Whether the weather

A while back I posted a little example file showing one way of getting a snow shower effect in Zdoom. The question came up recently about rain, so using basically the same technique, just faster falling droplets and more splashy looking death frames I have done an example with rain instead of snow. Just a small, square sector with no gameplay, but if you want to see the effect, pop along to my tripod site and scroll to almost the bottom. There you'll see a download for the rainy file.

The only thing removed from the game to do this is one of the lesser used blood pool objects (the brain in a blood pool IIRC). The additional frames needed for the splash were taken from the unused pain elemental respawn frames, and the unused frame #887. Seeing as how this is for Zdoom, if you really couldn't live without the blood pool item, you could redefine it using the Zdoom DECORATE lump and nothing would be lost from the game at all.

Will get it. Thanks.

Also, would you please email me the 2-page description of how to insert hi-res textures into a ZDooM wad using DeepSea? The one you emailed Cyrez a couple of days ago. Thanks.

EDIT: I can't download the file. Lycos refers me to your Tripod site, which refers me back to your Lycos site, which refers me ad infinitum. Bah!

ReX said:

EDIT: I can't download the file. Lycos refers me to your Tripod site, which refers me back to your Lycos site, which refers me ad infinitum. Bah!

Check your e-mail :)

Very nice effect, Enjay. Rex, XWE can load hi-res textures too (the latest version anyway). Just click Entry|Load and select any size bitmap. Maybe I should release a new version.

ReX said:

EDIT: I can't download the file. Lycos refers me to your Tripod site, which refers me back to your Lycos site, which refers me ad infinitum. Bah!

Hmmm, stange. That should only happen when you try and link directly to a file from another site. Which is why I linked to the site rather than the file.

If you go to the site, and then click on the link from the page it should work. At least it did for me. Who knows the mysteries of these compouter things?

Anyway, I sent the tut/help file you asked for. Not sure it really covers what you need, but you should have it by now anyway.

Csabo, yes, another XWE release would be most welcome. I don't use it for much doom stuff (although I'd like to see what you have covered), but I use it extensively for other stuff. Pulled a whole pile of graphics out of some Duke 3D TCs only yesterday.

Cyrez said:

Check your e-mail :)

Doh! It's Cyrez that said that. I thought it was part of Csabo's post. My excuse is I'm ill ATM and concentrating is not something I am doing very well.

I guess that means you have the file I just sent. I'll mail the rain example instead.

:-/

Csabo said:

XWE can load hi-res textures too (the latest version anyway). Just click Entry|Load and select any size bitmap. Maybe I should release a new version.

Which version is the latest? I have v1.1, which is also the latest available from your site.

Cyrez, thanks for the file.

Nigel, thanks for both the files. I'll look into the DeepSea help file soon. I did take a look at Rainy.wad, which I thought was terrific.

I've uploaded the latest just now (1.11). I hope someone who puts up the news items sees this and it gets mentioned.

Csabo said:

I've uploaded the latest just now (1.11).

And I have downloaded it, thanks.

I read the piece on XWE Script, which sounded pretty exciting. I'm not sure when I'll actually give it a whirl, as I'll be working practically all weekend and I'll be in Arizona all next week. (I'll be taking my laptop, but I wonder how much free time I'll have.)

Do you realize that's your first update since June 6 of last year?

Sure, I know. A few people contacted me about things regarding XWE, I added everything they asked for and sent them an update personally. (Except this 'fire woil' guy: he emailed me, I added what he asked for, but when I replied he mail came back.) Until now there was no-one asked for an update. It's nothing big anyway. But I remembered that loading hi-res textures went in at some point.

This is off topic for this thread, but I'll mention it: I saw on Deep's site that he calls the 'smart line drawing' an exclusive. Does this mean drawing across lines? XWE had that a while ago too, but it's not smart, it just splits the lines. Well, anyway.

Been playing around with the new XWE. Very nice so far. Been looking inside the "outlaws" demo. Good fun.

Enjay said:

Pulled a whole pile of graphics out of some Duke 3D TCs only yesterday.

Are these D3D TCs for DooM, or are they TCs for D3D? Either way, would you tell me which they are? I'm a big fan of D3D, and have played many a TC for D3D (including a DooM TC for D3D!)

Enjay said:

Doh! It's Cyrez that said that. I thought it was part of Csabo's post. My excuse is I'm ill ATM and concentrating is not something I am doing very well.

I guess that means you have the file I just sent. I'll mail the rain example instead.

:-/

Actualy i sent the rainy.zip. you stated in your e-mail that you would rather me not distribute your tut till it was better perfected so to speak :)

ReX said:

Cyrez, thanks for the file.

Your most welcome :)

ReX said:

Are these D3D TCs for DooM, or are they TCs for D3D? Either way, would you tell me which they are? I'm a big fan of D3D, and have played many a TC for D3D (including a DooM TC for D3D!)

Heh, yeah I saw the Doom TC for Duke.

The TCs I was looking at were for D3D, most of which I can't even play because they are intended for the Atomic edition, or maybe the Plutonium pack, and I just have the basic D3D. The stuff I was specifically looking at yesterday was the Star Ship Troopers TC, a TC called GOD (Grins of Divinity), a weapons mod and maybe something else too. Oh yeah, Platoon. I was also looking at a whole bunch of Build based games that I don't think I have seen anyone use as resources for TC's (Duke or Doom) There is some very nice stuff in them though. Through a combination of tools and tricks, I managed to get at least something interesting to look at out of every downloadable game demo listed in this page...

http://jonof.edgenetwk.com/build/

Cyrez said:
Actualy i sent the rainy.zip. you stated in your e-mail that you would rather me not distribute your tut till it was better perfected so to speak :)[/B]

Ack, I just really meant don't post it anywhere as a difinitive tutorial on DeePsea or anything. No harm in giving it to anyone who actually seeks it out. At some point I may write something more distributable, but I don't really have the inclination to do it ATM.

Ah goddamnit. This was one of my "never-seen before" features in my mod. Guess I'd better do more research next time. Lucky there's more. Ugh I'm tired.

And concerning D3D, both the platoon and starship troopers mods are excellent. I especially liked Platoon. The way that Duke Nukem had the scripting was really way ahead of it's time. Even with the modern port stuff the Duke3d con scripting still makes Doom editing look inflexible as hell.

Outlaws was excellent. Build games usually seem to be really good. Blood is definitely one of my favourites: single play is atmospheric as hell and netplay is amazing, setting eachother on fire etc, Redneck rampage is also another cool Build engine game.

Csabo: congrats on XWE, it's mainly all I use for Doom lump/resource editing now, and I use it for other stuff too. I'm glad I found it, it's smoothened the production of my mod. In connection to the comment above, will there be Redneck Rampage support at any point?

EDIT: What I mean is will there be a working pallette for it? Sorry, I haven't slept in 2 days and my mind is fried.

Good to hear about the "smart" line drawing thing too - I'm over the DeepSea linedef limit so this will be real useful.

Hey Enjay, just tried out your snowy and rainy wad, they're both quite cool. You wouldn't mind if I used all this stuff in my next DM map would you? This time it will be a sort of spooky castle type thing and thunder, lightning and rain will go well together. You don't mind do you?

ToXiCFLUFF said:

Ah goddamnit. This was one of my "never-seen before" features in my mod. Guess I'd better do more research next time. Lucky there's more. Ugh I'm tired.

EDIT: What I mean is will there be a working pallette for it? Sorry, I haven't slept in 2 days and my mind is fried.

Sorry to steal your thunder, so to speak. :-)

Assuming there is already a palette in the Redneck Rampage files (or seperate as a palette.dat file) you can select it, then pick XWE palette - use current, option to use a palette that XWE doesn't come with.

DooMBoy said:

Hey Enjay, just tried out your snowy and rainy wad, they're both quite cool. You wouldn't mind if I used all this stuff in my next DM map would you? This time it will be a sort of spooky castle type thing and thunder, lightning and rain will go well together. You don't mind do you?

Feel free to use it. That's the reason I did it. Speaking of lightning, did you know you can have "lightning" scripts in Zdoom 2 that activate when lightning goes off on a level. I haven't actually tried them yet, but I was going to make the rain example have slightly heavier rain when the lightning struck, as seems to happen in real storms.

Randy Heit said:

May 3, 2001
- Added lightning scripts, which get executed whenever lightning strikes in
a level.
- Added the OutdoorLightning sector special (197) so that skyboxes can
flash outdoor (as opposed to indoor) lightning without fancy scripts.

Very cool stuff.

As an aside I put a bunch of this on a map I'm working on which is essentially a large open area, and well, let's just say all that spawning didn't make the game run any faster, though when I made the rain lighter (and more sparse) it was a lot better.

As another aside you wouldn't happen to know if it was possible to spawn a single particle that dies when it hits the ground, because that would run a lot faster as particles don't take nearly as much memory and cpu as sprites do. Still, for small scale stuff it's very cool, and I think I may put the snow in massmouth 2 :D

Cyb said:

As another aside you wouldn't happen to know if it was possible to spawn a single particle that dies when it hits the ground, because that would run a lot faster as particles don't take nearly as much memory and cpu as sprites do.

The possibility of users being able to customise the particle system to provide rain/ snow and a variety of other effects has been suggested a few times over on Zdoom, but I'm pretty sure nothing has been implemented.

Glad you liked the effect, and if you are able to use it - even better.

How would one go about doing one of these so-called "lightning scripts"? They sound interesting.

DooMBoy said:

How would one go about doing one of these so-called "lightning scripts"? They sound interesting.

Same as you would any other script, I assume, but instead of using "OPEN" or "(void)" (or "enter", or "respawn" or whatever else there might be) you would use "lightning". Then you set up your mapinfo to make sure the level has lighning in it.

There is also a cool effect you can do using 2 sky textures - one gets shown most of the time, the other gets shown briefly when the lightning strikes. If you go back to my tripod site and download the file redsky.zip (in the "Multiple sky effects in Zdoom" section) you'll see how that works.

Yay, now my DM map for level 6 has rain! W00t yay hooray!
I'm uploading this mofo for next week's /newstuff btw.

Heh, the rain splashes off you :D

Very nice stuff Enjay!