Smooth Weapons Enhanced [v3.2.1]

[Nash]

Hey NightFright, thanks for putting this mod out. Appreciate the effort in maintaining this after all these years.

Quick question, I've converted the entire mod to ZScript, just for personal use (plus I was bored, heh), which brings benefits including:

1) No custom player classes - glove sprite swapping and fast (de)select is handled on-the-fly. Can be toggled in the Options
2) No duplicate states because of above
3) No inventory markers, because ZScript lets you use variables directly

[EDIT]

This is nice, but the only minor thing that bugs me is the right handed pistol. I'm too used to left handed pistol personally.

This can be done easily with ZScript too, without new sprites required, I'm going to go ahead and add this!

[/EDIT]

I was wondering if you've any interest in adopting my conversion, or if I should post it in separate thread?

[NightFright]

I won't be having PC access before end of July again, so if you have a working version of this already, feel free to post your adjusted version here. Getting rid of the classes sounds nice, even though I wonder whether there is much need for an on-the-fly switch after deciding for a version, unless maybe you realize later you don't like it after all and would like to switch back without having to restart the game.

An effortless mirroring of the pistol seems nice too - however keep in mind it's just the hands that should get mirrored, not the pistol itself (light on the barrel needs to come from the left side). Afaik the brown gloves version may simply use vanilla frames if you use original hand, however properly centered due to the spritefix problem. This should be kept.

If you pull all this off, I'll take a look at it after my return and may adapt it as an official update with proper crediting. Thanks in advance for your contribution. I know almost nothing about ZScript, but I was already struggling with getting the Decorate code right. At least I learned a lot during the process. Especially the chainsaw was a bit tricky due to its select and idle sounds which didn't work properly in my customized states at first.

[Nash]

Just so I understand correctly; the fast player classes increases weapon switch speed, AND also firing speed (specifically, skipping the first state) for the pistol and shotguns, right?

[NightFright]

It's just weapon switching speed that's different. The firing code is the same for all cases. That's why the option is called "Fast Weapon Switch". I didn't have more screen space available in the class selection menu to explain better.

[Nash]

Oh... then what are the fast ID checks for, in the firing states? It looks to me that it skips the first state, so that the code pointers that actually fire the gun happen sooner.

Sorry for the questions, I'm just trying to make sure I faithfully port your code. :)

[NightFright]

SmoothID is skipping the frames that are raising/lowering the weapons faster. The FastSmoothID I used in some cases to compensate for different amount of tics when using smooth weapons. I don't have the code in front of me right now, but for example the "slow" pistol has the first fire frame for 4 tics before anything happens. The fast one skips that, so I tried to get the tics back later on.

Technically fast weapons are not only raising/lowering faster, but in cases of pistol, shotgun and super shotgun also starting to fire faster (Nevander called this "responsiveness" in his mod). Other weapons like chaingun, rocket launcher, plasmagun or BFG don't have this because they either already fire right away or the delay is required to not break gameplay.

The chainsaw is a special case. The FastSmoothID check seems redundant, but for some reason it was needed to solve an issue with the raise sound. It's the only weapon with raise and idle sounds, so the code became a bit more complicated unfortunately.

[acridAxid]

I love this, but I don't understand why this needs to be exposed as player classes that have to be selected at each New Game rather than a set-and-forget pair of toggles added to the Settings menu.

[NightFright]

Short and simple answer: I didn't know how to do it in a different way. Decorate is my world, and even there I am rather a noob. For ZScript and its advanced capabilities there's gratefully people like Nash who can help out.

At least this release got things going.

[Nash]

I noticed that with vanilla (no mods loaded), the Doom pistol's repeat rate is faster than this mod's. I check between:

- vanilla
- smooth player
- fast player

And it's very noticable. Was this intentional?

[NightFright]

It was intended to be the same. I need to see the code again, but normally it should only skip the idle firing frames (Fast) or not (Smooth), firing itself isn't supposed to be changed.

[acridAxid]

Short and simple answer: I didn't know how to do it in a different way. Decorate is my world, and even there I am rather a noob. For ZScript and its advanced capabilities there's gratefully people like Nash who can help out.

At least this release got things going.

I apologize, I didn't mean to sound antagonistic; as a mod dabbler myself, I really appreciate the efforts improving one of my favorite simple mods from everyone involved.

[Nash]

It was intended to be the same. I need to see the code again, but normally it should only skip the idle firing frames (Fast) or not (Smooth), firing itself isn't supposed to be changed.

Alright. Because I am 100% certain that - with version 2.0 of your mod - the pistol shot speed is indeed slower than vanilla unmodded.

I am holding down the Fire button and just by listening to the interval between each gun sound, the refiring speed difference is quite obvious.

Both the smooth and fast variant exhibit this symptom.

Another thing that I notice with v2.0 of your mod is that with the pistol, holding down the fire button while watching AND listening to the gun sound, it seems that the animation is ever-so-slightly out of sync. I compared v2.0, to the last version of Nevander's personal mod (specifically, SmoothWeapons_BrownGloves.wad), and the animation + sound on Nevander's version is much more synchronized. This only seems to occur when holding down the fire button. It's not noticable with single burst shots.

(So much effort into one of the least-used weapons in Doom, eh?! XD)

Anyway, my ZScript conversion is pretty much ready by now, but I'm a little wary to release it currently until I figure out the problem with the Pistol. Any help from you (whenever you're able to - I understand your access is currently limited) would be much appreciated.

In the mean-time, anyone else who's playing v2.0 of NightFright's mod, if they can at least confirm what I'm experiencing with the Pistol here, that would be good too - at least I'd know that I'm not imagining things. :P

[NightFright]

I think the pistol is the only one where I was trying to deviate from Nevander's code adjustments since I wanted to skip the first 4 ticks of the firing animation. The rest should be fine if it was before. I still made small changes to the SSG and Plasmagun to fix the tic rate. Only an absolute expert can tell whether it's 100% vanilla, however.

As I mentioned before, I will not be able to work on the mod for the next few weeks until at least July 29. I would appreciate if you were able to delay any release from your side until then since I would like to fix the Decorate version first. Hopefully we will also know by then if all the other weapons are ok.

[Nash]

I would appreciate if you were able to delay any release from your side until then since I would like to fix the Decorate version first. Hopefully we will also know by then if all the other weapons are ok.

Yeah, let's do that. As I've said at the start of this page, my conversion was more driven by "heck I'm bored, let's see if I can convert this mod", so there is no immediate urgency to release anything. :P I would rather wait to make sure the DECORATE codebase is the best it could be.

Anyway, here's a video to show the progress. :) I didn't add the menu yet so currently everything is controlled by setting the CVars in the console. Also, the flipped pistol's offsets aren't perfect yet, will have to adjust that. Yeah, about the flipped pistol, since the shading of the barrel was important, it didn't end up being easy after all - new graphics had to be added. :P

[Armaetus]

Thank you Nash, this is just what I'm looking for! Been using an older version of the Smooth Anims with a separate left handed pistol sprite addon since, but now I won't need that once things are out to the public.