Can GZDoom UDMF maps be compatible with Eternity Engine?

[Lippeth]

I apologize for the silly question if these formats are obviously not designed to be compatible with each other, but I was curious and after finding nothing on wikis or other threads (or not looking properly because I'm asking the wrong questions) I decided to ignorantly experiment and replace the namespace from "zdoom" to "Eternity" in the TEXTMAP lump and it did play, just without Doom 2's textures until they were defined in the wad itself, no 3D floors, and unintended colors for png images, but scripts ran fine and most important aspects seemed to be in tact overall. So I added the texture definitions to the wad, converted pngs to Doom format, and it does all work except for 3D floors, texture offsets beingwrong in places, and any animated textures like switches aren't displayed.

 

So my questions are: Can a GZDoom UDMF map be even partially converted (aside from 3D floors and whatnot which can be redesigned) to be played properly in Eternity? And if not, would making a UDMF map for Eternity be easier to ensure compatibility if running on GZDoom? Or, is there a format (other than Doom format) that can run without a hitch on any engine that supports UDMF?

 

If making a new map I would just assume use Doom format, but I wanted to release some older maps in UDMF and like the idea of maximum compatibility. Even though I've been "mapping" for years I'm very much ignorant on many concepts.

Edited March 25, 2021 by Lippeth

[Mordeth]

1 hour ago, Lippeth said:

Can a GZDoom UDMF map be even partially converted (aside from 3D floors and whatnot which can be redesigned) to be played properly in Eternity?

 

UDMF is 'just' a type of format for your map layout. So it defines a wall, an action, tag, etc. It provides more flexibility than the standard vanilla doom or hexen formats, so that ports that have new advanced features don't have to rely on editor workarounds to define those features in maps. It's a shared format, so editors in the DoomBuilder family and several ports understand and can work with this format. But GZDoom features and Eternity features are not the same. While the format is the same, GZDoom doesn't understand EE unique features and vice versa.

 

If you stick to the common features (eg, all of Doom2 or most of Boom) than yes, a UDMF map can be played by both ports. But something like 3D Floors are a GZDoom feature that simply does not exists in EE, which has Edge Portals instead.  Both ports share ACS scripting, but EE only supports a subset of all available functions when compared to GZDoom. So a script might work in both ports if you only stick to the commonly supported functions.

 

Any sufficiently advanced GZDoom map cannot be made to play in EE and vice versa, unless you (manually) convert the map and find alternatives for the unique features used. Mapsets can sometimes use functionality from both ports, eg an mapinfo lump for GZDoom to define an episode; and its equavalent emapinfo for Eternity.

[Gez]

There was an attempt at defining a common standard a few years ago, but like a lot of things of this kind, it died in gestation.

[boris]

3 minutes ago, Gez said:

There was an attempt at defining a common standard a few years ago, but like a lot of things of this kind, it died in gestation.

 

Well, isn't the lowest common denominator the "Doom", "Heretic", "Hexen", and "Strife" namespaces? Maps in those namespaces should run the same in all ports that support UDMF (assuming they support the respective game).

 

So in theory staying within the feature set of the base UDMF 1.1 specs should make maps run the same in both GZDoom and EE. Not sure if maps like that exist, though.

[Lippeth]

Thanks for the vital information, looking forward it sounds like fun to make more advanced maps and know they can be completely compatible with different engines if I'm thoughtful about it. And in the case of these maps that have already gone too far in one direction, at least I can feel comfortable adding more engine-specific features and just go whole hog with it.

 

2 hours ago, Gez said:

There was an attempt at defining a common standard a few years ago, but like a lot of things of this kind, it died in gestation.

Probably for the best, I imagine that no single engine could've been developed as freely with extra limitations for compatibility.

[Gez]

1 hour ago, Lippeth said:

Probably for the best, I imagine that no single engine could've been developed as freely with extra limitations for compatibility.

The idea was to identify which extra features were common and already supported in Eternity, GZDoom, and I think perhaps also EDGE, and define a namespace for that. So it'd be only a subset of the features offered by any of the ports' own special namespaces.

[Lippeth]

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I think I did read a thread from the past about that when looking for info on namespaces, I'll have to go back and find it again.

[boris]

54 minutes ago, Lippeth said:

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I think I did read a thread from the past about that when looking for info on namespaces, I'll have to go back and find it again.

 

Base UDMF 1.1 specs: https://github.com/rheit/zdoom/blob/master/specs/udmf.txt - it's basically all Hexen features with some Strife sprinkled on top

(G)ZDoom extensions: https://github.com/coelckers/gzdoom/blob/master/specs/udmf_zdoom.txt

Eternity Engine extensions: https://eternity.youfailit.net/wiki/UDMF

[Lippeth]

Excellent, thanks so much boris!