DECORATE hates me. (the ongoing struggle between Zdoom and me)

[Fletcher`]

Zdoom keeps crashing due to this:

Actor Robot 10002
{
Spawnnum 255
Health 200
Radius 20
Height 56
Speed 8
PainChance 150
MONSTER 
+FLOORCLIP
SeeSound "grunt/sight"
AttackSound "grunt/attack"
PainSound "grunt/pain"
DeathSound "grunt/death"
ActiveSound "grunt/active"
Obituary "%o was bombed by a robot."
States

    {
    Spawn:
        ROBO A 10 A_Look
        Loop
    See:
        ROBO AA 2 A_Chase
        Loop
    Missile:
        ROBO A 10 A_FaceTarget
	ROBO A 2 A_CustomMissile "Botshot" 32 0 0
        ROBO A 8
        Goto See
    Pain:
        ROBO A 3
        ROBO A 3 A_Pain
        Goto See
    Death:
        ROBO B 3
        ROBO C 3 A_Scream
        ROBO D 3 A_Fall
        ROBO E 3
        ROBO F 3
        ROBO G 3
        ROBO H 3
        ROBO I 3
	ROBO J 3
        ROBO J -1
        Stop
    }

}

(Yes, I'm a complete n00b when it comes to most zdoom stuff.)

[Chopkinsca]

at first glance, seeing the "A_CustomMissile" could be the problem. There are bugs with it that are going to be fixed in .64
Otherwise it looks good.
Try changing A_CustomMissile to A_missleattack and under the flags and such section put "missiletype Botshot".

[Fletcher`]

Script error, "DECORATE" line 25: Unknown game type Robot

[NiGHTMARE]

For the first line, don't you just put the item's name (i.e. no "actor" bit)? That's what the wiki seems to say anyway.

EDIT: Also, I assume "10002" is supposed to be the thing number for use in level editors? In which case, it should be after the { and preeded by "DoomEdNum".

[Fletcher`]

I did that too and got the same error.

Edit: I also tried DoomEdNum 10002 and still it crashed.

[NiGHTMARE]

Shouldn't there be "Sprite ROBO" in there somewhere? Or is that just for decorations?

[Graf Zahl]

The following problems exist:

1. There is no 'Spawnnum' property. It's called 'SpawnID'
2. The parameters of the A_CustomMissile call have to be put in parentheses.
3. Your error message suggests you are using a version 2.0.61 or earlier. This stuff has been available since 2.0.62 and some enhancements are only present in 2.0.63.

[Fletcher`]

I'm using 2.0.63.

[Graf Zahl]

ravage said:

I'm using 2.0.63.

Your error is exactly what would happen if this was used with an older version of ZDoom.

Aside from the 2 issues I mentioned the rest look ok so I can't explain how you might get this particular error with 2.0.63.

[NiGHTMARE]

Graf Zahl said:

1. There is no 'Spawnnum' property. It's called 'SpawnID'

According to the wiki, it's SpawnNum. Might want to fix that :).

[Fletcher`]

NiGHTMARE said:

According to the wiki, it's SpawnNum. Might want to fix that :).

SpawnID just gives a bad syntax error and bombs out.

[Graf Zahl]

NiGHTMARE said:

According to the wiki, it's SpawnNum. Might want to fix that :).

You have to look

here: http://zdoom.org/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Creating_new_monsters_and_other_complex_actors&PHPSESSID=9bdb52efdbb6b18832c6964a83d99979 ,

not

here: http://zdoom.org/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=DECORATE


It's clearly SpawnID and the source code says the same. So to finally solve this problem: How about sending me the entire DECORATE lump and I look at it myself (if there is anything in addition to this particular monster.)

[NiGHTMARE]

Graf Zahl said:

It's clearly SpawnID and the source code says the same.

Yeah I know, I meant you might want to fix the wiki, not what you said :). I'd do it myself but I'd probably screw something up :P.

[Fletcher`]

http://manifesteddestiny.com/ravagedw/temp/decorate.raw

[Graf Zahl]

Ok, i see why you are having problems. Since the ACTOR stuff wasn't written by Randy (I contributed this) its syntax is different from the rest of DECORATE. One oversight I made was the SpawnID stuff. I didn't realize that this was called SpawnNum in the existing code and didn't alter my code to reflect that. So now we have the unfortunate situation that it is called SpawnNum in some definitions and SpawnID in others.

Second, the definition for monsters has to start with the word ACTOR. In such a definition you can not specify the sprite as in other DECORATE items.

Since I have no means to put the changed file on some web server I'll just do it the cheap way. Here's the corrected version that loads without errors in 2.0.63:

pickup Xpistol
{
DoomEdNum 10000
SpawnNum 255
Sprite PISS
Frames "A"
Radius 16
Height 40
PickupMessage "You got a second pistol."
PickupSound "*wpnup"
}

pickup Xhealth
{
DoomEdNum 10001
SpawnNum 255
Sprite ATOM
Frames "2:A*B*C*D*E*F*G*H*I*J*K*L*M*N*O*P"
Radius 16
Height 32
PickupMessage "Health +100"
PickupSound "*wpnup"
}

ACTOR Robot 10002
{
SpawnID 255
Health 200
Radius 20
Height 56
Speed 8
PainChance 150
MONSTER 
+FLOORCLIP
SeeSound "grunt/sight"
AttackSound "grunt/attack"
PainSound "grunt/pain"
DeathSound "grunt/death"
ActiveSound "grunt/active"
Obituary "%o was bombed by a robot."
States

    {
    Spawn:
        ROBO A 10 A_Look
        Loop
    See:
        ROBO AA 2 A_Chase
        Loop
    Missile:
        ROBO A 10 A_FaceTarget
	ROBO A 2 A_CustomMissile( "Botshot", 32, 0, 0)
        ROBO A 8
        Goto See
    Pain:
        ROBO A 3
        ROBO A 3 A_Pain
        Goto See
    Death:
        ROBO B 3
        ROBO C 3 A_Scream
        ROBO D 3 A_Fall
        ROBO E 3
        ROBO F 3
        ROBO G 3
        ROBO H 3
        ROBO I 3
	ROBO J 3
        ROBO J -1
        Stop
    }

}

projectile Botshot
{
SpawnNum 255
Sprite FX12
Frames "2:AB"
DeathSprite FX12
DeathFrames "CDEFGH"
Radius 13
Height 8
Speed 40
Damage 10
NoBlockmap
NoGravity
ActivatePCross
ActivateImpact
NoTeleport
SpawnSound "weapons/plasmaf"
DeathSound "weapons/rocklx"
DamageType Normal
DoNotHurtShooter
}

One more thing: Giving all items the same spawn ID (255) is rather useless. You can only use the last defined item with Thing_Spawn etc. if you do that.

[Fletcher`]

Script error, "DECORATE" line 25: Unknown game type Robot

[Graf Zahl]

You don't have 2.0.63. With 2.0.63 it works. This error is a sure indication that the ACTOR stuff isn't recognized.

[Kate]

ravage, have you ever considered that maybe ZDoom just simply doesn't like you?

In other words, Works For Me™

I have a feeling that your ZDoom version may be corrupted or fucked up in some way, as it seems to happen to me occasionally(For example, right now if I try to take a screenshot of the middle of a level, it saves a shot of when the level started(?).). Try downloading it again and see if it works.

[Graf Zahl]

Of course it works. Except if this is used with 2.0.61 or older. Then exactly this error will occur.

[Fletcher`]

Er yeah, I just realized that I downloaded it last week and never installed it. I'm a fucking moron.

However, it now crashes about 30 seconds after summoning one.

[NiGHTMARE]

Destroyer said:

(For example, right now if I try to take a screenshot of the middle of a level, it saves a shot of when the level started(?).)

What you're seeing isn't a screenshot, it's an autosave. ZDoom's saves are in png format, which allows for the graphic + the save data in one file.

Your screenshots are probably going into another folder, such as "c:\documents and settings". If they're not there, do a search for "doom*.png" on your hard disk(s) and you should find them.

[Kate]

KoRn said:

at first glance, seeing the "A_CustomMissile" could be the problem. There are bugs with it that are going to be fixed in .64
Otherwise it looks good.
Try changing A_CustomMissile to A_missleattack and under the flags and such section put "missiletype Botshot".

Just pointing that out.

[Kate]

NiGHTMARE said:

What you're seeing isn't a screenshot, it's an autosave. ZDoom's saves are in png format, which allows for the graphic + the save data in one file.

Your screenshots are probably going into another folder, such as "c:\documents and settings". If they're not there, do a search for "doom*.png" on your hard disk(s) and you should find them.

No, they aren't. They are .png screenshots with "DOOM####" as the name. What's even more fucked up is the fact that after I had deleted my configuration and created a new one, ZDoom no longer exhibited this bug. Corrupt configuration file?

[Graf Zahl]

ravage said:

Er yeah, I just realized that I downloaded it last week and never installed it. I'm a fucking moron.

However, it now crashes about 30 seconds after summoning one.

Try increasing the radius. The current version has a serious bug in A_CustomMissile that causes a crash each time a missile cannot be spawned for some reason.

[Fletcher`]

I increased the radius to 20 and it still did the exact same thing.