Blasphemer discussion

[Cacowad]

Maintenance mode.

[omx32x]

is there a blasphemer discord or something like that?

[Cacowad]

There is a Blasphemer channel on the Heretic discord.

[Catoptromancy]

I made a test map for looking at stuff. 

 

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/blastest_001.wad

[Catoptromancy]

So ya, I went asking for help on sound formats and before I could even compile the tools, MTrop uploads everything already done. All the sounds sampled to the proper rate and in DMX format. Many sounds were loud static, this will fix them. All credit goes to MTrop.

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sounds/sounds.zip

 

Here is a test wad including these sounds. Use other test map from post above, can hear the sounds of all the monsters.

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sounds/sound_test_001.wad

 

 

Edited August 11, 2021 by Catoptromancy

[fraggle]

On 1/24/2017 at 10:38 AM, Cacowad said:

E1M1 - Death of the Blasphemer, by Angry Saint
E1M2 - Grim awakening, by Cacowad
E1M3 - Town of Aquafort, by SFoZ911
E1M4 - The Sewers, by Steve Parker
E1M5 - ???, by Snarboo
E1M6 - Khazad-dum, by Philippe lesire
E1M7 - Lucifer's Spell, by Paul Corfiatis
E1M8 - Bravado, by Brad Kiefer
E1m9 - PLACEHOLDER
E2M1 - ???, by Owen "Sarge Baldy" Lloyd
E2M2 - Torture, by Chris Lutz
E2M3 - Evil Ruins, by Samian and Cacowad
E2M4 - ???, by Ryathaen
E2M5 - Breeze, by Brad Kiefer
E2M6 - Brave, by Brad Kiefer
E2M7 - Fiery domus, Cacowad
E2m8 - Obsidian fort, Cacowad
E2m9 - PLACEHOLDER

Late reply here permission was obtained from these authors to use their maps, right? @pcorf for example

 

On the subject of maps I offer up my "Courtyard of Elements" map from HUMP (E1M7) to the project. I suspect if you ask @Jon he'll probably be happy to donate his E1M6 too

[Catoptromancy]

All sound files are filled with the best possible duplications already in project. Using MTrop's resamples I filled out all the placeholders. 

 

Important: Make sure to add these sounds after including the sounds.zip from above. These sounds replace the empty placeholders that are included in sounds.zip.

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sounds/sounds_renamed_duplicates.zip

 

Test wad for...testing.

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sounds/sound_test_002.wad

 

 

Big note: Killing D'Sparil locks up dsda-doom and crispy-heretic with or without sound wad. Dont know if its my test wad, or blasphemer. I know Boom and Vanilla Doom can lock up if graphics or other things are missing on game transitions. 

Edited August 15, 2021 by Catoptromancy

[Cacowad]

3 hours ago, fraggle said:

Late reply here permission was obtained from these authors to use their maps, right? @pcorf for example

 

On the subject of maps I offer up my "Courtyard of Elements" map from HUMP (E1M7) to the project. I suspect if you ask @Jon he'll probably be happy to donate his E1M6 too

Yes, i contacted the ones i could contact, and some others had a license that permitted reuse (for example Kiefer's). I can provide who's who, i just need to dig into this thread and/or pm's. Unfortunately, Doomad's forum is gone, so unless the wayback machine got a copy i cannot access whatever was posted there.

Regardless, thank you :) i'm away up to the 15th of agust, after that i will dig up previous maps donations that went into the backlog and compile a new build.

 

@Catoptromancy
as above, i will check it out once i can. Regarding Dsparil: there are a LOT of missing screens, especially screens transitions, so it does not really surprise me. Last time i checked this did not happened, where did you took the last build?

Also big thanks to @MTrop
for fixing the sounds.

[Cacowad]

On 8/5/2016 at 7:00 PM, Angry Saint said:

I tried to contact the authors of the "free" maps I found on internet. I used the email accounts in the txt files, but most are not existing anymore.

"Town of Aquafort" author SFoZ911, Lucifer's Spell author Paul Corfiatis, The sewers author Steve Parker and Khazad Dum author Philippe lesire could not be contacted.

I had more luck with Torture author Chris Lutz. I wait to see if he answers.

Sorry for the double post, i don't really know how to handle double quotes on mobile.

@fraggle
there you go, from this post onward. If those authors can be contacted, we will follow up upon their wishes.

[DooMAD]

44 minutes ago, Cacowad said:

Unfortunately, Doomad's forum is gone, so unless the wayback machine got a copy i cannot access whatever was posted there.

 

Found this, hopefully it has what you're looking for:  http://web.archive.org/web/20150619092958/http://teamhellspawn.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=15&sid=7895027ab2b6f3df553d54c5271f1fbe

 

 

[Catoptromancy]

55 minutes ago, Cacowad said:

where did you took the last build?

 

Its the current git build I made.

 

Ill go through and make sure there are placeholders for all transition screens.

Edited August 11, 2021 by Catoptromancy

[Cacowad]

@DooMAD
nice! yes that's it, nice to have for history purposes.

 

@Catoptromancy
nice, thank you!

 

[Catoptromancy]

Its been awhile, just killed desparil on heretic.wad to see what happens and a floor lowered. Maybe my test map needs a lowering floor. 

 

Edit: Added a lowering floor tagged 666, and moved map to slot 3 8. Still locks up. WIll eventually figure this out.

 

Another edit: Desparil is missing the last death frames, right about the time it locks up. Will pad em up.

Edited August 11, 2021 by Catoptromancy

[Catoptromancy]

So desparil needs more than 1 teleport spawn or hardlocks when he is almost dead. 

 

I made an E3M8 to figure out how not to crash desparil. Its playable and can be a boss map placeholder. 

http://www.geocities.ws/c/a/catodemos/blasphemer/maps/e3m8_c001.wad

 

New testing map, this time without crashing desparil. 

http://www.geocities.ws/c/a/catodemos/blasphemer/blastest_003.wad

 

New dsparil placeholder. Almost all frames, good attack frames...two distinct phases. Good for submission. Credit Linguica from Freedoom's attic. 

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sprites/aod_dsparil.zip

 

New dsparil in easy to -file test wad.

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sprites/desp_test_004.wad

 

Screenshots of both phases:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Edited August 14, 2021 by Catoptromancy

[Catoptromancy]

Horror chicken.

Found earlier in thread, posted by jute. I chopped the sheet and made what frames I could.

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sprites/chicken_from_jutes_post.zip

Horror chicken in action: 

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sprites/chicken_test_001.wad

 

 

Faces Horrormovierei posted. I dont know how to actually view them in-game. Not sure if these work.

http://www.geocities.ws/c/a/catodemos/blasphemer/graphics/faces_from_horrormovierei.zip

 

 

Mauloknight: Functional. Credit: Lokito from Freedoom's attic

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sprites/mauloknight.zip

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sprites/mauloknight.wad

Spoiler

 

 

I have no idea if this works on Windows:

I also edited the Makefile. You can now $make clean, $make install, and $make uninstall. Will install iwad to /usr/local/share/games/doom. Where iwads should go and other port related wads. There is also bit for installing documentation, but the documentation isnt standardized yet. I think all docs should be capitalized and appended with .md. It seems a fairly standard way of doing it. A proper man page would be useful in the future in case someone tries install iwad without a port. I could make the man page, with current documentation information. 

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/Makefile

I copy and pasted bits of Freedoom's makefile to make that. 

 

Brainstorming layout of the man page:

Spoiler

- Quick description of blasphemer,

 

- Statement about needing more resources and that anyone can help create and submit them.

 

- What an iwad is and what a port is, how to use iwad.

 

- Basic controls and how to use menu system in-game.

 

- Quick description of the license, and where to find full license text.

 

 

Snake now shoots fireballs. Credit to Sodaholic from freedoom attic. I think these are still freedoom imp balls.

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sprites/impballs.zip

Test wad: http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sprites/impballs.wad

 

 

Also E6M3 cannot have an exit. It will segfault various ports. I suggest my testing wad or that museum wad that was posted earlier in the thread. Both need to have the exits removed. 

DragonMorpheus's museum wad, in E6M3 and exit removed.

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/Museum_E6M3_noexit.wad

My test wad E6M3 with exits removed. Mine includes textures and flats, but not as nicely done.

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/blastest_004_e6m3_noexit.wad

 

 

Repurposed some lava graphics already in blasphemer.

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sprites/mino_floor_attack.zip

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sprites/mino_floor_attack.wad

Edited August 16, 2021 by Catoptromancy

[Shino1]

On 8/13/2021 at 7:11 PM, Catoptromancy said:

 

Mauloknight: Functional. Credit: Lokito from Freedoom's attic

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sprites/mauloknight.zip

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/sprites/mauloknight.wad

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

This can work as a placeholder, but I am currently working on a full Maulotaur replacement that is hopefully more interesting and fitting the fantasy theme.

I stopped animating it manually and I'm making a 3D model that I can rig, and easily capture each frame from 8 static cameras. Much more managable than painting like 50 separate frames.

 

I just need to find time to work on it, I'm swamped with commissions (that I kinda need because I'm broke).

[Catoptromancy]

Looks very awesome! I was just trying to squeeze in something usable for the meantime. Been playing pwads comfortably with my pile of wads loaded. Though some graphics are funky, blasphemer is very playable. I cant wait until the graphics are as good as that.

 

Pretty much everything I posted is a placeholder. I really like the horror chicken though. Its death frames need a bit of work and it needs a dead frame too.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Catoptromancy

[MrFlibble]

Nice progress everyone! I'd like to think that once a playable updated IWAD gets some circulation, it may eventually attract more talent and effort just like Freed∞m did.

[Catoptromancy]

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/blasphem-exp-cato-001.zip

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/new_stuff_002.wad

 

Here is the latest iwad from the experimental branch along with a single pwad of all the resources I scattered throughout the last couple posts. Checkout maps E6M3, and E3M8. E3M8 is a low effort placeholder but is easily beatable, shows off the boss and was mainly made for testing boss graphics. 

 

Edit:

*New added dsparil projectile graphics to new_stuff_002.wad

Edited August 19, 2021 by Catoptromancy

[MrFlibble]

Thanks! I just tried this out with Crispy Heretic. I was not sure if this was a suitable port instead of (G)ZDoom, but everything seems to work fine so far, although the skybox has a horizontal yellow line over it. Also some scripted platforms that lower to reveal monsters seem to play the elevator sound indefinitely.

[Gez]

32 minutes ago, MrFlibble said:

although the skybox has a horizontal yellow line over it

Yeah, this is an image conversion problem.

 

Long and nerdy story short: the picture format in the Doom engine is wonky for images taller than 128 rows. The solution (which you can actually see implemented in Doom's full-screen images like the titlepic) is to split the image into two parts, one that goes from 0-127 and a second that goes from 128-199.

 

But enter Heretic. Heretic decided to have tall skies to allow looking up and down, but they didn't want to rewrite the whole texture column renderer to stop it from looping every 128 pixels. Instead, they decided to write a special column renderer just for skies, one that ignores the texture dimensions (Heretic skies are defined as being 256x128, if you check them in a texture editor, even if the patches are 256x200) and just keeps drawing for 200 rows. And here's the problem now: since each texture column span is preceded by a few bytes of metadata telling it its vertical offset and how long it is, when the sky is split vertically into two to avoid graphical issues in Doom, when you do that to a Heretic sky texture, Heretic gets to read these metadata bytes as graphical data. Since it ignores the stuff the normal column renderer normally pays attention to, it just doesn't know the column is split into two spans.

 

 

Basically to workaround the Heretic sky bug you need to specifically use tools that do not work around the tall graphic bug.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Gez

[Catoptromancy]

Oh ya the skies, been messing with that today:

SKY1                    256     200
*       SKY1            0       0
*       SKY1            0       72

 

Spoiler

Thats a crispy screenshot. The seam is only visible when looking up.

 

Spoiler

 

All vanilla heretic maps have tall walls, there is no sky lowered sectors(maybe). Line isnt in heretic maps because they never allow player over horizon, unless you clip and find a platform to stand on.

 

Spoiler

 

Zdoom actually has 2 seams in one of its sky settings. Other sky setting removes top third and color matches. Another one looks like crispy with one seam but stretched way beyond vanilla look angles. 

 

I think we can do 256x128 skies, tiled on all sides to remove the seam. There are mountains in that sky that H+, crispy, and lzdoom never show. There seem to be more than several ways to keep tossing numbers at the tex1 to make this work good in all ports and heretic-plus. 

 

If engine requires 256x200, we can make a 256x128 tiled and the pad the bottom. The bottom wont show and the tiled sections will blend together. (I have no idea what im doing and this seems like it would work). No idea if any background in sky is possible, other than solid sky. 

 

Edit: I can manage to make the mountains show up, looks good in zdoom stretch but raises the lower horizon.

SKY1                    256     200
*       SKY1            0       72
*       SKY1            0       0

I just been throwing numbers at tex1 and seeing what happens. This one brings out the mountains and removes the seam sky for crispy, but I dont know how close to sky edges the maps get.

 

I guess we can see once more maps are done, what is visible from normal play areas without clipping how high or low we can make the sky. Low helps with hiding the horizon, high fixes seam.

 

 

Another Edit: Getting closer.

No idea why but just using SKY1  0 0 twice removes line in sky.

SKY1                    256     200
*       SKY1            0       0
*       SKY1            0       0

Spoiler

 

One last thing, I have no idea how to remove tutti trail. 

Spoiler

 

This is very edge of sky-to-floor sector, seems low enough to be fine. But tutti trail I feel can be fixed somehow. I have compiled the wad dozens of times with various combinations and nothing really fixes it, or just makes it worse.

 

Spoiler

 

I think its good to go.

http://www.geocities.ws/c/a/catodemos/blasphemer/graphics/texture1.txt

Much less buggy that vanilla heretics, even with a little tutti.

 

Heretic-plus in dosbox.

 

Tested in h+, crispy, dsda-doom, eternity, lzdoom.

 

New test wad, contains all new stuff including fixed skies.

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/new_stuff_003.wad

Edited August 22, 2021 by Catoptromancy

[Catoptromancy]

Eventually, hopefully soon I think we should release a shareware. The shareware would be a one time release. Showcasing many resources and episode 1 maps. The ORDER, ENDTEXT, and maybe LOADING lumps need to show that we need help in making and polishing the resources to finish the project. That anyone is free to submit resources they personally made. The shareware should be advertised in project release sections of various gaming sites and doom related sites. People need to know blasphemer exists and is active. Include links to the github, make sure github has clear links to the forum and discord. One of the fullscreen text graphics should mention there is a larger iwad available, but missing resources. 

 

Episode 1 maps need to be fully playtested, skill balanced, and bug fixed. Deathmatch and coop items added and highly tested online. All maps played to 100% scores in skill 2-4. Run iwad through a usage tool, and remove all resources not used. Blasphemer should be tested on many ports, multiplayer ports.

 

A dehacked lump maybe that changes "only available in the registered version," to a message like "you can help create more maps for this game."  Maybe "download full version at (github url)"

 

Making a shareware would be extremely easy in a branch, no fancy build configurations. Just need to edit the wadinfo.txt to include an ORDER lmp, and remove from the list all resources not used. Main changes are an ORDER lmp, custom LOADING and ENDTEXT lmps just for the shareware. Dont forget custom demos. Freedoom uses some method for automatically putting text graphics on a the full screen graphics lumps, will need to figure it out to put our own text.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Catoptromancy

[MrFlibble]

Yes, I like the shareware idea! I have to throw my two cents here, for all the excellent stuff in the current IWAD, the E1 maps, or at least those which I have played, do not seem really the best choice for what a first-time player should see in the game.

 

For example, the first map has a lot of fine detail but its layout is essentially five or six interconnected rooms:

• the starting crypt with no enemies
• the upper hall with the locked door and monster closet
• the graveyard where you're immediately swarmed by gargoyle stand-ins
• the dark room with the key
• the room behind the locked door with the ledge
• the exit room

For all of these, save for the staring area, the player's mode of operation is to walk in, shoot the monsters -- and you only get two ranged weapons in the level, unless I missed a secret, -- then walk to the next area. Pick key, pick weapon in the same room. Pick a few items in the other rooms. That's all.

 

And the enemy count is pretty high even on medium difficulty. Those gargoyles from the graveyard area are a chore to deal with. Sure, the starting area in the Docks in the original Heretic also has a good number of 'em, especially on higher difficulties, but they are positioned so that they don't attack you all at once, and you have sufficient room to manoeuvre and obstacles to place between you and them, like pillars. Here, they all descend at once on the player, the only way to go is retreat back in the crypt while picking them off one by one.

 

Enemies in this map generally come in packs, so you have a fixed, and very small, number of "encounters" with them, roughly one per room. This is in stark contrast with Heretic's original E1M1 where the level geometry, even if maybe not as detailed, allows for a different exploration to combat ratio so to speak. You're gradually getting to fight more monsters, and they are spread more thin across the level, not clustered in tight packs. This results in more even interspersion of combat and exploration, as opposed to fight / clean room / next room / fight etc. repetitions. Also the areas in Heretic's E1M1 feel less "empty" because they're smaller but more densely packed with enemies, items and decorations.

Hopefully this comes across as constructive criticism!

 

On another note, is there a free DOS Heretic binary that would be okay to use with the Blasphemer IWAD?

[Catoptromancy]

Heretic-plus is the development target. Mappers or players do not really need to use it, But all maps eventually need to be tested in it before release. Crispy should be fine if someone does not want to use DOS.

https://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/blasphemer/binaries/heretic-plus-1.32.1.zip

 

I have thought about combining E1M1 and E1M2, having exits merge somehow. That can come much later when we have more maps, and does not even need to be in the shareware. Together they use 3 keys, or was it 2.

 

I like the starting room being empty, maybe even removing that one gargoyle. I use that room a lot for testing mouse, controls, and display options. People have a chance to look around before fighting. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Catoptromancy

[MrFlibble]

15 minutes ago, Catoptromancy said:

I like the starting room being empty, maybe even removing that one gargoyle. I use that room a lot for testing mouse, controls, and display options. People have a chance to look around before fighting. 

That starting room is not the main problem of that map. It's just that the whole routine of enter room -- blast all enemies -- go to next room gets very repetitive too quickly. Combat is not interesting if it's just shooting the same monster with the same staring weapon 15 times in a row, and once the monsters are done with there is nothing left to do in the room.

[Catoptromancy]

I will leave gameplay up to others. In freedoom I avoided messing with gameplay as much as possible. I will make sure it works properly, is skill balanced and 100% scores are possible. Map does have odd flow, but looks really nice.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Catoptromancy

[Catoptromancy]

After talking with Cacowad it was determined that a shareware/demo release isnt needed. We can still do a release that includes the advertisements to help on the project in the various help screens or other text graphic screens. Will serve the same purpose.

 

Still need the map commentary or gameplay updates. I will still help test and balance. Can still announce release on various sites.  Nothing really all that different from the shareware release. 

 

Freedoom has scripts that overlay text on the graphics screens, Ill study them and see how I can make them useful for us. 

[Cacowad]

20 hours ago, MrFlibble said:

That starting room is not the main problem of that map. It's just that the whole routine of enter room -- blast all enemies -- go to next room gets very repetitive too quickly. Combat is not interesting if it's just shooting the same monster with the same staring weapon 15 times in a row, and once the monsters are done with there is nothing left to do in the room.

Hello there, thank you for the criticism, always appreciated.

I'll agree that the number of enemies (even at the lowest skill level) is a bit too much of a grind, removing some would benefit greatly the flow.

It's a fine E1M1 map overall, short and to the point.

Also, originally, my E1M2 was meant to be the first level, while i can't say i took direct inspiration from the original E1M1, i tried to incorporate many of the things i like to see in a map (maybe overdoing it in the secrets department).

Overall, if we're going to compare the difficulty curve between Heretic and Blasphemer, i think the latter will be found incosistent. When i added the current maps, i only trimmed some aspect, never actually changing anything substantial. There is a lot to be done in that department, and any feedback is appreciated to that end.

For example, when i compiled the bunch i did not noticed the medusa effects on E1M6 and E1M8, i only noticed now that Cato pointed them out

[Catoptromancy]

I thought E1M1 was kinda short and had simple fights. As a map it looks great, I really like the style of detail. It will be by default be the most memorable map as it is first. MrFlibble is talking about the overall gameplay, not specifically the skill balancing. Skill balancing will be easy for me, but lengthy and time consuming. It is the layout and general gameplay that might need work. What route does player take, anything special needed to be done along the way. Any visible secrets that become a puzzle for the determined?

 

While I was thinking of shareware target, I thought more epic sized maps would be beneficial and combining E1M1 and E1M2. That can be ignored for now, unless we fill all the map slots. 

 

Moving on to E1M6. For the first few times I played this, it was dark. Very dark. I quickly realized it was pretty awesome in the dark, needed to adjust play style for visibility. Then I found the torch, turning the darkest areas into a good but basic map. I thought hard about this placement. Other parts of map are also very dark, player could immediately use it but then is stuck playing even harder areas in the dark. I am still not sure what I even think should be done. Leave torch right there is fine, maybe put into one of those rooms near start would be better. Just as easy to grab early. Maybe swap that nearby big wand crystal with torch. One room is packed with crystals, cannot even take them all. Maybe hide the torch a bit better. Let player wander in the dark for a bit.

 

E1M7: I thought I found big in dsda-doom's recent heretic support, was even 100% reproducible. But when played from start with crispy, it happened again. The linedef type 88 that lowers a lift with a walkover line seems to be the culprit. Maybe its monster on lift, maybe monster has head stuck in ceiling. In the room right after finding the crossbow, up the stairs a bit. 

Spoiler

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by Catoptromancy