Modern Practices and Clarifications?

[Daryn]

Hello!

 

Since the release of Dragon Sector, my friend and I had taken a break from doom mapping. Life changes, things happen, and sometimes you just have to step away for a bit.

 

Anyway, we both have the urge to get back into it and make something cool again. So I'm wondering if some of you guys could clarify some things. I'll go over what I know and the direction we're going so far, and hopefully, you guys can correct me if I'm headed down a dead end.

 

We decided to use GZDoom as the engine for this project instead of Risen3D. R3D was nice for what we wanted to do back then, but GZDoom ha caught up feature-wise and it's a more widely used port. We plan to only use high-resolution textures and GZDoom specific features.

 

The map format will be UDMF, as that seems to be the most feature-rich format.

 

I'm going to be diving into ACS scripting this time around, and we'll be trying to do some things like actor replacement and Dehacked parameters.

 

I'm using GZDoom Builder Bugfix, SLADE, and my various image and audio editing tools.

 

Do I add a working folder to GZDoom Builder and store all my textures/sprites/scripts there, or is it still necessary to stuff everything into a wad?

 

That's about it for now. Hope you folks can bring me up to speed.

[Empyre]

Since you are targeting GZDoom, you can use DECORATE instead of DEHACKED.  You can also make a PK3 instead of a wad, with folders inside to organize things.  If you target Zandronum instead of GZDoom, you can still do most of the same stuff, and you would gain a potentially larger audience with multiplayer.

[Kappes Buur]

While not specifically mentioned, are you going to use a custom IWAD?

If so, then https://zdoom.org/wiki/IWADINFO

 

And indeed, for large projects use the ipk3 format.

An interesting read

Another good read is Tormentor's efforts with his BoA.

You might want to also do a search for custom iwad

Edited January 23, 2019 by Kappes Buur

[Bauul]

Dragon Sector was amazing!  I look forward to seeing what you come up with next.

 

If you're working collaboratively with someone else, for a really streamlined work-flow process I would suggest setting up your work folder on a shared file system like DropBox.  If you use the desktop app, GZDB can read the folder as a live resource, and DropBox will keep it synced between everyone involved.  So for example if your friend creates a new texture and pops it into their Textures folder, you get to use it automatically within seconds.  If you change the behavior of a new monster in the Decorate file, it changes in his game too the next time he loads a new game, even if that's seconds later.  It hugely simplifies the process of version control.

 

As for the above issue with ACS, if you're writing scripts that aren't connected to individual maps you need to compile them manually.  GZDB comes bundled with the ACS compiler, but you need to tell SLADE where to find it in preferences.  It can be found in the Compilers/ZDoom sub folder of the GZDB installation folder.  Once Slade is set up, once you've written your script you need to right-click and hit "Compile" on it.  Compiled scripts need to go into a folder called "acs" in your root folder.  To then tell GZDoom to run the script you need a text file in your root folder called LOADACS, and write the name of the compiled ACS file in there (one line per file, no file extensions).  

 

Generally though, scripts that aren't connected to individual maps are pretty infrequently needed in my experience.  They're best used to controlling scripts that span multiple maps, or for linking to Things that aren't map specific.  

Edited January 23, 2019 by Bauul

[Daryn]

2 hours ago, Kappes Buur said:

While not specifically mentioned, are you going to use a custom IWAD?

If so, then https://zdoom.org/wiki/IWADINFO

 

And indeed, for large projects use the ipk3 format.

An interesting read

 

I've been going through that wiki page already and setting up my folder structure. I'm curious about workflow, though. Adding my project folder to GZDoom Builder's resources only seems to sort of work. I can bring textures in, but it doesn't see my test ACS scripts. GZDBBF can add a pk3 as a resource, but will it let me see and use the scripts? Am I going to have to make a new archive every time I want to add or edit  something?

 

I don't think we'll be doing a custom iWAD, honestly. We want to use a lot of the monsters because they're classic, but would like to add a few here and there as well, so likely just going to stick to a PWAD.

 

I'll say one thing, this is an adventure! I'm loving it, even though I keep running into these odd issues. Found a nasty bug in GZDoom builder that prevents me from loading or saving files. Tried to sign up to the ZDoom forums to report it but the security question foiled me.

[EarthQuake]

You can actually just use a directory during development and load the entire directory as if it were a .pk3. You can specify this in GZDB when configuring your wad resources and to load it with GZDoom, you can either use the test feature in GZDB or just drag-n-drop the entire folder onto GZDoom.

 

Dunno about the script thing though, I've never used ACS in UDMF before. I assume it just stores it inside the map wad?

Edited January 23, 2019 by EarthQuake

[Daryn]

I'm using the folder structure. I've set it up according to the wiki page. Seems to mostly work, apart from the scripts. GZDB sees my SNDINFO.txt, but doesn't see my ACS stuff. So I'm at a loss. The only way I can get it to work is to add them into the script editor, which then compiles them into a per-map scripts lump. 

 

[Empyre]

When making your global scripts in Slade, are you compiling them?

https://zdoom.org/wiki/ACS

https://zdoom.org/wiki/Libraries

I used a library of scripts in my Empyrion successfully.  Maybe you can look at that to see what I did differently from you.

 

[Daryn]

Thanks, @Bauul. I'm sure that @Barefootstallionwill appreciate seeing that. He did most of the work. I helped with some scripting and the audio. I can't take much credit for Dragon Sector, it was mostly his work.

 

Yeah, I'm compiling the scripts, I wasn't leaving the uncompiled version in the folder. So I'll need to start doing that, I think. I'll have to try that and see if it makes much of a difference.

 

I think we'll be sharing via dropbox. Seems like the easiest way of keeping a folder in sync.

[Barefootstallion]

14 hours ago, Bauul said:

Dragon Sector was amazing!  I look forward to seeing what you come up with next.

 

2

Hah!  Well, thank you very much, Bauul!  We received so little feedback on the release that we weren't sure hardly anyone even played it.  We received some, but it was from only a couple of people.  I am glad that there is someone else who enjoyed our work.

 

I was the designer for the maps in Dragon Sector.  I tried for a true Doom experience.  From what little feedback we got, I think I may have succeeded pretty well at it.  I am going to be going for the same thing in this new project.  I'm not entirely sure what motif I am going to shoot for yet, but I do have an inkling right now that it is going to be something similar.

 

If a bit more far-reaching.

 

We were very limited by what we could do with Risen3D.  Its developer, Graham Jackson, did a lot of additional work on the engine while we were working on Dragon Sector, but it still left me scratching my head in a lot of areas.

 

I am a designer.  I am not much of a technical person.  If something can be demonstrated to me, I can usually pick up on it pretty quickly.  But if I have to read a lot of technical jargon to try to learn something, then... well, let's just say that most of it tends to go right over my head.  Then add in that some of these guys who write this stuff, write their instructions like you know what you're doing already, then... ugh.  It can become quite frustrating for me.  I was forced mostly to stick with the basics with Risen3D, because of all of this.  There was a lot of complex stuff you had to do to get most things to work, which, likes or not, left me having to do a lot of workarounds to try for the effects I wanted.  Daryn was able to help a lot with all of this.  But what he wasn't able to do, left me banging my head in a lot of areas, for want of not being able to do what I wanted to do.

 

But then in comes GZDoom and GZDoomBuilder.

 

Within just the first week of starting, I've got slopes figured out.  I've learned how to do sliding doors (thanks bunches to Daryn for that one!).  And just today, I discovered how easy it was to work with dynamic lighting!  Right now, we're trying to figure out how to get custom textures working, so some help in that area would be hugely appreciated.  I design my own textures (pretty good with Photoshop here!) and I can't wait to get started using them.  But overall, so far, GZDoomBuilder has been a hugely positive experience.  Everything is laid out in little tic-boxes and selectables.  It is the easiest thing I have ever worked with.  And its power for a map developer like me is very obvious.  Just one week with it, and already I am sinking my teeth into it with gusto.

 

Either way, thanks again, Bauul.  It is feedback that we're doing this for.  We're doing it for just the enjoyment of doing it, of course, but when you get people saying how cool what you're doing is, well!  We hope to be able to blow people's hair back with more!

Edited January 24, 2019 by Barefootstallion

[Bauul]

9 hours ago, Barefootstallion said:

Hah!  Well, thank you very much, Bauul!  We received so little feedback on the release that we weren't sure hardly anyone even played it.  We received some, but it was from only a couple of people.  I am glad that there is someone else who enjoyed our work.

 

It was a fantastic mapset. That Map02 in the water treatment facility still gives me shivers, it was so atmospheric. I think to be honest the reach of the mapset was hindered by requiring Risen3D. For a variety of reasons it just isn't a particularly popular source port around here especially, so a lot of people wouldn't have tried it just for that reason. You're likely to get a lot more traction with GZDoom, which of the advanced source ports is arguably the most popular choice.

 

I'm happy to help with any technical questions, I'm currently working on this and am pretty familiar with GZDoom's more advanced features. I'll pop you a PM about Textures so as not to bung up this thread. 

 

But yeah, I'm really excited to see what you guys come up with next!

[Barefootstallion]

Well, thank you very much, Bauul. Map02 was always one of my favorites as well. It's just plain spooky, isn't it?

 

Either way, on my phone right now. I'll check my pms tonight and try to give a more proper reply here tonight, too.