*** The "ask a miscellaneous editing question" thread ***

[Rayziik]

Gez said:

If all colors are unique, though, it'll sacrifice IIRC the darkest one and consider it's a duplicate of the second-darkest one.

That must be what it is doing then. I'll see if I can remedy the problem with the palette, else my project won't be zdoom compatible. Wow what a weird thing to say, lmao.

[Spectre01]

scifista42 said:

Try to split those HUGE sectors into smaller ones...

Thanks m8! Adding some arbitrary lines to split the big arena up fixed the GZDB lag.

[Misty]

I have a very newbish question-how to teleport player on 3d floor?It can be scripted or non-scripted way.

[scifista42]

Use the "Teleport Z Height" thing as a destination, and set its Z height to the appropriate height above the actual floor.

[Misty]

scifista42 said:

Use the "Teleport Z Height" thing as a destination, and set its Z height to the appropriate height above the actual floor.

Thank you.It works perfect as I wished.

[baja blast rd.]

I noticed that mappers sometimes tag every single sky sector in a map when they are using sky transfers. Barring any potential uses during the mapping process itself, is there a reason this might be useful (perhaps a port that doesn't work with zero-tagged sky transfers)?

[scifista42]

Tag 0 on a sky transfer linedef only applies the transfer to sectors with tag 0. To apply the transfer to non-zero tagged sectors, you need additional sky transfer linedefs with the respective tags.

EDIT: If you mean that they seem to refuse doing sky transfers with tag 0 at all, that's by itself indeed unnecessary, but perhaps they need the tags on those sectors to make other actions on those sectors work?

[baja blast rd.]

In these maps, functionally inert sky sectors that could be tagged zero are all given a tag.

[scifista42]

The only way that would be useful is if the mapper wanted to use 2 or more different skies in different sectors in the same map. Then he would have to differentiate these sectors by giving them distinct tags.

[Fonze]

rdwpa said:

I noticed that mappers sometimes tag every single sky sector in a map when they are using sky transfers. Barring any potential uses during the mapping process itself, is there a reason this might be useful (perhaps a port that doesn't work with zero-tagged sky transfers)?

Weird thing: I had to do this with WormHell because a strange Zand bug caused some sectors (but not all) tagged 0 to inherit a moving floor, though no line tags were tied to 0, minus the sky transfer. I think I looked into it at one point but I don't remember what the finding was.

[Geister]

How would I go about changing the pickup message for the keys? ive already done it successfully with 2 weapons by using inheritance and replacing. I have custom sprites for 3 keys each with the sprite name of specific key (YSKU,RKEY,BKEY) and don't know how to customize the Inventory.Pickup message for them. if I change the sprite names and define them as new actors in decorate and make the keys use inheritance, it shows the sprites in game, but my pickup message just says I picked up the corresponding key. if I make them inherit and replace, they just don't work on the door but show the message.

[scifista42]

You have 2 options:

1. Define the keys with new pickup messages as new actors in DECORATE + make a custom LOCKDEFS to (re)define door lock types so that they will require these new key actors to open them, and use these lock types on doors in your map.
2. Don't use any DECORATE for the keys, just replace sprites of the stock keys + redefine their pickup message strings via a custom LANGUAGE.

[Geister]

Thanks!I was going to try using a custom LANGUAGE last night but was overtired so I didn't really get the concept. Does the keyword in LANGUAGE such as GOTYELWSKUL have to have the $ marker in front of it or does that only apply to DECORATE? Basically, when I pick up the yellow skullkey I want it to say "You've found the Gold Key". I was looking at the examples on zdoomwiki last night and just cant get mine to work for some reason.

[scifista42]

Geister said:

Does the keyword in LANGUAGE such as GOTYELWSKUL have to have the $ marker in front of it or does that only apply to DECORATE?

No. LANGUAGE syntax is described in the top 3 paragraphs of its zdoom wiki page. So, the lump should contain something like this:

[enu default]

KEYWORD1 = "String 1";
KEYWORD2 = "String 2";

[Geister]

scifista42 said:

No. LANGUAGE syntax is described in the top 3 paragraphs of its zdoom wiki page. So, the lump should contain something like this:

[enu default]

KEYWORD1 = "String 1";
KEYWORD2 = "String 2";

Thanks a ton!!! I just tried this and it works like a charm now. Very much appreciated!

[BigDickBzzrak]

Can you make the player start the level in mid-air?
Preferably, a method that works with a limit-removing port and a BEX patch.

[scifista42]

You say limit-removing (presumably non-Boom) but also BEX (which is Boom-specific), so I will assume you mean Boom-compatible. The only good way I can think of is that, in Boom, you can make the player start on top of a high pillar with a conveyor belt that immediately pushes the player off the pillar and then the pillar is made to instantly descend. The pillar may be made of a self-referencing sector, therefore invisible even if the player managed to look down in time.

[BigDickBzzrak]

scifista42 said:

post

Actually I meant Crispy Doom, which is limit-removing, but supports BEX patches.
Thanks a lot nevertheless, I will certainly use that idea somewhere.

[scifista42]

The non-Boom placeholder for conveyor belts is the thrust force of explosions, but of couse, it comes with the cost of draining the player's health.

[baja blast rd.]

scifista42 said:

You say limit-removing (presumably non-Boom) but also BEX (which is Boom-specific), so I will assume you mean Boom-compatible. The only good way I can think of is that, in Boom, you can make the player start on top of a high pillar with a conveyor belt that immediately pushes the player off the pillar and then the pillar is made to instantly descend. The pillar may be made of a self-referencing sector, therefore invisible even if the player managed to look down in time.

It works!

[Geister]

scifista42 said:

No. LANGUAGE syntax is described in the top 3 paragraphs of its zdoom wiki page. So, the lump should contain something like this:

[enu default]

KEYWORD1 = "String 1";
KEYWORD2 = "String 2";

Could this also be used to change the "key needed" message for the corresponding doors as well? if so, I'm not sure what the keywords are

[scifista42]

Geister said:

Could this also be used to change the "key needed" message for the corresponding doors as well?

Yes.

Geister said:

if so, I'm not sure what the keywords are

Find "zdoom.pk3" in your ZDoom directory, open it in SLADE3 (or via .zip extractor), find "language.enu" file in there, open it as text, search for the texts you want, and you'll find out the keywords.

[Gez]

Geister said:

Could this also be used to change the "key needed" message for the corresponding doors as well? if so, I'm not sure what the keywords are

Yes, pretty much every string in the game can be changed with LANGUAGE. (Note that some things are not actually strings; for example level names in the "LEVEL completed" and "now entering LEVEL" messages in the intermap are actually images.)

Whenever they exist, strings names are the same as the BEX mnemonics. But if you want the full list the simplest is to look at the LANGUAGE lump in zdoom.pk3 or even on the repository.

[Geister]

excellent! my map is looking a lot better now. thanks for all the help!!

[DooM_RO]

I have a really weird bug.

So I start my map and I am either glued to the ceiling or to the floor. Wtf is going on?

It only happens in one section of my map.

[scifista42]

Check if Map Analysis Mode finds any errors that could be related to unclosed sectors or something similar.

[DooM_RO]

Oh shit, my map is getting too big.

It said in an error.

[scifista42]

Gez said:

[ZDoom] needs a transparent color, which it'll choose from a duplicate color. If all colors are unique, though, it'll sacrifice IIRC the darkest one and consider it's a duplicate of the second-darkest one.

Wouldn't it make more sense to sacrifice the color which is the closest-looking to another color in the palette? Differences between similar dark colors might actually be more noticeable than differences between similar brighter colors. The black turning into dark blue is a clear example. ZDoom could and should have automatically picked a better color to replace, if only the color picking procedure was slightly smarter.

[MaxED]

There are many things in ZDoom, which could and should have been implemented better and nobody to actually spend some time and effort and (re)implement them.

[Gez]

Also a number of them suffer from the "but if we change it to something that makes more sense now, it's going to break dozens of mods that depend on the not-perfectly-sensical behavior" issue.