[Ninety-Six]

Jimmy, on 29 January 2022 - 12:05 PM, said:

The chief problem is animation, it doesn't tend to look great.

Maybe this is isn't the kind of thing that can be easily described through text, but how so? Trying to look up footage leads me mostly to videos where the camera is way to shaky to really get a read on it.

[Jimmy]

This guy did a good job, at least. The main problem is just the difference between 2D animation and 3D animation. Honestly 3D model packs have the same issues usually. In a 2D space, details and movement are more of an implied thing. You can't see every angle, so your brain starts to fill it in for you. Interpolation is probably the greatest thing that ever happened to 3D animation. Non-interpolated 3D animation, even when done extremely well, just looks off.

Check out Voxelstein 3D for example. The Nazi voxels are extremely well made and fairly accurate to the 2D sprites. But it just feels like something gets lost in the translation from 2D to 3D. Although that game/engine has more features that make the voxels feel nore natural.

I think voxels are part of the future of FPS gaming, people are ironing out all the issues.

[NightFright]

Personally, I don't need voxel enemies. Having items and maybe props voxelized is more than enough to add more visual depth to the game. But hey, if that guy can pull it off convincingly, I'm all for it.

[Ninety-Six]

Okay so, I have a strange request for anyone who has an account over on zdoom forums. I kinda hate to ask, but my account apparently got deactivated and it really doesn't seem worth making a brand-new account again just to file one bug report.

Obviously feel free to see if you can confirm this issue yourself.

I'm noticing strange midi playback issues with LZDoom. These might affect GZDoom as well but with how not-good that runs on my system I can't verify. I can, however, verify that these problems did not and do not exist on zdoom 2.8.1, so that eliminates any OS issues.

It doesn't seem to affect every MIDI, only certain ones. The ones I notice it most prominently in are in Memento Mori II.

The MAP02 song has the easiest and most obvious error I can point to:



This video presents how the song is supposed to sound, using the general midi sound set (I don't have any external programs; I am only using what comes packaged-in and I do not use OPL usually). For the most part, this song plays normally. But starting at about 1:28, it's like half those channels are barred from playing when using Microsoft GS etc. However, there is no option to adjust specifically that within the MIDI Options sub-menu.

The very next level's music presents the next problem:



This one is harder to explain, though. In-game, the song just has less....depth, I guess? Compared to the upload and zdoom 2.8.1. I don't know enough about music to pin down exactly what's wrong, but if I had to guess, some of the channels that provide false reverb and the like are not playing.

[NightFright]

This looks similar to an issue I recently reported myself, but it was only about EAWPats with Timidity. I realized that at least in some songs, some instruments either wouldn't play or get replaced by generic ones (e.g. piano). Just like you, I found that only certain songs would show this effect (I noticed it in the title track of a recent mod called "Auger;Zenith"). For me however, it's not setting in after a while, but immediately.

Your findings indicate it might be a more general issue. Graf Zahl already admitted via PM that large parts of the code have been rewritten recently and it cannot be excluded that something got "lost in translation".

That being said, I went back to earlier GZD versions to check if the problem would eventually go away, also to see when exactly it might have been introduced. Until now, any 4.x build I was able to get working was affected. I can't say anything about LZDoom, but since they share some code, one would assume this problem exists in both ports.

I have referred to your findings in my own report over at the ZDoom forums:
https://forums.duke4.../page__st__4230

[Ninety-Six]

NightFright, on 01 February 2022 - 09:05 AM, said:

I have referred to your findings in my own report over at the ZDoom forums:
https://forums.duke4.../page__st__4230

You just linked this topic again, lul.

EDIT: Found the topic. I feel like I should tell you that you've only linked the page and not the post:

https://forums.duke4...post__p__368403

[NightFright]

Yeah, fixed that now. I was using my tablet last night which has a reduced interface for the Duke4 forums, the direct links to posts are N/A there.
As for linking the wrong thread here, oh well... guess I must have been half asleep at that time already, lol!

[Ninety-Six]

NightFright, on 01 February 2022 - 09:05 AM, said:

For me however, it's not setting in after a while, but immediately.

To clarify, it's not a delayed effect. It just depends on the song. In "Into the Fray" it always starts at that exact point in the song, when those other instruments start playing.

In "Give In" it happens immediately.

[NightFright]

Alright, well in that case, your issue might indeed be related to mine. However, I couldn't find any GZDoom build since v3.3.0 (which is pretty old by now) which had the EAWPats sound right. So this is either a really old bug (which is doubtful since otherwise someone else should have noticed it in the meantime) or it might be the MIDI itself which just gets borked with certain soundfonts, for whatever reason.

[Ninety-Six]

NightFright, on 02 February 2022 - 02:52 PM, said:

or it might be the MIDI itself which just gets borked with certain soundfonts, for whatever reason.

After some fiddling, I've found that different soundfonts (based on built-in) break on certain songs, while others don't. Microsoft GS doesn't break on the title of Auger;Zenith, but it does if I use timidity (I don't have timidity but it works anyway?), but in the case of Memento Mori II, it's the opposite for MAP02, but then both blow up on MAP03.

[NightFright]

Then it looks as if it is song-specific and if it's happening with more than one soundfont, they are not to blame for the glitch, either. Would be interesting to see what's going on in those tracks and if anything could be done to work around it.

[MObreck]

For fun I uploaded a video of me bumbling through a modded setup of BTSX using one of the players from the Space Cats mod and a replacement set of enemies I custom coded. Warning: contains footage of a player who insists on playing with a gamepad:



Here's some various screenshots I took playing through a different stage:

Spoiler

[ImpieTheThird]

This is a lesser-known mod I did a few years ago, a sci-fi fantasy adaptation of a Nintendo game, played with Heretic (AKA Medieval Doom) and Gzdoom. Basically you're an elf (read as: space hick) who's done some bad things, and now has to retrieve a magic artifact to stop a space dictator before said dictator gets it first and uses it to dominate the galaxy. Oh, also, a bomb planted in your skull will turn your brain to oatmeal if you refuse the job.

It's a relatively brief nonlinear Hexen-style adventure thing with lots of badass space guns and tons of artifacts to exploit. Your base gun is upgradable so it fires faster and spits more projectiles. You also get a lightsaber at one point.

[jkas789]

Game pad is not bad though? It's certainly easier on the hand than a mouse at the very least.

[MObreck]

jkas789, on 21 February 2022 - 09:55 PM, said:

Game pad is not bad though? It's certainly easier on the hand than a mouse at the very least.

Guess I got it in my head using a keyboard & mouse was the common sense method and I was the only one foolish enough to prefer using a gamepad. So maybe I rip on myself a bit much for it

ImpieTheThird, on 21 February 2022 - 09:55 PM, said:

This is a lesser-known mod I did a few years ago, a sci-fi fantasy adaptation of a Nintendo game, played with Heretic (AKA Medieval Doom) and Gzdoom. Basically you're an elf (read as: space hick) who's done some bad things, and now has to retrieve a magic artifact to stop a space dictator before said dictator gets it first and uses it to dominate the galaxy. Oh, also, a bomb planted in your skull will turn your brain to oatmeal if you refuse the job.

It's a relatively brief nonlinear Hexen-style adventure thing with lots of badass space guns and tons of artifacts to exploit. Your base gun is upgradable so it fires faster and spits more projectiles. You also get a lightsaber at one point.

I really enjoyed that one. I'll have to do a replay at some point. I know that one didn't get much of a public response and you seem to prefer working solo but if you ever decide to do a follow up let me know. I'd love to throw my talent into the pool.

[Morpheus Kitami]

ImpieTheThird, on 21 February 2022 - 09:55 PM, said:

This is a lesser-known mod I did a few years ago, a sci-fi fantasy adaptation of a Nintendo game,

Interesting, are you basically going through every NES and SNES game adapting them into Doom in one way or another? I knew that Ghoul School and Dr. Chaos were adaptations, but I admit the only titles I ever played that were yours were Strange Aeons and those two.

jkas789, on 21 February 2022 - 09:55 PM, said:

Game pad is not bad though? It's certainly easier on the hand than a mouse at the very least.

I think that depends on the game, and if your mouse is a trackball or not. In either way I think mouse aiming is better, and I'd certainly want to hammer the attack button with a mouse more than a face button. (this really doesn't matter for Doom outside of a few mods anyway)

[ImpieTheThird]

Morpheus Kitami, on 22 February 2022 - 05:18 PM, said:

Interesting, are you basically going through every NES and SNES game adapting them into Doom in one way or another? I knew that Ghoul School and Dr. Chaos were adaptations, but I admit the only titles I ever played that were yours were Strange Aeons and those two.

lol nah, just when something strikes me as an interesting reinterpretation. Dr Chaos had more of a spiritual connection since most of the story and such was original, but i liked the name. I'd like to do something fleshed out with that family at some point and rename them.

[ImpieTheThird]

MObreck, on 22 February 2022 - 04:30 PM, said:

I really enjoyed that one. I'll have to do a replay at some point. I know that one didn't get much of a public response and you seem to prefer working solo but if you ever decide to do a follow up let me know. I'd love to throw my talent into the pool.

I actually do have an unfinished follow-up with a few maps, but dunno if I would finish it on my own. If you like I can send you what I have so far and see if it inspires some of your own maps.

[MObreck]

ImpieTheThird, on 24 February 2022 - 02:26 PM, said:

I actually do have an unfinished follow-up with a few maps, but dunno if I would finish it on my own. If you like I can send you what I have so far and see if it inspires some of your own maps.

I could give it a look. Could be fun to try to cobble together a new mini-hub episode of your lost levels. If you got any other scrapped maps feel free to throw them in. I'm pretty good at converting DOOM engine maps from one theme to another.

I've also at times pondered making a conversion kit for Heretic similar the one I did to auto-convert DOOM stages to Heretic theme. Your Arkista's Ring setup could be a fun theme for it. Pure fantasy converted to fantasy sci-fi.

[Morpheus Kitami]

ImpieTheThird, on 22 February 2022 - 06:58 PM, said:

lol nah, just when something strikes me as an interesting reinterpretation. Dr Chaos had more of a spiritual connection since most of the story and such was original, but i liked the name. I'd like to do something fleshed out with that family at some point and rename them.

That makes sense. I remember thinking that Dr. Chaos didn't really have what made the original all that special. The NES game was this platformer sprinkled with survival horror and the wad didn't really feel like that at all. Just a Heretic wad with limited ammo at the beginning.

[ImpieTheThird]

Morpheus Kitami, on 24 February 2022 - 06:59 PM, said:

That makes sense. I remember thinking that Dr. Chaos didn't really have what made the original all that special. The NES game was this platformer sprinkled with survival horror and the wad didn't really feel like that at all. Just a Heretic wad with limited ammo at the beginning.

Plus the NES game was literally just an 8-bit adaptation of the movie House that lost the license. All those "alternate dimensions" were just Vietnam.

[NightFright]

New version of International Doom (5.2) is out, containing important and significant improvements for Heretic (5.1) and Hexen (5.0):

https://github.com/J...vsky/inter-doom

Side note:
Used to be Russian Doom, but was renamed on short notice briefly before the new release. Quite possibly due to recent events in Ukraine.

[Phredreeke]

I was wondering what was gonna happen with that

[NY00123]

From what I saw here the other day, this was considered about 2.5 weeks ago:

https://www.doomworl...ussian-heretic/

[NightFright]

Ok, according to that statement, I'd say the rename was at least done sooner than intended after what happened. From my side, the name of the project was never an issue, but if even the author feels uncomfortable with it...

Side note:
I am a bit confused about the author called Julian or Julia in different forums. It's the same individual? Sometimes I wonder if I am using the right name (always male). Just to make sure I am not offending him/her unintentionally.

[ck3D]

Unrelated to the ongoing discussion, but I just started watching this and I think the concept and format is great, would be amazing if this took off in the Duke 3D/Build scene too (for what that's worth, I'm still completely unfamiliar with the map author and YouTube channel right now):

[jkas789]

ck3D, on 26 February 2022 - 05:14 PM, said:

Unrelated to the ongoing discussion, but I just started watching this and I think the concept and format is great, would be amazing if this took off in the Duke 3D/Build scene too (for what that's worth, I'm still completely unfamiliar with the map author and YouTube channel right now):

I would kill for this to happen.

[Ninety-Six]

So Icarus made the rare Doom 3 mod video:

And this got me thinking. It's actually something that's been on my mind for the past few years.


Is there any good place to look for Doom 3 mods? I've looked at ModDB, which he linked to here, but every time I go to ModDB for D3, it's just pages and pages of (mostly minor but sometimes major) gameplay rebalances. Finding legitimately new content is like searching for a needle in a haystack here.

So is there any sort of central hub, or even just a compiled list of Doom 3 maps, custom content, etc?

[OpenMaw]

Ninety-Six, on 27 February 2022 - 09:22 AM, said:

So is there any sort of central hub, or even just a compiled list of Doom 3 maps, custom content, etc?

Honestly, not since we lost planetdoom, and I think it was doom3world... Similar to dukeworld back in the day... For the longest time I was using filefront to get new Doom 3 stuff. To be honest, there isn't a lot of new mods as we would classifcally define them. There's Classic Doom 3, Shambler's Castle, Hardcorps, a couple of coop mods that retool the original game... Duck Nukem 4 Feathers... Uh... There were a couple more, but honestly the Doom 3 engine is a pain in the balls to work with and I don't think a lot of mods really ever took off... There was that thing a couple years back called Doom 3 Phobos. I never played that myself, but it might be worth checking out if you haven't already.

[jkas789]

In a show of support for, and I quote "people of Ukraine and the humanitarian efforts of the Red Cross and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund", John Romero is making a new level for Doom II and selling it for 5 euros on his website. Allegedly all proceedings will go to humanitarian agencies/orgs related to the previous entities mentioned.

You can read his announcement here.