ZDoom News

Randy Heit has updated the ZDoom site with a small progress report. Due to the fact that the existing rendering problems in the original Doom engine became too apparant when using slopes, he has been forced to overhaul this part of the engine to use "more traditional 3D techniques". This is still a work in progress.

can't wait for the new version, even if it does use integer math (we have fpu's, use em :).

Won't hold my breath for a new zdoomgl though :(

I love how Randy says "Have you noticed walls "jiggle" back and forth as you walk around? (The right corner of the platform in the courtyard area of Doom 2 MAP18 is a good place to see this.) How about the way lines bend away from you if you stand on them and look in the direction of the line?". He makes it sound like everyone has been playing a beta version of zdoom. Uhh, no Randy I haven't noticed because you haven't give me the link to the latest version. :)

This jiggle has been in ZDooM for a long time (I wonder why Randy noticed it that late), and is also in ZDooM 1.22.

Why use floating point math?

It's slower, with little or no benefit.

Tarin: I thought he was talking in relation to slopes.

Katarhyne: Yes, that was the info I wanted. ;-P

it's just that using slopes makes the problem more obvious

That wiggle and bending is in all Doom ports using looking up and down. (maybe not EDGE since it's not using the same rendering) It's apparently a bug in the vanilla doom source code.

It is in Edge.Why must the community have to finish what ID did not fix. It makes it all the more harder on the community. Look at all the damn beta and alpha based source ports. We should combine all the source ports AND fix the flaw's that ID left in DooM and DooM 2 together.

Cause it wasn't an issue in Vanilla Doom. It's being cause by you being able to look up and down.

This is weird....

I remember seeing a picture from a DooM II level on someone's school folder (I think) a few years ago. The picure had two sloping ramps.

It was too early for source ports with that capability.

The picture hadn't been faked either.

And the ramps weren't "Super-stepped" either.
IE they didn't use tiny steps to create what looked like a ramp at a distance.

It could have been converted over to a Duke3D map and have used the textures. Where the enimies and items in there too?

Maybe a fake, but who knows...




FREE HISSY!

Floating point is faster than integer math for multiplications and divides since the Pentium, and not *terribly* slower for adds and subs. And there's plenty of benefit.. you free up the x86's limited registers as well, as opposed to an integer multiply where you use up two of the 6 general purpose registers , and then have to shift/rotate once you're done...

No. It had the enemies. It looked right for DooM. One would think in Duke3D it wouldn't look quite right.

it's much easier to avoid rounding errors with floats, rounding errors can cause all sorts of problems with graphics apps.

Using the method of having lots and lots of sectors to make a slope, it is possible to make it actually look like a real slope if you look at it from the right angle.

Look at some of the pictures on the Crucified Dreams page, for example.

Yeah, or look at my last map "Only the Strong". In the main outside area there is a slope made of 200 sectors. (A bit of promotion here *g*)

I hear you can use MP3 and CD music. COOL!

You can get the jiggle while looking straight ahead whenever you are on a level with a really long line (that is visible). The reason why he wants floating point math because that jiggle occurs when the end point(s) of the line falls between 2 possible locations using interger math. So the line hops between those 2 points whichever is closer to where it should be in relation to your position when you move around creating that jiggle. Floating point would give that line more places to appear in relation to you making any jiggle so insignificant as to be invisible.

Id didn't get rid of it in its time because the original doom was 320 X 200, you couldn't look down, and the maps didn't have absurdly long lines. Under these conditions the jiggle was not noticeable so ID didn't have any reason to get rid of it. Now in the age of doom ports with resolutions of 640 x 400 and higher and even some with freelook This error becomes more apparent, though still it isn't really that bad so nobody really has a reason to get rid of it.

Now Randy throws in this sloped sector feature and from the sound his update it looks like the whole level turned to jello on him basically he pushed the interger system to its limits and it has reached its breaking point so now he has 2 options, don't do slopes, or redo the thing in floating point math. Being a guy who likes his toys (and shouldn't we all =) and someone who obviously isn't daunted by a task that entails more work he decided to rework the math system.

Can you believe that I originally wanted to type out just one setence I never seem to be able to just stop *whap* thanks. =)

atleast mp3 support is in the latest released beta (7 i think) of zdoom :O)