[MegaNoob] Questions regarding some aspects of UDB/Slade3

[silenthillfog_enjoyer]

Hello,

 

I'm quiet new to Doom Editing but not really to game development. Although the Ultimate Doom Builder wiki is quiet extensive and the availability of youtube videos made it easier for me to start out, I still have questions that I hope can be answered by either giving me a link but if you guys have some time to spare to teach me some things I'd be quiet happy to learn some doom modding. I made a test map to figure out things like map editing, scaling of objects, fog, starting out without any equipment and such things, but of course I'd like more as my goal is to make a game like LSD Simulator, Yume Nikki or something more RPG like [used to spend my early childhood with making RPG-Maker games :)] and I thought instead of using unity or unreal, I'd like to try the doom builder.

• I'd like to start with asking about the HUD, is there some sort of documentation for it? I'd only like it to display health via the face of the protagonist. | Then I'd like to ask about the Start Menu - is there a way to limit it to certain options? Like starting the game and ending it? And ignoring the difficulty level/skipping it? | How does the rain feature work in Doom Builder, does it need a zscript to start? | I want to add additional custom objects - 1 custom weapon, do I do this via Slade3 or via Doom Builder? | How do I change fonts? I assume, it's quiet time consuming due to the format that the WADs need to display text? | Regarding text and conversations, I've seen some youtube tutorials but I absolutely don't get it - so there are like more than 3 text systems and you need to put them all into one big zscript file instead of having several or an easier text system? or is it more optimized now? Also sorry for the formatting, for some reason the enter key doesn't work in this text box.

[DeetOpianSky]

I gather you're targeting a GZDOOM (source port) mod that will use UDMF format for mapping purposes.
I don't know everything but can usually find ways of implenting things I have in mind via the following:
The ZDOOMwiki is going to be your primary source of support for figuring out what you want to do.
For creating new weapons I'd suggest checking out Realm667 for examples and editing them to your taste (given the authors/permissions allow this).
For NPC interactable dialogue I'd check out the in place system inhereted by Strife. It can be found here (also a ZDOOMwiki link).

For tutorials I recommend the following:
Chubz ZDOOM/ACS Scripting

DavidXNewton's ZScripting/GZDOOM Tutorials
Bridgeburner's Ultimate DOOM Builder advanced architecture tutorial series.

[QuotePilgrim]

These are not easy questions to answer.

Quote

I'd like to start with asking about the HUD, is there some sort of documentation for it?

You have to create a class that inherits BaseStatusBar in ZScript and tell your game to use it by setting the StatusbarClass property in your GameInfo definition.

Quote

Then I'd like to ask about the Start Menu - is there a way to limit it to certain options?

Sort of? GZDoom goes through great lengths to prevent you from hiding existing options so you have to rely on workarounds and if a lot of people start using workarounds to limit the menu Graf Zahl will make sure those workarounds don't work in future versions. Anyway the documentation you want is on menudef; just create a simple ListMenu named "MainMenu" and copy the options from the default one except for the ones you don't want like saving and loading.

 

If you want to make more extensive changes, you could recreate all the existing menus from scratch under different names while omitting options you don't need and then have your MainMenu point to them instead of the default ones, but do it at your own risk; Graf will show up to your house with a baseball bat. As for skipping the skill selection that is easy enough, just make sure your MAPINFO has exactly one skill definition and the game will not give players the option to choose the difficulty.

Quote

I want to add additional custom objects - 1 custom weapon, do I do this via Slade3 or via Doom Builder?

SLADE, basically. Read this.

Quote

How do I change fonts?

Create one font named SmallFont and one named BigFont and your game will use them. There are multiple different ways to change what font any text uses depending on what is drawing the text. Your HUD class will not change its font the same way an ACS script that prints some text to the screen will.

Quote

Regarding text and conversations, I've seen some youtube tutorials but I absolutely don't get it - so there are like more than 3 text systems and you need to put them all into one big zscript file instead of having several or an easier text system?

That depends on how much control you want. If you just want a default system that works, use ZSDF. Otherwise you probably just need to build your own. The one in my game is a weird hybrid ZSDF/ACS system. You can probably do something in ZScript.

 

Anything I have not responded to I don't have an answer to. I only know what I know about GZDoom because I am making my own game that happens to be a Yume Nikki fan game of sorts. You can try to look at its internals and figure out what the heck it's doing and how it's doing it but it's very much in alpha stage and I do a lot of weird things that are frowned upon or strongly recommended against. The project is done 100% in SLADE. Also bear in mind all my level scripts are compiled with ZT-BCC and I hack my slade.pk3 file to make it recognize them as ACS files.

Edited June 5, 2024 by QuotePilgrim
minor changes

[silenthillfog_enjoyer]

Anybody?