The Simple Questions Thread

[Accensus]

The point of this thread is for people to ask small questions that aren't important enough for their own thread, but good enough to be of value to know.

Same as the "How Do I..." thread except for questions not related to editing. I suppose this could be potentionally used for both ZDoom related questions and off-topic questions, though I'm not sure if there should be a thread in each forum. Probably not.

I'll start with this: If providing IWAD resources is deemed illegal, why do most Boom-compatible maps have all the sprites in them? Examples I could think of are Ancient Aliens and Sunlust.

[Rachael]

That's a simple question with a complicated answer. The real nitty gritty of it is - they're illegal, but nobody cares enough to make a stink of it.

A more complicated answer might be - Doom resources have been used, modified, reused, and reused again for so many years that it would be pointless to really do anything about it. Most of the time, the work done on them is enough to make them different enough from their originals that it makes copyright unenforceable anyway - and id (pre-Zenimax) has never had much of a history of cracking down on fans for misuse of their copyright.

That's why it's really up to us (the community) to enforce the no-piracy stuff for Doom and Doom 2 and other games - but as long as you make a significant deviation from the original resource, most people are cool with it and you'll be fine.

[Oberron]

Also, some of Doom's assets were used for the Jaguar version of Wolfenstein 3D (just the pistol viewsprite) and the Mac version (flamethrower hit/rocket launcher explosion).
Anyways...
Were some assets from Duke Nukem 3D used in other things? Yes, sound FX and sprites may count.

[Accensus]

Well then, regarding piracy, the IWADs are floating around in a specific website so they are technically free to download. I won't mention the site, but I'll say that from what I've heard it's somewhat trusthworthy. So at the end of the day, are the IWADs illegal to download without paying for them or not, considering the existence of the site?

EDIT: Another thing I've been meaning to ask for a long time is how come there haven't been any PRs for SBARINFO improvements? Is Blzut3 the only person who can read and understand the code or is it the lack of interest?

EDIT 2: There is one PR by BlueShadow, but that's about all I could find in Closed Feature Suggestions.

[Rachael]

At the end of the day, they're illegal, and I'd question the trustworthiness of said site if they aren't willing to take them down when you report them.

Doom is not abandonware, Zenimax still sells it as far as I know (just check GOG.com).

[InsanityBringer]

I'll start with this: If providing IWAD resources is deemed illegal, why do most Boom-compatible maps have all the sprites in them? Examples I could think of are Ancient Aliens and Sunlust.

I wouldn't say "most" if I'm honest. Sure, Sunlust, AA, and even BTSX do it, but this is because they all provide palettes which are not compatible with the basic Doom palette as they do a lot of shifting of palette ranges. The only other option would be to bundle a converter which automatically grabs the sprites from your IWAD, remaps them, and then repacks them into the new image. I do remember there was some discussion back during KDIZD's dev where it was apparently learned that you can use derivative resources in mods as long as they only work in the iwad they came from (which is why kdizd requires doom 1, has their own hellknight and chaingunner sprites/sounds, as well as some recreations of Doom 2 textures here and there).

There is a little discussion on having a remapping table so mods that modify the palette don't need to provide the sprites, but nothing's happened with it yet.

[Accensus]

Ah, I see now. That explains it. Thanks InsanityBringer. Also, thanks Eruanna for the info on the IWADs.

[Rachael]

EDIT: Another thing I've been meaning to ask for a long time is how come there haven't been any PRs for SBARINFO improvements? Is Blzut3 the only person who can read and understand the code or is it the lack of interest?

EDIT 2: There is one PR by BlueShadow, but that's about all I could find in Closed Feature Suggestions.

I have to actually use SBARINFO first before I can even consider looking at that code. I will not touch that code until I am at least familiar with how it works - and right now I am blissfully clueless about that.

So for me, it's a lack of interest issue. I just haven't had the time or the motivation to play with SBARINFO features in any of my mods, much less in the C++ code itself.

[Accensus]

I'm sure most people have asked themselves this question. What's Plunderbund? Something secret?

[Rachael]

I could answer that question, but I think it's best if Randi does, and the best thing to do is PM her and ask her about it. She manages it exclusively, and I really don't know what she wants posted in the public about it or not.

[Accensus]

Roger, roger. Will ask. Thanks.

[Accensus]

Is it just me or is the Automap smoother now? On my resolution (1366x768) everything seems so smooth and pleasing to the eye.

[Rachael]

It's been that way pretty much since the transition to Direct3D.

The automap now uses anti-aliasing to draw lines, which basically fakes a higher resolution by fading pixels by how much a vector or smaller pixel occupies one pixel space. If you didn't see it before, it may have been that your GPU didn't support it.

[Accensus]

Well I'm on a crappy Intel GPU with ZDoom on my laptop atm and running Nvidia GTX 970 on my rig with GZDoom. I haven't noticed any AA in GZDoom there. Maybe I haven't been paying attention. Will check when I get home.

[Rachael]

AFAIK GZDoom doesn't turn on AA in the automap like ZDoom does.