Preferred map format to play/map in?

[ChopBlock223]

I'll play anything which seems good, but Boom and MBF21 are my favorites, just because the game usually remains mostly Doom, but the added features lets you do so much more. Fun to map in, fun to play and seeing the creative stuff people get up to (love VooDoo Dolls a lot), and it's usually just as easy to drop some GzDoom gameplay mod onto it as with Vanilla sets.

 

13 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

So? They already got several important features in. Obviously this ultimately needs a separate namespace to have a clear baseline spec. Until then, yeah, like I said: it's not yet ready for prime time.

So what they're doing is something based on/patterned after UDMF, and while maybe or maybe not supporting ACS, I guess it'll feature conveniences such as aligning flats, interchanging flat and lineded textures, assigning light levels by surface, vertically tiling mid textures, more granular settings for linedef specials, etc?

 

Wonder if that could include any kind of polyobject support in any capacity? Would not mind horizontally sliding doors of some kind.

[dasho]

4 hours ago, Professor Hastig said:

All I have to say here is if you want to have more features you gotta learn. Base "Doom" UDMF doesn't really have much to offer aside from raised limits, the good stuff was all done for Hexen format actions. At least DSDA is branching out from what 'classic' Doom mapping had been stuck with for 20+ years.

 

This is absolutely wrong and is the heart of the matter. Even if action specials WERE the only way for advanced features, the base spec is supposed to be a universal standard, much like Boom or Dehacked are generally a universal standard. There should be no issue with the concept of wanting to stick to Boom/MBF and also not deal with Binary format limits.

Edited March 6, 2023 by dasho

[Professor Hastig]

I think the main issue here is that in the 15 years of UDMF's existence, nobody has ever made a single map for the base namespaces, and most likely this will never happen. Whatever these namespaces were designed for, they do not contain anything of genuine interest beyond being able to make larger maps. It seems rather pointless nowadays to even consider support for them, because this format has gained zero traction whatsoever.

 

With what DSDA is implementing now there is an excellent chance to get a new baseline spec all current UDMF-supporting ports can handle, finally bringing several Hexen and ZDoom features to Doom mainline development. And that is worth a lot more, actually.

 

 

 

[Tangra]

On 3/4/2023 at 2:23 PM, TheCaneOfTheTophat said:

When I'm playing, I like everything except UDMF. It's just... off. It doesn't feel like I'm playing Doom anymore. Either that, or the mapper's new and used UDMF because they were told it's the best one by somebody, but they actually don't utilize the features given to them, and I'd be playing on GZDoom for no good reason.

 

I don't get it honestly. How does the format impact your experience? It doesn't feel like playing Doom? Any format can be modded to a point where it doesn't feel like Doom, and we have examples of Boom and Vanilla wads that are very different from classic Doom. UDMF can be anything the mapper choses it to be. You may even have classic looking stuff in UDMF. Why is it such a big deal if the mapper doesn't use all UDMF features, like there's some law that says you have to use them? I like mapping in it, because it feels unrestrictive, and it's just more fun for me. Is that a bad thing? 

 

And no, you will not be playing a UDMF map on GZDoom (or ZDoom) for no reason, you'd be paying it because you chose to play it, no one can force you to do it. Maybe you saw some UDMF screenshots, and thought that the wad is worth checking out? And maybe as a result you end up playng something that is to your liking, even if it doesn't utilize the UDMF features? Like i said, it makes no difference for your experience, but you seem to have prejudice against the port, not the format.

 

Speaking of which, the whole ZDoom hate is something i will never understand to be honest. I've started playing custom stuff in ZDoom ports, and loved them ever since. I've tried DSDA and i don't see that much big of a diffrence, unless it's for speedrunning, which is something i'm not interested in. Meanwhile, i can run everything in GZDoom with ease, and still play with classic controls, or in software mode if i wish. The differences are insignificant for me and i don't see why would be a big deal to any other casual player?

[dasho]

33 minutes ago, Professor Hastig said:

I think the main issue here is that in the 15 years of UDMF's existence, nobody has ever made a single map for the base namespaces, and most likely this will never happen. Whatever these namespaces were designed for, they do not contain anything of genuine interest beyond being able to make larger maps. It seems rather pointless nowadays to even consider support for them, because this format has gained zero traction whatsoever.

 

So is it a universal format, or something that caters to popular feature-centric ports first, and everyone else afterwards? I think you're really not understanding my point at all. The base namespaces can be extended in any way imaginable; it is a fallacy to think that the only way to extend them is also to implement Hexen-style specials and a subset of ZDoom features.

[Professor Hastig]

Let's see:

 

UDMF was invented around 2008, with initial namespaces for all 4 original Doom engine games, Duke, Heretic and Strife using Doom format actions.

ZDoom added two namespaces of its own, ZDoom and ZDoomTranslated, again the latter doing Doom format actions.

Eternity later came along and did its own namespace, Hexen action format only.
 

So far so good. Now look at what mappers did with it: None of the base namespaces nor ZDoomTranslated were ever used by anyone.

I'm not sure about editor support, but does UDB even support this format?

 

So no matter how you see it, these formats look all dead and useless, so why the heck should a new port even bother? There's nothing to gain there!

On the other hand the infrastructure for making UDMF with Hexen format actions is well developed. DSDA already supports Hexen style actions so doing UDMF in a style that is already proven in the field only makes sense - and if it works out we got a strong dialect that will be supported by several ports - out of my hand I'd say that all of GZDoom, Zandronum and Eternity - and also k8Vavoom - already implement all that is needed here, i.e. the entire range of primary target ports for mapping could handle it.

 

Sounds quite universal to me, actually.

 

 

 

[dasho]

Like I said before, I know I'm pissing into the wind, but your responses are really missing the point.

 

"There are a lot of misconceptions about what UDMF is and isn't, and people used to mapping for Boom find it intimidating when it doesn't have to be."

"Ok, but that's not interesting to me."

 

I'll leave it at that.

[dsda-dev]

Some comments:

 

- dsda-doom 0.26 will support udmf (spoilers here). There's a mapping beta going on currently.

- In the long term my goal is to create a base spec that all major udmf ports can support, like Graf mentioned. There are however limitations in what eternity and dsda-doom can do that may make a comprehensive baseline difficult to actualize.

- Some of the issues brought up in this thread about udmf are actually issues in udb. I have a hacky dsda-doom udmf config for testing but it's (as far as I can tell) impossible to come even close to hiding all the zdoom-only features via configuration files. From what I've seen, it will be very painful to detangle the configurations, which make a lot of assumptions that udmf = gzdoom. But I haven't brought this topic to the developers yet.

[Doomy__Doom]

23 minutes ago, dsda-dev said:

Some of the issues brought up in this thread about udmf are actually issues in udb

This is an excellent point. On the most basic level, when I open a new map in UDMF format, draw a couple nice comfy STARTAN rectangles with a door and want to make them pretty I right click the line as I'm used to and... am greeted by the fact that changing front/back texture - a thing I definitely want to do often and a lot - is somehow on 2nd/3rd tab. Ditto for flats - there is "floor damage" selection on the first tab, but actually changing the flat itself? Nah, can't be that important, to tab three it goes.

 

An option for simplified landing tab with actually essential functionality (which would be duped and outfitted with full scale bells and whistles in tabs) would go an incredibly long way to improve my desire to give UDMF a spin.

 

[Amiga Angel]

I like vanilla and UDMF as a mapper.. vanilla because of simplicity + nostalgia and UDMF because of features

 

EDIT:

I like any map format as a player...

 

but as a mapper I fear BOOM and all the mystical compatibility .. things ...

will forever be unknown dark doom magic to me

Edited March 6, 2023 by Amiga Angel : clarification

[Lobo]

1 hour ago, dsda-dev said:

 

- Some of the issues brought up in this thread about udmf are actually issues in udb. I have a hacky dsda-doom udmf config for testing but it's (as far as I can tell) impossible to come even close to hiding all the zdoom-only features via configuration files. From what I've seen, it will be very painful to detangle the configurations, which make a lot of assumptions that udmf = gzdoom. 

 

Exact same situation with EDGE-Classic.

 

[Jacek Bourne]

I prefer Boom and MBF21. I currently map in MBF21 however most of my favorite maps were made before it’s existence so Boom used to be my favorite. It’s a good balance between vanilla and UDMF because it has many features yet is still demo compatible and it has the vanilla feel of gameplay which I prefer.

[Graf Zahl]

2 hours ago, dasho said:

Like I said before, I know I'm pissing into the wind, but your responses are really missing the point.

 

"There are a lot of misconceptions about what UDMF is and isn't, and people used to mapping for Boom find it intimidating when it doesn't have to be."

"Ok, but that's not interesting to me."

 

I'll leave it at that.

 

At some point someone has to ask the question what is more important: Familiarity or better features. Think about it this way: In order to map all of Boom's 20000+ generalized triggers to Hexen format ZDoom needed only 5 new special types. This is how much more versatility can be had with Hexen format types.

 

[dasho]

29 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

 

At some point someone has to ask the question what is more important: Familiarity or better features. Think about it this way: In order to map all of Boom's 20000+ generalized triggers to Hexen format ZDoom needed only 5 new special types. This is how much more versatility can be had with Hexen format types.

 

 

It depends on who you're asking. You know there is more out there than Boom for mapping and modding. For us, obviously not the big dog here, but for us we have essentially had parameterized specials through DDF for years, in addition to our own scripting languages. In addition to implementing the concept of action specials (this isn't the big hurdle), we would have the non-trivial tasks of implementing ACS, PolyObjects, etc etc, just to meet this proposed standard. 

 

So then, is it the Universal DOOM Map Format, or the Universal Doom-in-Hexen-plus-limited-ZDoom-subset Map Format?

Edited March 6, 2023 by dasho

[Graf Zahl]

It would be the common subset of features supported by - as of right now - GZDoom, Eternity, Zandronum and DSDA. ZDoom and k8Vavoom don't apply because ZDoom could not be updated to read the new namespace and k8Vavoom does not support MBF21 so it'd be a bit limited.

 

I do understand where you come from here, but in the end it's not something that can be helped on my end. You'd have to convince kraflab to implement the needed changes but I get the feeling he's not really interested, considering that these UDMF namespaces are marked with a big red X - meaning 'no'.

 

So, I get why this frustrates you, but should this really be the reason why mappers shouldn't get these features?

It is only natural that within a layered tier of feature standards (i.e. Vanilla < limit removing < Boom < MBF < MBF21 < MBF_UDMF) not all ports can occupy the top position.

 

But this will be the first time some of ZDoom's features will finally filter down to a set of more traditional engines.

 

[dasho]

Mappers should absolutely get these features; we've tried to even get editor configs accepted upstream for "just" the traditional namespaces to, like I mentioned before, put traditional mappers who have an irrational fear of UDMF due to how complex they think it is on a path they feel comfortable with. It's not a zero-sum game, just because we can't or won't implement feature X doesn't mean nobody should have it. My only disappointment is that there wasn't a more conservative "DSDA" namespace type of implementation, similar to how they extended MBF into MBF21.

 

We will still be extending UDMF in a manner that's best suited to our engine, but unfortunately the hope of being able to share any significant overlap with other modern UDMF namespaces is a bit of a fever dream now.

[Biz!]

I would like to map for Boom, make some juicy pseudo scripting magic.

[Biz!]

On 3/4/2023 at 6:23 AM, TheCaneOfTheTophat said:

When I'm playing, I like everything except UDMF. It's just... off. It doesn't feel like I'm playing Doom anymore. 

Wrong thought process, because we've reached such a point of understanding the Carmack Rendering Engine® and many other technical bugs that we made a wad to allow the player to jump with archive jumps in jumpwad (MBF but concept possible in vanilla), faux reflections via KDiKDiZD, or vanilla conveyors, which are also utilized in KDiKDiZD, and the abundance of slaughter maps we have now, so we're not playing the Doom the iwads gave us.

[Gez]

10 hours ago, Professor Hastig said:

I am a bit confused by several people declaring Hexen action types too complex. Is it really easier to memorize tens of different types instead of just having one that can be parameterized?

Surprisingly, yes.

 

Because you choose one item from a list instead of choosing one item from a list, then filling in five numbers (for parameters), choosing another item from another list (for activation), and also optionally clicking a flag box (for repeatable activation).

 

You also get standardized values, so you have doors that move at the speed of doors and wait as long as a door wait before closing at the speed of doors. Don't need to remember what the speed of a door is, or what its wait value is. And let's be honest, how often have you wished you could change the speed at which a door opened?

 

This is why in SLADE we ended up offering a preset system so you can basically get the list of all Doom format line actions (from Doom, Boom, Heretic, and Strife) to automatically set up Hexen-style parameterized specials with the relevant values.

[boris]

41 minutes ago, Gez said:

You also get standardized values, so you have doors that move at the speed of doors and wait as long as a door wait before closing at the speed of doors. Don't need to remember what the speed of a door is, or what its wait value is. And let's be honest, how often have you wished you could change the speed at which a door opened?

 

UDB has sensible default values for all actions, with more common options in drop-down menus.

[Walter confetti]

Playing: Anything goes, mostly Eternity engine.

Mapping: Limit removing or Boom compatible, mostly.

[Professor Hastig]

12 hours ago, Gez said:

Surprisingly, yes.

 

Because you choose one item from a list instead of choosing one item from a list, then filling in five numbers (for parameters), choosing another item from another list (for activation), and also optionally clicking a flag box (for repeatable activation).

 

You also get standardized values, so you have doors that move at the speed of doors and wait as long as a door wait before closing at the speed of doors. Don't need to remember what the speed of a door is, or what its wait value is. And let's be honest, how often have you wished you could change the speed at which a door opened?

 

To be honest, never - but I often wished there was the option to change the delay time until a door closes or a lift rises again.

Nevertheless, this is all something that can be solved on the editor's side without sacrificing flexibility as has been hinted at in following posts.

 

13 hours ago, dasho said:

So then, is it the Universal DOOM Map Format, or the Universal Doom-in-Hexen-plus-limited-ZDoom-subset Map Format?

 

I'd rank it similarly to MBF21, meaning we got a spec with a set of new features that needs to be implemented by supporting ports. None of the new features are really groundbreaking, most are really old things, that have been existing for 27 years in Hexen or are comparatively minor rendering enhancements like flat texture transformations.

 

MBF21 was essentially the same, it required ports willing to support it to add quite a bit of support code for the new parameterized code pointers. So some ports went the extra distance to get it in, including all relevant non-retro-oriented mainstream engines, others did not. The same will happen here.

[dasho]

9 minutes ago, Professor Hastig said:

I'd rank it similarly to MBF21, meaning we got a spec with a set of new features that needs to be implemented by supporting ports. None of the new features are really groundbreaking, most are really old things, that have been existing for 27 years in Hexen or are comparatively minor rendering enhancements like flat texture transformations.

 

MBF21 was essentially the same, it required ports willing to support it to add quite a bit of support code for the new parameterized code pointers. So some ports went the extra distance to get it in, including all relevant non-retro-oriented mainstream engines, others did not. The same will happen here. 

 

What does this have to do with my question that you quoted? If anything, it just reinforces it. It's not about whether you personally think Hexen is the bee's knees, it's about terms like "universal" being cheapened by essentially stating that a Doom port must implement Hexen to be "modern" or "relevant", which is both inaccurate and a disservice.

[meiwakuna]

I mostly like to use Boom since it's the format that most of my favorite wads use, and like somebody said earlier, it is a good middle between vanilla and UDMF. However, just because Boom is the format I use the most these days does not mean that I won't map in vanilla or GZDoom. All of them can produce impressive results, so I see any format as a valid choice as long as the user knows and utilizes some of the capabilities of each one.

Edited March 7, 2023 by meiwakuna

[Professor Hastig]

30 minutes ago, dasho said:

 

What does this have to do with my question that you quoted? If anything, it just reinforces it. It's not about whether you personally think Hexen is the bee's knees, it's about terms like "universal" being cheapened by essentially stating that a Doom port must implement Hexen to be "modern" or "relevant", which is both inaccurate and a disservice. 

 

The only problem I see is how you interpret "universal" here. UDMF as a whole is 'universal' in the sense that its syntax is strictly defined while it allows defining different namespaces and that all subformats can be handled by a single universal parser. At no point this does imply that all ports supporting some UDMF namespace will be able to support all - even the base ones.

The moment we start discussing a specific new feature centric namespace we are talking about specialization of the universal format.

Nevertheless, it's still quite universal if several major ports support such a specification.

 

[Doom_Dude]

I'll play anything on whatever port.

 

I prefer mapping in limit removing or UDMF

[dististik]

When playing generally I'll play anything so long as jumping/crouching and freelook are optional. Them being required aren't deal breakers, but make the game feel nebulously "less like Doom" to me in a way that's hard to put to words.

 

Mapping, Boom has been my go-to but I haven't seriously played with MBF21 yet; I imagine I'd really like it.