
"" "" "" a blue bar when health is over 200

i tried it using the following

---

alpha 0.7
DrawBar "LifeF", "LifeB", Health(100), vertical, interpolate(3), 10, 100;
alpha 0.7
DrawBar "LifeFO1", "LifeF", Health(200), vertical, interpolate(3), 10, 100;
alpha 0.7
DrawBar "LifeFO2", "LifeFO1", Health(300), vertical, interpolate(3), 10, 100;

I also tried it with "InInventory" using dummy items but still not working

But the problem with this coding is all 3 bars are displaying at once. Unfortunately the SBARINFO and the Drawbar wikis aren't really helping to indicate what could be done to make it works.

So any suggestions about how to make it works or a mod suggestion i should look at to see how it's done?

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

It's me again.

I wonder how i could do the following with SBARINFO

Displaying a red bar when health is between 1 to 100
"" "" "" a green bar when health is between 101-200
"" "" "" a blue bar when health is over 200

I don't think it's possible. From the DrawBar page I don't see any way to make the bar suddenly stop being drawn at some point. As long as the code is there the bar is there. The max health property is specified simply to define the amount of health at which the gem will be at its final position, but as far as I can see it's not possible to turn off the bar completely. You should probably think about a scripted hud.

[Blue Shadow]

I wonder how i could do the following with SBARINFO

Do you want them to change color like this? (See here for a demo)

---

or to be on top of each other (overlayed) like this (notice the blue bar overlaying the green bar when over 100)? (See here for a demo)

---

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

Do you want them to change color like this?

Boy, was I wrong. It actually looks really cool.




Unfortunately, nobody answered by question about voxels. Is there a limit to the number of voxels present on a map? Or maybe to the number of overlaying voxels (when they're used on nonsolid actors)? Or maybe on the number of how fast voxels can spawn? My map crashes after some (quite a lot of) voxel blood pools are spawned by enemies. Nothing really special about them; here's a screenshot and a small demo wad which has a zombieman with replaced blood and gibbing animation (Google drive): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxsbTP ... sp=sharing

Gibbing always crashes the game, while just shooting will do it eventually (when lots of blood is spawned).


Also, probably a stupid question, but maybe there's some kind of tool for simplified conversion from MD2/MD3 to voxels?

[UnknownMaster21]

What would cause it? Does anyone else came this problem? all the other spawners works what I create, except one which should definetily work.

Sorry if it's been mentioned, but did you try not using inhertiance? I mean, just copying the whole of that RandomSpawner code and replacing manually the things you want different for this specific spawner?

Yes and no, I actually tried both, I am positive it's somewhat up on the code causes "invisible" error about .wads

What would cause it? Does anyone else came this problem? all the other spawners works what I create, except one which should definetily work.

I think uploading the WAD/PK3 so someone could check it would be a good idea at this point.

Would not make it any difference, if it doesn't work, I start from the scratch and I make completely own randomspawning system ( ofc, using the same coding method). I just wanted to know if someone have experience about it, but I have started to understand as well that every randomspawner what people makes are each one completely different