Character Select like Hexen?

[Peaved T-40]

How might I go about implementing a character or class select similar to what's in Hexen?

 

I want the player to be able to chose from a few different characters with varying stats

[SMG_Man]

This is mostly a (G)ZDoom thing. This page should go over the important parts. In general, the ZDoom wiki is a huge asset for making things work in its engine.

 

If you're wanting to accomplish this in Boom or some other engine, I don't know how possible that would be.

[NiGHTMARE]

If this is to be a Doom project, the only way I can think of for non-ZDoom ports would be include each character as a separate wad, and have the player load the wad for whichever character they want to be. The relevant sprites and DeHackEd files would be in each wad.

 

Another option would be to make your project for Hexen, in which case players could use the original Hexen .exe, Chocolate Hexen, DSDA-Doom, or Doomsday, as well as a ZDoom-based port.

Edited November 26, 2022 by NiGHTMARE

[Peaved T-40]

14 hours ago, NiGHTMARE said:

If this is to be a Doom project, the only way I can think of for non-ZDoom ports would be include each character as a separate wad, and have the player load the wad for whichever character they want to be. The relevant sprites and DeHackEd files would be in each wad.

 

Another option would be to make your project for Hexen, in which case players could use the original Hexen .exe, Chocolate Hexen, DSDA-Doom, or Doomsday, as well as a ZDoom-based port.

 

I actually am using Hexen but what would I do to alter the vanilla selectable characters or add more?

[SMG_Man]

59 minutes ago, Peaved T-40 said:

what would I do to alter the vanilla selectable characters or add more?

 

Doing anything beyond changing assets that are stored within the WAD file (mostly sprites, maps, textures, and other graphics) has to be done by modifying the .exe; for vanilla Doom hacking, you'd use DeHackEd or something similar for it. I've never looked into modifying Hexen like this, but there seem to be similar programs available for it. They seem much less refined than the Doom ones (probably because vanilla Hexen modding isn't anywhere near as popular as vanilla Doom modding), but that would definitely be a start.

[NiGHTMARE]

5 hours ago, Peaved T-40 said:

 

I actually am using Hexen but what would I do to alter the vanilla selectable characters or add more?

 

You'd need ZDoom for pretty anything beyond just replacing the sprites. Certainly adding additional classes isn't possible with anything else. 

 

There's a brief article on new player classes here: https://zdoom.org/wiki/Creating_new_player_classes

[Peaved T-40]

11 hours ago, SMG_Man said:

 

Doing anything beyond changing assets that are stored within the WAD file (mostly sprites, maps, textures, and other graphics) has to be done by modifying the .exe; for vanilla Doom hacking, you'd use DeHackEd or something similar for it. I've never looked into modifying Hexen like this, but there seem to be similar programs available for it. They seem much less refined than the Doom ones (probably because vanilla Hexen modding isn't anywhere near as popular as vanilla Doom modding), but that would definitely be a start.

 

Well, to be fair, this will be a total conversion. I'll be using my own textures and sprites so would I be better off just building in doom 2? I only chose Hexen because the project I'm working on is medieval fantasy so the vinilla Hexen textures are better temp textures.

[Peaved T-40]

7 hours ago, NiGHTMARE said:

 

You'd need ZDoom for pretty anything beyond just replacing the sprites. Certainly adding additional classes isn't possible with anything else. 

 

There's a brief article on new player classes here: https://zdoom.org/wiki/Creating_new_player_classes

 

GZDoom is what I'm using. I've heard ZDoom gets better framerates though, is that true?

[SMG_Man]

Ah okay, in that case the important part is really that you're using GZDoom, the reason being that GZDoom itself is more of its own advanced engine at this point. In which case, no matter what WAD(s) you use as a resource, you can implement new player classes via DECORATE or ZScript. The link that NiGHTMARE provided goes over both ZScript and DECORATE, though if you're building for GZDoom most would recommend you use ZScript.