DECORATE actor not visible

[Magnus_Equus_Rosea]

I've been trying to add a custom decoration into a test and everything is fine but the sprite doesnt show up in gmae. There are no console errors and there is no red and yellow error sign and I know I added the sprite correctly. Does anyone have a fix for this?
Screenshots below:

 

Edited April 17, 2024 by Magnus_Equus_Rosea

[Kappes Buur]

48 minutes ago, Magnus_Equus_Rosea said:

I've been trying to add a custom decoration into a test and everything is fine but the sprite doesnt show up in gmae. There are no console errors and there is no red and yellow error sign and I know I added the sprite correctly. Does anyone have a fix for this?
Screenshots below:

 

From your screenshot I see that you are mapping for DOOM or BOOM original formats,

which do not support DECORATE.

 

Choose a source port which can handle DECORATE.

 

 

or better still ZSCRIPT (see GZDoom Doom2 UDMF) which more or less repaces the old DECORATE.

 

 

Edited April 17, 2024 by Kappes Buur

[Magnus_Equus_Rosea]

1 hour ago, Kappes Buur said:

 

From your screenshot I see that you are mapping for DOOM or BOOM original formats,

which do not support DECORATE.

 

Choose a source port which can handle DECORATE.

 

 

or better still ZSCRIPT (see GZDoom Doom2 UDMF) which more or less repaces the old DECORATE.

 

 

Thanks for the advice. I'll port the wad I was working on to UDMF so it works.

[Gez]

12 hours ago, Magnus_Equus_Rosea said:

Thanks for the advice. I'll port the wad I was working on to UDMF so it works.

Map format is irrelevant, as long as the port supports DECORATE then the actors can be used in any map format.

 

In fact, in ZDoom, all standard actors are internally in DECORATE format, and the vanilla maps can still be played! And in GZDoom they're all in ZScript, and same comment. Actor format and map format are fully orthogonal issues.

 

The most likely case for a sprite not being visible despite the sprite being present and no error being reported is an offset issue. Let me explain.

 

A Doom actor is, in-game, a column with X, Y, and Z coordinates. The Z coordinate is specifically for the bottom of the actor's column. This way it can do things like check if actor.z == floor.z to see if the actor is on the floor.

 

The renderer draws the actor's sprite at the actor's X, Y, Z coordinates. Like most computer graphics, sprites have their origin point (the pixel at 0, 0) at the top left corner.

 

So this means that by default, the actor's sprite is drawn to the right and, crucially, below the actor's physical position, which means it disappears under the ground.

 

To avoid this problem, the sprite's offsets should generally be set so that the X offset is half the width of the sprite image, and the Y offset is its full height.

[Magnus_Equus_Rosea]

Thanks for the advice, it worked.

5 hours ago, Gez said:

Map format is irrelevant, as long as the port supports DECORATE then the actors can be used in any map format.

 

In fact, in ZDoom, all standard actors are internally in DECORATE format, and the vanilla maps can still be played! And in GZDoom they're all in ZScript, and same comment. Actor format and map format are fully orthogonal issues.

 

The most likely case for a sprite not being visible despite the sprite being present and no error being reported is an offset issue. Let me explain.

 

A Doom actor is, in-game, a column with X, Y, and Z coordinates. The Z coordinate is specifically for the bottom of the actor's column. This way it can do things like check if actor.z == floor.z to see if the actor is on the floor.

 

The renderer draws the actor's sprite at the actor's X, Y, Z coordinates. Like most computer graphics, sprites have their origin point (the pixel at 0, 0) at the top left corner.

 

So this means that by default, the actor's sprite is drawn to the right and, crucially, below the actor's physical position, which means it disappears under the ground.

 

To avoid this problem, the sprite's offsets should generally be set so that the X offset is half the width of the sprite image, and the Y offset is its full height.

 

Edited April 18, 2024 by Magnus_Equus_Rosea