ZDoom

Information, Rules & Submission:
http://www.realm667.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=990

Ideas

• Underwater Bubbles
• Fire Torches
• Light Effects
• Spark Effects
• Fireworks
• Doom 3 Flowing Lost Souls
• Different Smoke / Fire
• New weather effects
• Water Foam for water/lava/nukage falls
• Rubble Spawner for exploding wall

Not that I have time right now to contribute anything, but if I did, here's a reason why I might not:

The rules wrote:No extra ACS allowed! Compiled global ACS could conflict with ACS in another person's mod.

What's the merit in this rule? You face the potential for exactly the same problem in DECORATE. All it would take is one conflicting actor name.

If the reason for this rule is to make it easier for you to compile a resource, then perhaps you should make contributors declare script numbers they use. Presumably you'll make them change any conflicting DECORATE actors. Surely asking the same for ACS scripts would not be out of line

If the reason is because you're trying to prevent conflict with potential users of the resource, i.e. WAD authors, then I find fault with that methodology. It is up to the WAD author to make sure that a mod is correctly integrated with their work, not the author of the mod. This would be folly.

If it's really a concern, you could ask that contributors use scripts in a relatively unused range, like 700 to 999. You could also restrict the use of variables to script level only, this way you don't even have to worry about variable names conflicting.

In my opinion this is an unnecessary restriction. ACS is a very powerful tool, and extremely useful in making dynamic special effects.

You might be interested in this, then.

A conversation from June?

If you ask me, ALL submissions should use the same script number - not only will this ensure that WAD authors take the time to make sure the effect of their choice works with their own project, it will also stop overenthusiastic rippers from just lumping everything together and releasing it.

solarsnowfall wrote:If the reason for this rule is to make it easier for you to compile a resource, then perhaps you should make contributors declare script numbers they use. Presumably you'll make them change any conflicting DECORATE actors. Surely asking the same for ACS scripts would not be out of line

We were going to change that as soon as we can finally work out the limits, so we don't end up with a monster MADE of ACS that a friend of mine has been threatening to make.

Out of curiosity, why would you need ACS for it, also? In the rules for the contest, specifically, I said ACS in the test map for activating the effect, but just the effect has to be in Decorate. I'm not trying to defeat your point, I'm just wondering.

Won't you want to avoid any bad or abusive submissions ACS or not? I guess I don't understand why ACS is treated as a special case. The reason given was that it could negatively affect other mods. Well so can DECORATE. The fact that one mod could affect other mods is not something mod developers should be losing sleep over.

Ghastly_dragon wrote:Out of curiosity, why would you need ACS for it, also?

Loosely speaking, anything that couldn't be done in DECORATE or that could be done better in ACS. Or, anything that I would like to have sophisticated control over independent of an actor's state loops. I like to take advantage of the trigonometric and positioning functions because it grants me a high degree of control over things int he 3d game-space. The whole purpose of ACS was to bring special effects into the old Doom engine.

I've got an old boss monster project that's been collecting dust, but I'm not certain it's something that would be of interest to this project. It uses a couple of maintenance scripts to perform special effects and complicated attacks.

solarsnowfall wrote:I've got an old boss monster project that's been collecting dust, but I'm not certain it's something that would be of interest to this project. It uses a couple of maintenance scripts to perform special effects and complicated attacks.

Considering this is a special effects contest, no it wouldn't. The ACS rule for monsters was already modified.

NeuralStunner wrote:Considering this is a special effects contest, no it wouldn't.

Then it seems to me that you've got a very limiting and silly concept of what special effects can be.

NeuralStunner wrote:The ACS rule for monsters was already modified.

From the two lists of rules I don't see one that pertains to both monsters and ACS use. Is it this rule?

* While as per the rules, the effects have to be coded in Decorate, alternate behavior in your effect that is activated through ACS, such as states used with SetActorState or dependance on Thing_Activate in encouraged, for customizability. If you include things like this, SHOW IT IN THE TEST MAP.

Because it's not at all clear that this rule would preclude the project I described. Regardless of what the rules say, I'm disputing them.

Hrm? I thought the ACS restriction was already relaxed. Why bring it back again?

Xaser wrote:Hrm? I thought the ACS restriction was already relaxed. Why bring it back again?

No, it wasn't. ACS still hasn't been allowed, but we're working on what should be allowed.

trying to make effects in DECORATE is so pathetically tedious sometimes, it is just simply more efficient and faster to use ACS. It really does help A LOT with controlling an object more soundly.

Apothem wrote:trying to make effects in DECORATE is so pathetically tedious sometimes, it is just simply more efficient and faster to use ACS. It really does help A LOT with controlling an object more soundly.

Rules wrote:While as per the rules, the effects have to be coded in Decorate, alternate behavior in your effect that is activated through ACS, such as states used with SetActorState or dependance on Thing_Activate in encouraged, for customizability. If you include things like this, SHOW IT IN THE TEST MAP.

Go for it then

We finally got around to finalizing the new ACS rules. Check the SFX submission rules for them. Also, the new judges are up on the thread on R667.

...and now get on your submissions

*BTW, any chance of getting this pinned?*