Blasphemer 0.0.2 (aka "FreeHeretic")

The first public release of Blasphemer is available here: http://www.jeshimoth.com/jutegyte/blasphemer/ (apologies for the rough site)

NOTE: Currently Blasphemer only seems to run in ZDoom (and port derived from it). Any advice on how to correct this would be greatly appreciated.

A great deal of textures are replaced, along with many sprites, a few sounds, the complete soundtrack, and one map. There are enough textures now for mapping to be a viable option, and maps would definitely be appreciated (as would other contributions).

Some screens:

Did you get my PM about the new font? Anyways, checking this out now :D

Mek: I totally missed the PM, and now that I checked it, the file is no longer available! My apologies! Any chance of getting that again?

No problem, I can send it to ya again. Give me a few minutes :)

[EDIT]

PM sent!

jute gyte said:

NOTE: Currently Blasphemer only seems to run in ZDoom (and port derived from it). Any advice on how to correct this would be greatly appreciated.

I tried it in ZDoom, Doomsday and Vavoom, and it does not work in Vavoom only.

After some tweaking I've got it working with Heretic.exe and Doomsday 1.8.6 - so long as I don't try to call up the automap.

Those smilies are vicious little beasts - no wonder they're banned from the forums. :-)

GreyGhost said:

After some tweaking I've got it working with Heretic.exe and Doomsday 1.8.6 - so long as I don't try to call up the automap

This is interesting. I've only tried it on ZDoom and Heretic.exe and my experience was that in vanilla it would crash as soon as any text was shown, not just the automap. What tweaks did you do?

Also, those who tried it in Doomsday, did you try out the invulnerability effect? It should be grey/red but I know in ZDoom at least it still gives the gold effect. If there are any ways to change the effect in ports that don't make full use of the COLORMAP lump I'd like to know.

I added an "ADVISER" image - a renamed smiley - to stop Heretic.exe from complaining and re-organised the wad's contents so it's laid out more like the original. I'd be suprised if the order of the contents is critical, maybe just needed a cleanup.
I also converted the "TITLE" graphic to a raw image file and renamed "ENDDOOM" to "ENDTEXT" - they both now display in vanilla.

EDIT - The order of graphic files at the top of the wad DOES appear to be important. I'm now able to call up the "HELP" & "CREDIT" placemarker screens I knocked out - which are also raw image files. Can someone throw some light on why vanilla Heretic insists on raw image files for some screens?

EDIT 2 - The automap requires a lump called "AUTOPAGE" before it will show in vanilla or Doomsday.

EDIT 3 - Created a blueish "AUTOPAGE" lump replacement - one less copyright infringement. :)

GreyGhost said:

EDIT - The order of graphic files at the top of the wad DOES appear to be important. I'm now able to call up the "HELP" & "CREDIT" placemarker screens I knocked out - which are also raw image files. Can someone throw some light on why vanilla Heretic insists on raw image files for some screens?

Yes some fullscreen images in Heretic (maybe Hexen as well) are just a blob of 320x200 raw pixels. I can't explain _why_ they decided this was a good idea, but that's what they (Raven) did.

This is great help. Thanks! That blue automap looks pretty sharp, too.

GreyGhost: Thanks for working out some of the problems on other engines! I've made my e-mail address available over the forum, could you please send the tweaks you made so I can build them into the next version? I tried rearranging the stuff myself, but I still get "Bad V_DrawPatch" errors from vanilla any time fonts would appear. The fonts aren't supposed to be raw lumps too, are they?

I checked it out real quick. Seems like a good start. I'm sure you're going to need mappers down the line, so I'll keep this is mind when I've got a bit more time to invest.

Looks very promising so far! If you like, I can help out with the musi...

*slaps his wrist repeatedly* "No Jimmy, no, you just got done with Plutonia 2 and you still owe two projects musical contributions! STOP BEING SO NICE!"

Edit: Ah well, I just noticed you said the soundtrack is already done. :D

Lich: That would be great! We could definitely use a lot of maps.

Jimmy: If it helps, the soundtrack is already complete!

jute gyte said:

Lich: That would be great! We could definitely use a lot of maps.

FYI, I'm a pretty slow mapper.

That said, I'm decent at mapping. You can check my user profile for a link to a WiP page about a Doom II level I'm working on. I'm also working on some stuff for the Heretic Treasure Chest. Here's a few screenies: 1, 2, 3, 4.

That Heretic Treasure chest map looks quite nice. If you feel like contributing it to Blasphemer as well when it's finished, all it would take is a few minutes to check how the textures transfer.

Stilgar said:

The fonts aren't supposed to be raw lumps too, are they?

No the font characters are patch format.

EDIT: please please please put the bloody download in ZIP format!

jute gyte said:

This is great help. Thanks! That blue automap looks pretty sharp, too.

No problem, I had time to kill over the weekend (bodycount=0). The automap's probably meant to look like parchment, which in hindsight makes blue an odd choice - the colour gradient's also coarser. Recolouring or replacing AUTOPAGE is no problem - it's yet another raw image lump with the unusual dimensions of 320x158 pixels.

Stilgar said:

GreyGhost: Thanks for working out some of the problems on other engines! I've made my e-mail address available over the forum, could you please send the tweaks you made so I can build them into the next version? I tried rearranging the stuff myself, but I still get "Bad V_DrawPatch" errors from vanilla any time fonts would appear. The fonts aren't supposed to be raw lumps too, are they?

You're welcome. Wad e-mailed along with a short list of changes and notes. Don't recall having any trouble with fonts though my testing was mostly confined to the first few placeholder maps - did you place them between their markers?

GreyGhost said:

You're welcome. Wad e-mailed along with a short list of changes and notes. Don't recall having any trouble with fonts though my testing was mostly confined to the first few placeholder maps - did you place them between their markers?

I've taken a look, and it was indeed misplaced markers that were causing the font problem... I thought it was suspicious that those zero-sized lumps were there but it hadn't occured to me that that's what they were supposed to be.

I've corrected for this in the DeuTex instructions, and this along with your other fixes should mean that the only remaining vanilla issue currently is the "music doesn't loop" one.

Congratulations on the impressive initial release!

jute gyte said:

That Heretic Treasure chest map looks quite nice. If you feel like contributing it to Blasphemer as well when it's finished, all it would take is a few minutes to check how the textures transfer.

I personally would like to create a new map. Maybe I could contribute a small map for one of the beginning levels, since those don't take so long to make.

I may try to contribute a map if I get the free time :D

Neato. Didn't earlier screenshots have some hud weapon sprites though? Like what happened to the Bat.. wand.. thing?

JohnnyRancid said:

Didn't earlier screenshots have some hud weapon sprites though? Like what happened to the Bat.. wand.. thing?

The earlier screenshots were more of a mockup to show that it could be done than anything. There was a bat wand thing, but it wasn't really intended for the project, and I was never really that pleased with it. Something similar is in to take place of the hellstaff, but it's only got a pickup right now.

Looks interesting - are you looking for semi-recreations of original Heretic maps or completely new ones?

CodenniumRed said:

Looks interesting - are you looking for semi-recreations of original Heretic maps or completely new ones?

Preferably completely new ones. Similar themes or a nod here or there would be okay, but nothing "Wonderful Doom"-ish.

I'd like to see non linear Hexen-looking maps, but of course with Heretic's traditional explosive violent gameplay.

I want to see this progress like a 1992-style rpg team told to do a fps game

Hi this looks cool, is there a possibility of sharing sprites between FreeDOOM and Blasphemer to speed up progress?

Spleen said:

Hi this looks cool, is there a possibility of sharing sprites between FreeDOOM and Blasphemer to speed up progress?

There's a possibility in the sense that this has already been done a little bit, a few of the Blasphemer textures are adapted from FreeDoom (notably the lava) and the hanged man sprite is based on one of FreeDoom's albeit modified a fair deal. Most of the FreeDoom sprites either don't really correspond to anything we need, don't fit the theme here, or just aren't that good, though.

leileilol said:

I want to see this progress like a 1992-style rpg team told to do a fps game

What would that be like? I'm not much of an RPG buff.

JohnnyRancid said:

I'd like to see non linear Hexen-looking maps, but of course with Heretic's traditional explosive violent gameplay.

I'd like to see some of that too.