ZScript "Standard Library" - Brainstorming

[Graf Zahl]

We desperately need a portal-aware CheckSight.

CheckSight is portal aware. If you think it doesn't work right, make a demo map and file a bug report.

[dpJudas]

I might end up calling it Hamish's Open Example Scripts

[Rachael]

You dirty, dirty man.

[Major Cooke]

Since Handy Open Example Repository SYSTEM is what Xaser's sold on and ZBoost is taken, I think we can settle on it and get rolling. So Xaser, what's next?

[Gez]

I have no idea how and why exactly Scripts got replaced by an all-caps SYSTEM by the way. It's not something I consciously wanted to do.

[Xaser]

Do we need a bacronym for SYSTEM too, now?

@Major Cooke: I'll hit you up on Discord tonight-ish when I'm through being a real-life-human for the day; gears are turning, though.

[Gez]

Do we need a bacronym for SYSTEM too, now?

"So You Seek To Enhance Mods"

[Major Cooke]

@Major Cooke: I'll hit you up on Discord tonight-ish when I'm through being a real-life-human for the day; gears are turning, though.

Same. I'll be a few hours before I can get on.

[Major Cooke]

Time to get researching! The world is counting on you! You are our second most knowledgeable person on the subject!

Kidding, of course...

Except about that last part...

Hurrrr... Sad to say, the straightforward part fell into a river and swept up the butt stream of oblivion.

Menus are going to be a pain in the ass to figure out...

[Nash]

Going to town with the ZScriptified menu, man this is some powerful shit, it's fun even if the learning curve is damn high. It's really satisfying to see my custom made widgets come to life on the screen, though.

I plan to make some ready-to-use menu design templates. Gonna start simple and make menu layout imitations of some famous games...

[Gez]

So can you do stuff like ROTT's new game menu (random set of skill setting names, character portrait that changes depending on skill selected; etc.)? Is it possible to have a menu music that interrupts the normal music loop while the menu is on?

[Nash]

random set of skill setting names: Yes

character portrait that changes depending on skill selected: Yes

menu music that interrupts the normal music loop while the menu is on: Don't know, I haven't tried to change music through ZScript yet... but even if that's possible, I don't think you can continue the level's music from where it previously was before you opened the menu.

[Major Cooke]

It's not doable because Close() is not a virtual. It would've been possible otherwise with the following hack:

1. Set global freeze to true.
2. Open the menu, grab the global cvar for music.
3. Call S_Sound with the menu music.
4. On close, silence the sound, disable the global level freeze if it wasn't set before.

The problems with this:

1. Menu music not adjustable while playing.
2. Requires a custom keybind.
3. Not multiplayer compatible.

And those are some very good reasons not to do it too.

[Graf Zahl]

Close is not virtual to prevent it from blocking the close action. If you need to do something on menu close, override OnDestroy.

[Matt]

Just a little thing, but one that takes long enough to prepare that most people might not bother: a sine/cosine lookup table for every whole degree up to 360.

(I don't even know for sure if the VM is enough to counteract any performance increase, but given that the discussions I was reading about were talking about lookup tables many thousands of items in length I'm going to assume this will be faster.)

EDIT: Do not use this. It's actually several times slower than the native sine function, and the difference isn't even noticeable until you're getting into many thousands of these calculations per tic. Leaving it up for reference only.

[2020-10-24 deleted]