Would a DooM 64 TC for GZDoom be worth the effort?

[jdagenet]

I was thinking of starting a DooM 64 TC for GZDoom but I started to think of the other DooM 64 source ports like Absolution and EX and if it would really matter if DooM 64 was brought too GZDoom so what do you guys think? Would it be worth it?

[Gez]

Depends on what you want to do. If you just want to be as accurate as possible to the original game, then no, it's really not the effort. Doom64 EX is there and makes the point moot. It'd be like distributing the Doom2 IWAD and passing it as a "Doom II TC, so you can play PC Doom on your PC!"

If you want to do something more like an adaptation where the original levels are remade but taking advantage of modern ports' additional features and lack of limitations, then why not. Though then again, unless you want to use custom monsters or weapons, you can probably use Doom64 EX as the target port instead. Then it'd be a sort of KDiZD deal.

The main drawback of GZDoom as far as making Doom 64 maps goes is the lighting. ZDoom only supports one color per sector, versus Doom 64's five. And you could use the experimental Doom64 branches from GZDoom, but even then, you'd lose the gradient effect on wall lighting.

As for Absolution, don't bother with it. It's a very old custom build of Doomsday. It has some historic merit, but nearly nobody is going to want to use it to play Doom 64 mods; not when Doom64 EX exists.

[esselfortium]

No. It would be visually and functionally inferior to Doom64 EX, particularly due to the absence of anything comparable to Doom64's advanced lighting system. Even more to the point, the last thing we need is yet another ripfest "TC" project based around someone else's copyrighted content.

[jdagenet]

Alright that's all I needed, thanks guys. So really if I did want to do something DooM 64 I would just have to do a megawad with DooM 64 stuff rather than doing a conversion?

[esselfortium]

You could always make maps for Doom 64 EX.

[jdagenet]

Yeah that's probably the best choice in this situation, it'll save me the time and work.

[PRIMEVAL]

Well, you could always make a Doom64-esque GZDoom map set. There's a mod that replaces nearly all Doom actors to Doom64 actors and has all the textures. Use that with GZDoom mapping using slopes, 3D floors, swimable water, etc and make something interesting? Otherwise remaking D64 to GZDoom, as said before, is pointless.

[jdagenet]

Ah that's a great idea! I can't believe I didn't think of that, perhaps I'll think about doing something like that.

[scalliano]

There's no harm in doing a Doom64-themed GZDoom mod with new levels, but a straight TC is pretty much pointless (and impossible as Gez and essel pointed out). If all you want to do is make D64 levels, then EX is the only real option. If you're planning something more ambitious, there;'s nothing to stop you going the GZDoom route, taking into account the visual limitations. However, I hear that Kaiser is planning DECORATE support for EX ...

[Brewtal_Legend]

I'd be pretty interested in at least seeing the doom 64 maps converted to gzdoom. I think it would be fun to play through the levels using the original Doom 2 weapons and monsters. Maybe use the d64 textures though. Although it could be cool with the doom 2 style textures maybe.

[Gez]

Speaking of Doom 64 mods... They have started to appear in the idgames archive and are put in the doom2 folder. Shouldn't there be a doom64 folder? Or at least a "misc" folder where mods for non doom2 iwads (e.g., Hacx, Harmony, Chex, etc. in addition to Doom 64) could go? I suppose it's Ty's call.

[printz]

Gez said:

The main drawback of GZDoom as far as making Doom 64 maps goes is the lighting. ZDoom only supports one color per sector, versus Doom 64's five. And you could use the experimental Doom64 branches from GZDoom, but even then, you'd lose the gradient effect on wall lighting.

So... will ZDoom eventually get native Doom 64 support, or not/don't know yet?

In that particular case, what about Transfer_WallLight or how it's called?

Brewtal_Legend said:

I'd be pretty interested in at least seeing the doom 64 maps converted to gzdoom. I think it would be fun to play through the levels using the original Doom 2 weapons and monsters. Maybe use the d64 textures though. Although it could be cool with the doom 2 style textures maybe.

The PC Doom 2 monsters look more comical, less menacing, and some of them are actually weaker (Arachnotron, Lost Soul, Pain Elemental). Let alone the lack of a Nightmare Imp equivalent.

[Gez]

printz said:

So... will ZDoom eventually get native Doom 64 support, or not/don't know yet?

Maybe.

Things on the TODO list before it can happen:
- Truecolor software rendering. The ZDoom64 branch gives unparalleled ugliness.(GZDoom can skip this step.)
- Texture manager hack for loading PNGs with a foreign palette.
- Renderer support for mirrored textures and Doom 64 switches.
- Renderer support for light gradients on walls, including the various ways it can function.
- Finish macro manager.
- Implement needed codepointers for Doom 64 actors.

[Graf Zahl]

Brewtal_Legend said:

I'd be pretty interested in at least seeing the doom 64 maps converted to gzdoom. I think it would be fun to play through the levels using the original Doom 2 weapons and monsters. Maybe use the d64 textures though. Although it could be cool with the doom 2 style textures maybe.

I do have such a mod, based on The Absolution. Since I absolutely loathe the D64 monsters it was the only option for me to play these maps without throwing up.

However, since I'm not certain about the conditions regarding change and redistribution I've kept it to myself for all those years - and unless someone can clear it up it'll stay like that.

[jdagenet]

Gez said:

Maybe.

Things on the TODO list before it can happen:
- Truecolor software rendering. The ZDoom64 branch gives unparalleled ugliness.(GZDoom can skip this step.)
- Texture manager hack for loading PNGs with a foreign palette.
- Renderer support for mirrored textures and Doom 64 switches.
- Renderer support for light gradients on walls, including the various ways it can function.
- Finish macro manager.
- Implement needed codepointers for Doom 64 actors.

I would think that wouldn't be too hard to implement the features, couldn't they just take a look at the DooM 64 source?

[Gez]

jdagenet said:

I would think that wouldn't be too hard to implement the features, couldn't they just take a look at the DooM 64 source?

1. Nobody has the Doom 64 source.
2. The Doom64 EX source is available, but GPL, so it's not possible to just lift parts of it into ZDoom, at least not without Kaiser's explicit permission.
3. The renderers are too different for the relevant code to be grafted as-is anyway; especially the software renderer.

[chexwarrior]

esselfortium said:

You could always make maps for Doom 64 EX.

Yes, you should do that! We need more mappers.

[Sergeant_Mark_IV]

IMHO, this would only be worth it if it can be Skulltag compatible, and with 8 player start locations. If anybody wants to play Doom 64 on singleplayer, everybody would play it in Doom64EX instead. The idea of playing Doom 64 online with a lot of other players sounds fun, but I dont think it would be worth making Doom 64 TC by the third time, and still, only play it on singleplayer.

Gez said:
Things on the TODO list before it can happen:
- Truecolor software rendering. The ZDoom64 branch gives unparalleled ugliness.(GZDoom can skip this step.)

ZDoom will never able to do it. Skip it and make the mod only for Skulltag and GZDoom.

- Texture manager hack for loading PNGs with a foreign palette.

Wait, you realize that GZDoom and Skulltag can load true-color PNG Textures, without needing to use paletes, right?

- Renderer support for mirrored textures and Doom 64 switches.

Its not really hard to do.

- Renderer support for light gradients on walls, including the various ways it can function.

Glowing textures can do the trick

[Gez]

Sergeant_Mark_IV said:

ZDoom will never able to do it.

Don't be so sure about that.

Sergeant_Mark_IV said:

Skip it and make the mod only for Skulltag and GZDoom.

I was not talking about a mod.

Sergeant_Mark_IV said:

Wait, you realize that GZDoom and Skulltag can load true-color PNG Textures, without needing to use paletes, right?

You didn't get what I was talking about.

So, to clarify, I was talking about the Doom64 branches in ZDoom and GZDoom, which aim to support the Doom64 IWAD generated by Kaiser's WadGen as another game; providing ZDoom with the full range of Doom 64 features; and Doom 64 with the full range of ZDoom features.

The bit about palette? The sprites still use palettes. They get their colors from palettes. And how does Doom 64 handle palette-swapped enemies like the baron/knight or the demon/spectre pairs? By using a different palette. In Doom64.wad, the sprites are PNG, so they normally use their own palette, not an external one.

Here's an example of what I mean, since I coded that in SLADE 3's texture manager:


Notice how the spectres are green, but the demons are pink. But they use the exact same sprite, the exact same file; which is a PNG. The spectres use a hack to force the external palette.

[Blastfrog]

In regards to a pointless TC for GZDoom without waiting for the Doom 64 branch to be finished, I can think of workarounds for all those points (not proper, direct implementation, but not noticeable ingame).

1. Irrelevant, it would be for GL only.
2. Manually copy the images with external palettes and shove the palette in there, so you have duplicates with alternate palettes. Then set it up in DECORATE to use the alternate versions when needed.
3. Similar to the previous solution, recreate it outside of the engine, and give the engine the finished product. I guess in this case, one could use the TEXTURES lump and mirror the textures and add switches that way.
4. One could use that feature to stack lighting (I forget what it's called, but I know for a fact that it's in ZDoom), and stack lighting divisions every 1 unit vertically, and manually recreate the gradient, and use the floor and ceiling color for the top and bottom divisions. The only ingame disadvantages to this are that light gradients are only in steps (small ones though), and that thing color will use the floor color (or a certain point of the wall color gradient depending on their height relative to the floor).
5. Recreate the scripts in ACS.
6. Recreate the actors in DECORATE.

In the case of not using the Doom 64 branch, recreate the areas that use skyhacks with 3D floors instead.

Also, Gez did not point out that Doom 64 uses a 1:1 pixel ratio, whereas ZDoom uses a 5:6 pixel ratio, and that Doom 64 runs on 30 tics per second, not 35 like ZDoom.

One would need to do the following hacks to get around this:

- Edit all delays in ACS scripts and DECORATE states to be 1.167 times as long as normally defined.
- Edit all actor speeds and gravity setting for map to be 0.857 times as large as normally defined.
- Edit all sector heights and gravity setting for map, and all textures and sprites to be 0.833 times as large vertically as normally defined.

[Gez]

The ticrate and aspect ratio fall under the "not absolutely necessary" part because it'll still work correctly despite these discrepancies.

Though yeah, the Doom64 branch will eventually make ticrate and aspect ratio GameInfo properties. Which would please a lot of TC modders I suppose. But it's not a step I care about enough to work on before the rest of the game support is there to justify it.

[Lila Feuer]

As much as I love D64, it should stay with EX. Even the D64 artwork badly clashes with Classic Doom, making most of those pseudo-D64 mods weird looking in execution.

[Blastfrog]

Whoops, didn't mean to make this post. Delete please.