ZScript Discussion

[Major Cooke]

Do weapons and/or custominventory have their own internal Tick function when being used on the player?

I know for weapons, it's basically overlays in a nutshell that can act just like Tick.

[Graf Zahl]

They have a Tick function but you shouldn't use it.
The correct place to let an item do an effect on the player is the DoEffect method.

[Major Cooke]

Is Vec3Angle a relative version of Vec3Offset? I.e.

Vec3Offset is like A_Warp with WARPF_ABSOLUTEANGLE, and the absolute boolean is equivalent to adding WARPF_ABSOLUTEPOSITION.

Vec3Angle is like A_Warp without those flags (moves the actor relatively forward with x, sideways with y), though the boolean would be like adding WARPF_ABSOLUTEANGLE.

Is this correct?

[Graf Zahl]

No. Vec3Angle calculates a position by adding a directional vector calculated from a given angle and a distance.

[Major Cooke]

If I have an array of colors like this:

Code: Select all

static const Color PrimaryColor[] =
{
	"Red",
	"AELimeGreen",
	"AEDarkRed",
	"AEGreenYellow",
	"AEPoo",
	"AEPutridGreen",
	"Black",
	"Blue",
	"Brown",
	"DarkGreen",
	"DimGray",
	"Gold",	//11
	"Green",
	"Grey",
	"LightSlateGray",
	"Purple",
	"Seashell2",
	"Snow3",
	"White",
	"Yellow" // 19
};

Do I need to do any sort of casting in order to pass them around from one actor to another?

[Graf Zahl]

The static array contains colors, not strings. The initialization and conversion will occur at compile time.
Just: Where are AELimeGreen etx defined? Are you including a replacement for x11r6rgb.txt?

[Major Cooke]

Yes. Inside the X11R6RGB file.

Code: Select all

  0 175   0		AELimeGreen
 67   0   0		AEDarkRed
222 254 114		AEGreenYellow
135 087 051		AEPoo
 67 147  55		AEPutridGreen
 
  0  88   0		AELimeGreenD2
 34   0   0		AEDarkRedD2
111 127  57		AEGreenYellowD2
 68  44  26		AEPooD2
 17  74  28		AEPutridGreenD2
  0  50   0		AEDarkGreenD2
 50   0   0		AEDarkRedD2
 53  53  53		AEDimGreyD2
128 108   0 	AEGoldD2
 87 128  24		AEGreenYellowD2
119 115 111		AESeaShell2D2
255 255   0		AEYellowD2

[Ed the Bat]

Had a quick question that I forgot to ask weeks ago. For the heck of it, I was converting some DECORATE in an old project (not one of mine -- NeoDoom Gold and Final NeoDoom, to be specific) to ZScript as a learning exercise, and an actor used the Teleport thing special. ZScript doesn't like this, as it has its own Teleport function with completely different parameters. Is there a simple way to convert that old DECORATE actor, or it is something that should just be redone from scratch? I always felt using the thing special was kinda hacky, anyway.

[Graf Zahl]

Damnit, another one I did not catch. Best wait with this, I'll have to rename the internal function then.

In general, if something clashes with an action special name, report as a bug, that isn't supposed to happen.

[Ed the Bat]

I'll keep that in mind from now on. Thanks. And for the record, leaving it in DECORATE still works, so the official versions of those projects still operate as well as they ever did.

[Graf Zahl]

Even weirder. It looks like the DECORATE code resolves the names differently then.

[Major Cooke]

Is Touch() supposed to rely upon PICKUP and SPECIAL flags, along with health > 0? Because that's what it's doing now, and I feel this can only be useful for items.

Code: Select all

//============================================================================
//
// AActor :: Touch
//
// Something just touched this actor. Normally used only for inventory items,
// but some Strife monsters also use it.
//
//============================================================================

But...

Code: Select all

// Check for special pickup
    if ((thing->flags & MF_SPECIAL) && (tm.thing->flags & MF_PICKUP)
        // [RH] The next condition is to compensate for the extra height
        // that gets added by P_CheckPosition() so that you cannot pick
        // up things that are above your true height.
        && thing->Z() < tm.thing->Top() - tm.thing->MaxStepHeight)
    { // Can be picked up by tmthing
        P_TouchSpecialThing(thing, tm.thing);    // can remove thing
    }

Elsewhere...

Code: Select all

void P_TouchSpecialThing (AActor *special, AActor *toucher)
{
    double delta = special->Z() - toucher->Z();

    // The pickup is at or above the toucher's feet OR
    // The pickup is below the toucher.
    if (delta > toucher->Height || delta < MIN(-32., -special->Height))
    { // out of reach
        return;
    }

    // Dead thing touching.
    // Can happen with a sliding player corpse.
    if (toucher->health <= 0)
        return;

    //Added by MC: Finished with this destination.
    if (toucher->player != NULL && toucher->player->Bot != NULL && special == toucher->player->Bot->dest)
    {
        toucher->player->Bot->prev = toucher->player->Bot->dest;
        toucher->player->Bot->dest = NULL;
    }
    special->CallTouch (toucher);
} 

[Graf Zahl]

Yes. And this cannot be changed because it'd break the entire system.

[Major Cooke]

Perhaps a different Touch then, like TouchActor that's called within PIT_CheckThing? But I suppose that too might not be doable when coming to performance.

[Graf Zahl]

No, that was precisely what I was trying to avoid with CanCollideWith.