Scientist - Unity release

[CortexReaver]

Don't know if this is a right place to share my video footage, but here you go

 

 

 

The finale: https://youtu.be/Gp2HbYBXXlA

I like the mapping style so far. Also, where can I download the newer version again? I actually thought that it is still in development, and if this is already completed I'm all for it.

Edited September 13, 2023 by CortexReaver

[Blacklight]

So far, the new version is available only to owners of the Unity versions of "DOOM" and "DOOM II". Scientist promised to add a new version to idgames as well, but so far there are problems with loading WAD.

 

Therefore, we are waiting!

Edited August 19, 2023 by Blacklight

[MugMonster]

3 hours ago, CortexReaver said:

where can I download the newer version again? I actually thought that it is still in development, and if this is already completed I'm all for it.

 

if you have Doom on Steam or GOG, then you got the Unity port as a free update.  open the Unity version, go to the add-ons, click the 'available add-ons' tab on the left, then download and you'll have it available to select and play in that port. 

if you dont actually want to play it with Unity because you prefer GZDoom or some other port, then once you've downloaded it in Unity, locate C:\Users\(your name)\Saved Games\id Software on your hard drive, go to folder 19, then take the file that's just called 19 and rename it "19.wad" (or sci.wad or whatever, just put .wad on it).  then you can copy that file to your GZDoom folder and play it

[Blacklight]

Speaking of which! I'm wondering: "And how does Scientist run on the First DOOM? Shouldn't it only run on DOOM II? Or is it such a feature of the Unity port?"

 

When I found out about the launch of Official Addons on other Source ports, I became interested in launching other collections on the Unity port. What surprises me more is why Id Software can't immediately download Addons in WAD format? Because I saw how some of the Creators of WADs adapted their Projects to the Unity port and they worked fine. Moreover, I found that even "Vanilla" WADs can be run without problems. The only problem is that only "Vanilla" WADs are supported without User Content (Only Monsters, Guns and Textures. HUD's don't count). They will have to be adapted to the Unity port. If this is such a protection against piracy, then it works extremely poorly (And I also don't make sense to use the IWAD Unity port at all. The original IWAD can be found everywhere, and the Unity version is censored. Why couldn't the settings be adjusted to the region? With the restart of Wolfenstein, that's what they did).

Edited August 21, 2023 by Blacklight

[MugMonster]

the official add-ons are all converted to iwads, that's why they can be played in both Doom and Doom 2 (they're not exactly running on either, they have all the resources they need to run themselves)

the Unity port can only run vanilla wads because id Software has a strict licensing policy where they can only use content that the creators agree to in writing; by that I mean every single resource contained in the wads, not just the levels, but any custom textures, music, anything.  every single person involved in the creation of these resources has to be contacted and legally agree to have their content used in the official release.  a lot of older wads are made by people who no longer participate in the Doom community, and as such, no one has their current contact info.  more crucially though, some of them just arent alive anymore, so it will never be possible to contact them.  most notably, this includes Ty Halderman and Jim Flynn, both responsible for the Boom port.  this essentially means it will never be possible to add features more advanced than vanilla to the Unity port, because the people who created the source code can't sign off on it.

it doesn't really have anything to do with piracy, I'm not sure where you got that idea.  everyone knows Doom is easy to pirate, it was made long before DRM became a thing, so there's nothing protecting the iwads from simply being copied a billion times.  it's about id covering their legal bases.  the things they're allowed to do as a corporation selling a massive international product is different from things people can do as a free hobby. 

just as it is possible to take the Unity wads and run them in other ports, it is entirely possible to take existing wads and have them run through the Unity port, @Devalaous has a thread entirely devoted to this.  the port is designed so that you, the user, can do whatever you want with it in the comfort of your own home as long as it's a supported feature.  but, again, that doesn't mean id has the same freedom, they're bound by all sorts of regulations

[SiFi270]

It's here!

 

It doesn't include the widescreen graphics from the Unity version, so I made my own wad with those. I won't be sharing it though, because I imagine Devalaous will soon be releasing wads that offer that and so much more.

[Devalaous]

1 hour ago, SiFi270 said:

It's here!

 

It doesn't include the widescreen graphics from the Unity version, so I made my own wad with those. I won't be sharing it though, because I imagine Devalaous will soon be releasing wads that offer that and so much more.

 

Well now I HAVE to :(

 

Looking into the wad, it has some of the music, but not all, and it lacks a GAMEINFO and UMAPINFO, so I'll provide those, the missing tracks, and the widescreen pics, alongside the patches for sci.wad and sci2.wad. I see the DM levels are fully cut in this release and a lot of level names are different, neat

 

EDIT: Since I worded my joke poorly, I was actually *already making* a patch when I read SiFi's post :p

Edited August 25, 2023 by Devalaous

[Edward850]

On 8/22/2023 at 12:39 AM, MugMonster said:

the Unity port can only run vanilla wads because id Software has a strict licensing policy where they can only use content that the creators agree to in writing; by that I mean every single resource contained in the wads, not just the levels, but any custom textures, music, anything.  every single person involved in the creation of these resources has to be contacted and legally agree to have their content used in the official release.  a lot of older wads are made by people who no longer participate in the Doom community, and as such, no one has their current contact info.  more crucially though, some of them just arent alive anymore, so it will never be possible to contact them.  most notably, this includes Ty Halderman and Jim Flynn, both responsible for the Boom port.  this essentially means it will never be possible to add features more advanced than vanilla to the Unity port, because the people who created the source code can't sign off on it.

You've sort of mixed two explanations here. The strict licensing is why id Software only pick specific wads, they can only republish what they can get copyright clearance for. However why they pick vanilla wads is because that's all the port can actually run, anything like a Boom or ZDoom mapset requires Boom or ZDoom features, which vanilla Doom obviously can't run and they can't simply just import the code for from those respective ports due to GPL and doubly the GPLv3 Tivo clause preventing console distribution.

[Devalaous]

Is it just me or are the Ocean's Edge midis that remained, different to the Scientist 2 versions?

[MugMonster]

3 hours ago, Devalaous said:

 

Well now I HAVE to :(

 

Looking into the wad, it has some of the music, but not all, and it lacks a GAMEINFO and UMAPINFO, so I'll provide those, the missing tracks, and the widescreen pics, alongside the patches for sci.wad and sci2.wad. I see the DM levels are fully cut in this release and a lot of level names are different, neat

 

EDIT: Since I worded my joke poorly, I was actually *already making* a patch when I read SiFi's post :p

 

I mentioned this in the main thread for the Unity port, but the Unity version of Scientist lacks widescreen versions of the Help and Bossback images.  I'm sure you noticed that yourself, but I'm writing this more of the sake of anyone who doesn't know and could make those widescreen for your patch. 

also, sigh...
why does sci2023.wad look like This in Crispy Doom, but not the other ports I've tried (GZDoom, DSDA-Doom, Chocolate, and Sprinkled)... notably, Crispy and Sprinkled are both derived from Chocolate, so Crispy being the only one with issues is weird.  and the Unity version also looks fine in Crispy, it's just the new idgames version that's giving me issues

 

[t.v.]

The Bossback and Help screen are not visible in the Unity port. Regardless of the wad they are not used in this port at all. So there was no urgency to make widescreen versions. 

 

I never tried Crispy Doom myself. Judging from the screenshot the custom textures were not loaded. I have no idea why. There are numerous ports and all have their own quirks. And so does every wad.

 

Is it just me or are the Ocean's Edge midis that remained, different to the Scientist 2 versions? 

The MIDIs were not changed. In my experience, MIDIs can vary in sound depending on the port used.

 

But let's focus on all the things that work :-)

[Auron]

I've tried the wad in GZDoom 4.10.0 and found this particular issue: the rocket launcher fires the plasma guns sprite instead the rockets as show in the ss.

 

[Devalaous]

Here you go folks

 

Quality of life patch for the whole Scientist series. It adds GAMEINFO and UMAPINFO to all three (The game now ends at Map 11 in Scientist and at Map 20 in Scientist 2 and 2023, the first two also have episode selection), and in the first two, being killed by the scientist in GZDoom will now say as much. I did not touch the 2023 Dehacked as its more complex and I'd rather not breaking the new neat Scidemon. The widescreen graphics from the Unity version are present as a second wad, since Eternity does not support widescreen, and Scientist 2's full soundtrack has been restored in 2023

 

As for non-technical things, I found and downloaded Scientist 2 a few weeks before the 2023 version surprise-launched, and found it quite neat and very different, with an established antagonist and different themes than usual. I didn't even realise it was made by TV's brother until this release when the connection became obvious (That Scidemon is 100% recognisable as TV art :D) Its good stuff, and I'd definitely recommend giving the earlier version a try someday to  really appreciate the changes. The titular scientist himself has also changed in each iteration :p

 

4 hours ago, t.v. said:

The MIDIs were not changed. In my experience, MIDIs can vary in sound depending on the port used.

 

SLADE must have been bugging out, they played at different volumes and sounded slightly different, just wanted to know if 2023 had updated versions, as the Sci 2 soundtrack reuses them a bunch :p

 

56 minutes ago, Auron said:

I've tried the wad in GZDoom 4.10.0 and found this particular issue: the rocket launcher fires the plasma guns sprite instead the rockets as show in the ss.

 

Does not occur for me. Might be a GZDoom error itself, 4.10.0 had quite a few bugs that necessitated me moving on to a devbuild.

[MugMonster]

13 minutes ago, Devalaous said:

Does not occur for me. Might be a GZDoom error itself, 4.10.0 had quite a few bugs that necessitated me moving on to a devbuild.

 

how about the issues I'm having with Crispy?

[Devalaous]

1 minute ago, MugMonster said:

 

how about the issues I'm having with Crispy?

 

Confirmed, the textures do not load with Crispy, they do with Woof/DSDA/Eternity/GZDoom

[MugMonster]

(I also noticed the demos are desynced in Crispy, Choco, and DSDA, so presumably every port... but the demos don't personally matter to me, I just wanna know if the texturing issue with Crispy is something I can fix or an internal issue)

[plums]

Definitely a Crispy Doom issue, I've made an issue for it on GitHub. In the meantime you'll have to use another port if you want it to look like it should.

Edited August 25, 2023 by plums

[Auron]

2 hours ago, Devalaous said:

Does not occur for me. Might be a GZDoom error itself, 4.10.0 had quite a few bugs that necessitated me moving on to a devbuild.

 

Thank you so much for the patch. I'm using Woof! and so far no problems (at least I didn't noticed any lol).

[MugMonster]

49 minutes ago, plums said:

Definitely a Crispy Doom issue, I've made an issue for it on GitHub. In the meantime you'll have to use another port if you want it to look like it should.

 

thanks, I always feel like a noob when I try and make reports (tbf I sorta am)

[plums]

So the problem is Crispy Doom tripping over the slightly odd structure of the flat markers in the wad. They look like this:
 

F_START
F1_START
(various new flats)
F1_END
FF_START
(two more new flats)
FF_END
F_END

 

For some reason Crispy Doom hates that, but deleting FF_END makes everything work as it should. A fix in Crispy will probably happen soon but IDK when there will be a stable release. I'm happy to post an edited wad that works here but I don't want to so without the go-ahead from @t.v. or @Scientist

Edited August 26, 2023 by plums

[t.v.]

*

Quote

That Scidemon is 100% recognisable as TV art :D

Actually, Roland made it :-P

He even made a video about it.

 

* I tried the Scientist 2023 'Scientist_fix.wad'.

The forced ending after map20 "Endcast = true" doesn't work in Prboom-plus. I don't know why. (It works in GZdoom)

 

BTW, in the txt file you write:

Quote

Widescreen TITLEPIC, INTERPIC and CREIT grphics from the Unity version, by Thomas van der Velden

Roland made the Titlepic (and you misspelled CREDIT).

 

*

Quote

demos are desynced in Crispy, Choco, and DSDA

Yes, demos are usually not compatible between ports. Unity had priority.

 

* I am glad the problem in Crispy Doom was identified. I always believed the markers were/ should be ignored in game.

 

* Personally I am ok with people making patches.

Please note: we are considering making some fixes ourselves and re-uploading the sci2023.wad. Though that is not confirmed a at the moment.

 

 

 

[Scypek2]

Wow. It's like a completely different mod! (Now with 200% less God and communism.) Sad to see some of the custom weapons get replaced with default ones, but the whole thing is now a vastly more cohesive for sure. Love the various new changes, including the simple but perfect trippy hell portal effect, and the new grenade. Pretty sure I've seen the idea of "gravity-affected BFG ball" once or twice before, but having it be visibly thrown somehow makes it feel way more satisfying.

 

Also, I had no idea the author is related to Thomas van der Velden, but the inspiration is unmistakable now!

 

Edit: "replaced with default weapons" is not entirely right, since they did get a bunch of minor audiovisual tweaks that fit great with the rest of the mod.

Edited August 26, 2023 by Scypek2

[Devalaous]

2 hours ago, t.v. said:

*

Actually, Roland made it :-P

He even made a video about it.

 

* I tried the Scientist 2023 'Scientist_fix.wad'.

The forced ending after map20 "Endcast = true" doesn't work in Prboom-plus. I don't know why. (It works in GZdoom)

 

BTW, in the txt file you write:

Roland made the Titlepic (and you misspelled CREDIT).

 

*

Yes, demos are usually not compatible between ports. Unity had priority.

 

* I am glad the problem in Crispy Doom was identified. I always believed the markers were/ should be ignored in game.

 

* Personally I am ok with people making patches.

Please note: we are considering making some fixes ourselves and re-uploading the sci2023.wad. Though that is not confirmed a at the moment.

 

Feel free to integrate my patch (or parts of it) for it if you like, I can make lumps for the other xINFO standards if needed. Its been updated shortly before I wrote this post with widescreen HELP and BOSSBACK graphics by @Firebert :)

EDIT: Just remember to keep widescreen stuff in its own wad, to keep compatibility with older ports that only do 4:3 :p

 

The Scidemon looks a lot like stuff from Harmony and other TV works, so I just assumed :p

 

As for the PrBoom thing, PrBoom-plus has been sunsetted and DSDA Doom and Woof are basically its successor ports; PrBoom plus might not support the current revision of UMAPINFO. Thanks for pointing out the errors in the readme, I was feeling unwell that morning (ended up in the hospital getting examined all day later on), ive fixed them and credited Roland for the titlepic

 

The one thing I couldn't do was give the Scientist, Sciscorpion and Scidemon obituaries for ZDoom/GZDoom, as I tend to do that with a embedded Dehacked in Boom format; Crispy and up read these no problem. Some people do string replacements in a LANGUAGE  lump, but I have yet to learn how these work. Eternity has its own obituaries that are seperate and im not sure how to change those. You can see my obituaries at work in the Scientist 2 patch, its a small quality of life thing

 

I also did a patch for your Revolution megawad a while ago in the same style and have one for TV1998 partially complete, I do a lot of these for older works that improve presentation and compatibility with newer modern ports. My patches leave the original wad completely untouched and just overlay quality of life things like automap names, short level sets ending early instead of moving into stock levels, episode selection, widescreen artwork if available, that sort of thing. I know a lot of people somewhat interested in Doom thanks to the Unity port and things like MyHouse, but a lot of older wads put them off because they 'feel' old, ive been told what I do makes a bunch of them feel a lot newer and more appealing for new Doomers

Edited August 26, 2023 by Devalaous

[princetontiger]

Wow! I can't wait to play this.

[Devalaous]

@t.v. Just tested PrBoom Plus with its final version, the UMAPINFO does actually end the game there, you'll need to update it to the absolute final version here

[Auron]

On 8/25/2023 at 6:07 PM, Devalaous said:

Does not occur for me. Might be a GZDoom error itself, 4.10.0 had quite a few bugs that necessitated me moving on to a devbuild.

 

@Devalaous can you tell with devbuild of GZDoom you're using? Tried some of the early 4.11 and the issue with rocket launcher still persist. DSDA-DOOM and Woof! are just fine. I'm trying to figure what's causing this bug since I never seen something similar before with gzdoom. Thanks in advance.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Auron

[Devalaous]

'g4.11pre-187-g3ddf72104'. Its not a load order bug is it?

[princetontiger]

I see a lot of screenshots with some of the older textures... the new wad seems to drop the wolfenstein ones, is that right?

Edited August 27, 2023 by princetontiger

[Auron]

23 minutes ago, Devalaous said:

'g4.11pre-187-g3ddf72104'. Its not a load order bug is it?

 

I don't know. Got this warning when loading the wad:

 

 

I tried several ways to launch and the glitch persists. =/

Edited August 27, 2023 by Auron

[princetontiger]

Hot damn! I am so glad I came across this wad.... one of my favorite with an old school vibe. I can't believe I've never heard of it. Glad Kevin Cloud sought this one out.