A few MBF questions

[Lutz]

Howdy, folks; it's been a while. Anyway, I'm (sort-of...maybe...possibly) thinking about working on a sequal to P:AR, but I have a few questions before I get too excited:

1) Does anybody still use MBF? Or would I have to verify that it looks/works the same with ZDoom to generate any interest? (Also, see below.)

2) Is it possible to have multiple skies within an episode (i.e. map 1 has a different sky than map 2) using MBF? Also, what about non-repeating (long) skies?

3) Is there an existing GRAPHICS-ONLY(!!) .WAD with converented Strife resources? I see that DSV 5 uses some, but is there a dedicated graphics .WAD?

4) Would people rather have a series of maps released individual or as an episode?

Final Note: if anyone was thinking about adding ZDoom editing capabilities to WinDEU 5.24 (not 5.9), I would definitely be interested.

Thanks.

[sargebaldy]

1. i use eternity, which is mbf based. i doubt i'm the only one, but it might be nice to make it zdoom-compatible
2. yes, but don't ask me how.. iirc you can even use multiple skies in a single map (edit oops, that could have been an SMMU feature, i'm not sure)
4. i'd prefer an episode myself

and welcome back :)

[Opulent]

I certainly don't speak for most, but here's my 2 cents:
1. MBF rules. I like it more than Zdoom personally. Zdoom is by far the most popular Doomworld port which isn't surprising.
2. I don't think so. Zdoom would have this ability, I would assume.
3. I think Pitre has one. IIRC, it was on his site. (maybe it wasn't graphics only)
4. either.

[sargebaldy]

2.
Found it, it was an MBF feature:

271 Ext -- Transfer sky texture to tagged sectors
272 Ext -- Transfer sky texture to tagged sectors, flipped

[Little Faith]

MBF doesn't like my hardware.

And there are other compability issues with MBF as far as I know.


I would suggest using Eternity if you want a wide audience. It is more or less an evolution of MBF and the port that the Millennium project is based upon for example.

[Grazza]

I don't use MBF (due to XP issues), but the two ports I use by default are Prboom and Eternity, which both fully support MBF features.

Assuming that Boom compatibility isn't possible for what you have in mind, I think it makes sense to have a wad that is MBF-compatible, rather than solely for Eternity. That gives people more choice. Those who don't like Eternity's lower resolution can use prboom or glboom. Also, for demo-recording, Prboom has an MBF-compatibility option; AFAIK Eternity doesn't have one (yet?), so demos recorded with it will only play back with Eternity. On the other hand, you can't save when playing in Prboom's compatibility modes.

Clearly if it could also work with Zdoom, this would keep even more people happy, but that may or may not be feasible. I don't have a clear idea of how many people refuse to use anything other than Zdoom; there are some though.

An episode sounds good to me (ideally with each map also playable from scratch). But then so do single maps. :)

Edit: Risen3D is also MBF-compatible, apparently, and is strong on eye-candy.

[Quasar]

I'd say make the map for MBF but test it on Eternity. That way it should work in MBF and will have the widest possible target audience for that type of map. Eternity supports absolutely everything in MBF except for Beta emulation (fraggle removed it in SMMU, and I suppose that's ok). Anything that works in MBF that does not in Eternity is a bug and would be fixed if I were to find out about it ^_^

BTW, prboom supports most of MBF's features also.

[sargebaldy]

Yeah, I think pretty much everyone has prBoom and/or Eternity on their computer so if you make it for MBF you probably won't lose many people.

[Cyb]

I believe the only thing ZDoom lacks in terms of MBF support is the friendly AI Lee added to MBF. So if you don't use that (friendly monsters), it should work in ZDoom as well.

[NiGHTMARE]

Grazza said:

I don't have a clear idea of how many people refuse to use anything other than Zdoom; there are some though.

There's a huge number of people who prefer using ZDoom, but I've never heard of anyone who simply won't use anything else even if a wad requires it.

Anyway, I'd suggest looking into what kinds of feature PRBoom, SMMU and Eternity add. If they interest you, use them; if they don't interest you, don't use them :) Off the top of my head hear a few of the things each port adds:

PRBoom - no new editing features AFAIK. Instead concentrates on improving things like netplay, demo playback, graphics, etc.

SMMU - scripting, cameras, level info lump (includes being able to have a different sky, colourmap and gravity for each level), hubs, a couple of new sector flags, swirly flats

Eternity - better scripting, huge number of new DEH abilities (including new codepointers, "EDF", etc), particles, terrain types, no hubs (apparently they'll return in the future)

[Graf Zahl]

Cyb said:

I believe the only thing ZDoom lacks in terms of MBF support is the friendly AI Lee added to MBF. So if you don't use that (friendly monsters), it should work in ZDoom as well.

To be more precise, it lacks some AI enhancements for normal monsters, too, but since you can't explicitly map for them I don't think they really matter. ZDoom supports most 'real' editing features of MBF like the sky transfer specials (271, 272) and the gradual door lighting effect. So unless you don't exploit some bugs that have been fixed in ZDoom it should work. I certainly didn't have any problems with P:AR in the latest ZDoom versions.

[Lutz]

My question concerning MBF vs. ZDoom was really a visual one. I always include the standard boilerplate message saying "I'm a visual person...might run slow...but it looks like I want it to" -- meaning, I care deeply about how everything looks. When testing P:AR with ZDoom, there were some pretty glaring issues: some color maps didn't work, transparency lumps were ignored, the crushing ceilings used to create explosions (e.g. the cannon in level 9) didn't actually crush the barrels, etc. The question really should have been, "Is everyone is going to use ZDoom to play a .WAD I built for MBF?" -- the answer to which will govern how much effort I put in to tweaking the visuals for both ports, or if I don't worry about how it looks in ZDoom.

Quite frankly, I think I would love to use ZDoom -- I was playing around with it for the project I thought the Chaos Crew was going to start, and it really has some fantasic features -- but I have no good way to edit it (hence my plea to add ZDoom features/types/things to WinDEU 5.24). And at this point, if I'm really going to learn a new editor, I'm going to really focus on making Unreal maps.

Anyway, I appreciate the discussion; if anyone has any more thoughts on the visual differences between MBF and ZDoom, please spell 'em out.

[Erik]

I have used deth since forever, but the switch to DB was more or less smooth and took 3-4 days.

[sargebaldy]

Although I'm almost certainly in the minority, I'd prefer an MBF set to a ZDoom one anyway :P

[Quasar]

Me too :P

[Cyb]

Chris: actually the majority of issues ZDoom originally had with P:AR have been fixed, P:AR was actually a great levelset for randy to see exactly what Boom/MBF compat problems were there since you pretty much used every crazy Boom/MBF trick avaliable... I believe all of them have been fixed now and P:AR should work perfectly in ZDoom

Graf: Well, you can map to use the friendly AI, having a friendly monster suddenly be removed can upset the balance of a map... I doubt Chris will be doing any dehacked work, but I made a weapon that spawns little helper demons but in ZDoom the helper demons just attack the player instead, which makes it a much less than useful weapon (and as such there's not enough (or barely enough) ammo to finish off the end of the map without their help... )

[Lutz]

Cyb said:

Chris: actually the majority of issues ZDoom originally had with P:AR have been fixed, P:AR was actually a great levelset for randy to see exactly what Boom/MBF compat problems were there since you pretty much used every crazy Boom/MBF trick avaliable... I believe all of them have been fixed now and P:AR should work perfectly in ZDoom

Hey, glad to it was *useful* even if the gameplay wasn't great. I'll check out P:AR with ZDoom 4.323.4412.132.ASDsd.243 (or whatever it is now) and take a look around.

[Linguica]

I refuse to use any non-Windows Doom port nowadays, so unless there's a Windows port of MBF...

[Szymanski]

A Lutz map utilising zdoom properly would have been really cool, but as long as it runs in prboom/zdoom i'll be happy.

[sargebaldy]

Linguica said:

I refuse to use any non-Windows Doom port nowadays, so unless there's a Windows port of MBF...

eternity is for windows, and is based off smmu, which is based off mbf. and people have said zdoom moreorless has support for mbf as well.

[Grazza]

Linguica said:

I refuse to use any non-Windows Doom port nowadays, so unless there's a Windows port of MBF...

heh

I'll attempt a summary of Windows ports that have (or claim) MBF support in their current versions:
Eternity (except beta emulation)
PrBoom (and glboom) (except beta emulation; still some deh problems)
Zdoom (except beta support and enhanced monster AI - and see Quasar's post below)
Risen3D (except... not sure)
any others...?

[Quasar]

zdoom doesn't support a few other enhancements in MBF either, such as fixes to certain BOOM linedefs to make them affect monsters (most notably friction, unless this has been fixed recently).

[Graf Zahl]

Quasar said:

zdoom doesn't support a few other enhancements in MBF either, such as fixes to certain BOOM linedefs to make them affect monsters (most notably friction, unless this has been fixed recently).

No, the source is there but Randy has it commented out and I think I know why. I frequently found that MBF's monster friction code doesn't work well. Especially monsters on icy floors can be a real pain in the ass. Even when using PrBoom I never switch this on because I just don't like the effect.

[myk]

Lutz said:
Anyway, I appreciate the discussion; if anyone has any more thoughts on the visual differences between MBF and ZDoom, please spell 'em out.

To be honest (and as I said on another thread) many of the areas using small scale sector height differences to create slope-like areas in P:AR look pretty ugly to me. Using slopes they would be better off. Of the two, only ZDoom has slopes.

[Graf Zahl]

myk said:

To be honest (and as I said on another thread) many of the areas using small scale sector height differences to create slope-like areas in P:AR look pretty ugly to me. Using slopes they would be better off. Of the two, only ZDoom has slopes.

And you don't even need a Hexen-format map to create slopes. ;-)

[NiGHTMARE]

You don't even need a map to be ZDoom-only for it to have slopes when you run it in ZDoom. See boris' Freedoom map07 to see what I mean :)

[Graf Zahl]

NiGHTMARE said:

You don't even need a map to be ZDoom-only for it to have slopes when you run it in ZDoom. See boris' Freedoom map07 to see what I mean :)

Sure, but 'real' slopes are still better than purely decorative ones, right?

[sargebaldy]

Graf Zahl said:

Sure, but 'real' slopes are still better than purely decorative ones, right?

huh? i think what he means is you can make it so when you play it in zdoom it'll render slopes, and when you play it in mbf/prboom/eternity it won't.

[Graf Zahl]

sargebaldy said:

huh? i think what he means is you can make it so when you play it in zdoom it'll render slopes, and when you play it in mbf/prboom/eternity it won't.

If you read my answer carefully you will see that I understood it fully. With 'decorative' I mean slopes that don't affect gameplay. Because that's what you have if you make a level compatible with ports that don't support them.

[sargebaldy]

oh. well to be honest i'm not sure if i've really seen slopes that have much of an impact on gameplay.