Story Text Level Change

[The Best]

I want to try and change the level the story text comes after. Is there any way I can do this in vanilla Doom?

[indigotyrian]

If you want to do this in a "vanilla" way you want DEHACKED. DEHACKED lets you change a lot of vanilla Doom behaviors and is a rather advanced tool but it's pretty easy to use if you just want to change story text. The best tool for this is something like WhackEd4. The upshot to this method is that DEHACKED lumps in WADs can be read by basically every Doom port out there. The downside is that you're stuck with story text only showing up preceding maps 7, 12, 21, 31, and 32, and after map 30.

 

If you want to do this in a more convenient and much more flexible way, you can use UMAPINFO to change story text. This lets you set story text on any map you want, you can set the background to be any flat you'd like or even a full-size graphic, and you can make the music that plays whatever you'd like too (you're not stuck with D_READ_M). All of those things can be customized for each text screen, too, so you can make some nice cutscenes. The downside is that you're limited to ports that support UMAPINFO. That's still quite a few ports, but if you want to target, say, Chocolate or Crispy Doom, you're out of luck.

[Stabbey]

Why, so often do people come in asking for help, and yet trying to get them to provide useful information is like pulling teeth? It's always like "my code doesn't work. Can you tell me what the problem is without seeing it?"

 

No, we can't.

 

You've clearly got a syntax or format error in your UMAPINFO. You're using a keyword which isn't recognized. We can't see what the specific problem is unless you post the entire thing.

[The Best]

9 hours ago, segfault said:

If you want to do this in a "vanilla" way you want DEHACKED. DEHACKED lets you change a lot of vanilla Doom behaviors and is a rather advanced tool but it's pretty easy to use if you just want to change story text. The best tool for this is something like WhackEd4. The upshot to this method is that DEHACKED lumps in WADs can be read by basically every Doom port out there. The downside is that you're stuck with story text only showing up preceding maps 7, 12, 21, 31, and 32, and after map 30.

 

If you want to do this in a more convenient and much more flexible way, you can use UMAPINFO to change story text. This lets you set story text on any map you want, you can set the background to be any flat you'd like or even a full-size graphic, and you can make the music that plays whatever you'd like too (you're not stuck with D_READ_M). All of those things can be customized for each text screen, too, so you can make some nice cutscenes. The downside is that you're limited to ports that support UMAPINFO. That's still quite a few ports, but if you want to target, say, Chocolate or Crispy Doom, you're out of luck.

I've tried using the UMAPINFO, but it doesn't seem like my source port is doing anything with it. An error pops up every time I try to run the level. I'm using GZDoom by the way.

[The Best]

[Doomy__Doom]

4 hours ago, The Best said:

I've tried using the UMAPINFO

 

4 hours ago, The Best said:

UMAPINFO =/= MAPINFO

[ramon.dexter]

You're using gzdoom, so you have to use MAPINFO or ZMAPINFO.

 

UMAPINFO is for boom only.

[Klear]

UMAPINFO is working for me in GZDoom without an issue.

[indigotyrian]

9 hours ago, The Best said:

You have an old version of GZDoom. Update it.

 

4 hours ago, ramon.dexter said:

You're using gzdoom, so you have to use MAPINFO or ZMAPINFO.

 

UMAPINFO is for boom only.

 

Untrue. UMAPINFO is supported by many Doom source ports, including GZDoom. Graf Zahl himself wrote the spec.

 

Per Doom Wiki:

 

Quote

Supported ports

UMAPINFO is supported by the following ports:

• DelphiDoom: Support since v2.0.7
• Doom Retro: Partial support
• DSDA-Doom: Rev 2
• EDGE-Classic: Partial support
• Eternity Engine: In development
• From Doom With Love: Rev 2 (Based off DSDA-Doom)
• GZDoom: Rev 1 since version 4.6.0, but works correctly up to Rev 1.4
• K8Vavoom: Partial support (Untested)
• Nugget Doom (Based off Woof!)
• Odamex: Support since version 10.0.0
• PrBoom+um: Rev 1.2. Development version: Rev 2
• ReBoom: Rev 2 since version 2.05um as a option
• Woof!: Rev 2 since version 6.0.0, Woof! 5.1.0 supports Rev 1.6
• ZZDoom
• RZDoom

 

[Pegleg]

20 hours ago, The Best said:

I want to try and change the level the story text comes after. Is there any way I can do this in vanilla Doom?

 

In addition to what Segfault wrote, the only way to include "story" is to do something like in Perdition's Gate, where there is a short statement that appears while the next map is loading. I think this is essentially a custom CWILV, but it would allow you to have a 1 or 2 sentence "story" appear between maps in vanilla.

[Individualised]

Coming from someone barely familiar wtih DEHACKED but get the general gist of how it works - out of curiosity, how come DEHACKED never gained the ability to change the level numbers that story screens appear on in Doom 2? Since DEHACKED is just changing code pointers and variables and such that seems like it would have been trivial. Does Doom 2 handle the story screens in an esoteric way (i.e. are they tied to the psuedo-episodes instead of just checking the level number?)

[Edward850]

15 minutes ago, Individualised said:

Coming from someone barely familiar wtih DEHACKED but get the general gist of how it works - out of curiosity, how come DEHACKED never gained the ability to change the level numbers that story screens appear on in Doom 2? Since DEHACKED is just changing code pointers and variables and such that seems like it would have been trivial. Does Doom 2 handle the story screens in an esoteric way (i.e. are they tied to the psuedo-episodes instead of just checking the level number?)

Under Doom2, episode text is handled by the call from G_WorldDone as a case switch, as well as needing to modify the second switch in F_StartFinale which finds the correct text when called. Maybe not impossible to control but given dehacked already had limitations with the relocation table, maybe just barely out of scope.

[Individualised]

2 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

Under Doom2, episode text is handled by the call from G_WorldDone as a case switch, as well as needing to modify the second switch in F_StartFinale which finds the correct text when called. Maybe not impossible to control but given dehacked already had limitations with the relocation table, maybe just barely out of scope.

Thanks for the explanation!