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

[Bauul]

Thanks for the suggestion! I've tweaked the title to make it more obvious it's a WIP.

And thanks for the feedback too, I'm glad you're enjoying it so far!

Yeah a rocket launcher would rather remove the challenge in that room! The Mancbuses aren't really meant to be killable though, they're more an environmental hazard. I hope you didn't spend too long trying to kill them?

[DooM_RO]

I've made really good progress on my map in the last days. A big area is almost ready but the lighting is a bit flat. Lighting has always been my weakest part. Are there any guides for improving lighting skills or even WADs that I can study?

[Agentbromsnor]

It seems like ZDoom's DECORATE doesn't support global variables yet. If I try to declare this variable outside of an actor:

var int globalVar;

It gives me an error saying: "Script error, "game.pk3:decorate" line 1:
Expected '{', got 'int'".

Does anyone know of some way to do global variables in DECORATE? Or is this something that's still on the list of features to add? It would make my life so much easier.

[scifista42]

There are no global DECORATE variables.

[Dragonfly]

There might be some hacky way of doing it by using custom inventory and the likes... I also may be talking a load of old shit; so I guess I'd wait it out and hope for a response from someone more competent than I, or maybe even start a thread about the issue.

[Agentbromsnor]

Well... That is unfortunate.

For my 2D platform setup, I have almost everything set up. As in: the sprite changes depending on if you move left or right, and you can kill things using A_FireBullets that functions like a short ranged melee-attack. The problem that I have is that I have this attack set up for the right side, so therefore it's impossible to attack things when you're facing left.

I can use a dummy inventory item (just like I did for determining the player sprite's attack animation), but I think A_JumpIfInventory only works in the player class' DECORATE, no?

[Dragonfly]

From what I can see, based on the example given here on the wiki, you can use it inside of weapons. The example checks if the player has a shell before performing the reload animation on a shotgun, if they have a shell it jumps to the reload animation.

Check it out, hopefully you can get it to work.

[Agentbromsnor]

Dragonfly said:

From what I can see, based on the example given here on the wiki, you can use it inside of weapons. The example checks if the player has a shell before performing the reload animation on a shotgun, if they have a shell it jumps to the reload animation.

Check it out, hopefully you can get it to work.

Hey, it seems you're right! Now I think I should get it to work. Thanks!

Edit: I just tried it out with another dummy actor and it seems to working. Cool!

[scifista42]

Agentbromsnor said:

I think A_JumpIfInventory only works in the player class' DECORATE, no?

It actually works in any DECORATE. In a non-weapon actor's DECORATE, it checks the respective actor's inventory (both players and non-players have inventory), and in a weapon actor's DECORATE, it checks inventory of the player actor who currently has this weapon selected (as the weapon's DECORATE code is only being executed while the player has the weapon selected, and as non-players can't even select weapons at all).

[Dragonfly]

Glad I was able to point you in the right direction! Scifista42's point is also good to know. :)

[Albertoni]

Suppose I have a line of 128 rectangular sectors. I want to tag them from 101 to 228 so I can do some ACS magic.

Is there an easy, automated way to do that in GZDoom builder, or should I just write a quick python script to replace the tags in the UDMF code?

[baja blast rd.]

Select them in the desired order and use the tag range function.

[Albertoni]

Uh, where exactly is that? In the sidebar or somewhere else?

I mean, glad to know it exists, really glad, but... Where is it? Anyway, thanks a lot, both for the positive answer and for your future reply!

[Matthias]

Guys! Guys!

I got a problem here!

When I was working on my megawad, I was testing it in the Zadronum - Hardware reneder.

The game was too bright, so I set the brightness in all rooms in the map dark.

But then I tried to launch it in the Zdoom and it's too fucking dark. You can see a single thing! Gamma Corection and brighttness in the settings didn't help.

I can set it brighter again, but it'll extremely brigt in the zadronum.

So what should I do?

[baja blast rd.]

The tag range function looks like a tag and should be visible in sectors and linedefs modes.

[Albertoni]

@rdwpa: Thanks a lot! <3

enkeli33 said:

The game was too bright, so I set the brightness in all rooms in the map dark.

But then I tried to launch it in the Zdoom and it's too fucking dark. You can see a single thing! Gamma Corection and brighttness in the settings didn't help.

I can set it brighter again, but it'll extremely brigt in the zadronum.

Hardware renderers look brighter. You can see pretty well with brightness 96 in a room with the hardware renderer, while in software that would be really dark and you wouldn't be able to see more than a meter or so in front of you.

Easiest solution is to just make it look how you want in one of them, then tell people to use a port with a software or hardware renderer. Something like "Made for OpenGL renderers, but it's playable in Zdoom and software Zandronum; It will just look a bit ugly."

[Matthias]

Albertoni said:

@rdwpa: Thanks a lot! <3

Hardware renderers look brighter. You can see pretty well with brightness 96 in a room with the hardware renderer, while in software that would be really dark and you wouldn't be able to see more than a meter or so in front of you.

Easiest solution is to just make it look how you want in one of them, then tell people to use a port with a software or hardware renderer. Something like "Made for OpenGL renderers, but it's playable in Zdoom and software Zandronum; It will just look a bit ugly."

Well I was thinking to set gamma correction exactly 1 for both - zdoom and zandroum, so the brightness in settings

and try to "optimalize" somehow

and than recommend in .txt file something like "gamma 1, brightness 1.00, otherwise it sucks)

[Jaws In Space]

EDIT: Solved

Need some Dehacked help.

I'm attempting to do my first dehacked for the project Bloody Rust 2 & while I figured mot things out with a bit of guidance, I'm stumped with making the Afrit work properly. He has two problems, first is that I have him set at 700 HP so he should be as strong as an Arch-Vile, yet he is somehow able to be killed with a single SSG shot. Secondly upon death his death sound does not play.

The wad with the the dehacked included internally can be downloaded here. If someone can let me know what I did wrong & how I can resolve the issue it would be much appreciated.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yq4atmbh6m28btq/BloodyRust2.wad?dl=1

[baja blast rd.]

The problem is the afrit's pain and death states are identical.

[Jaws In Space]

rdwpa said:

The problem is the afrit's pain and death states are identical.

Ah I checked out the pain frame, Frame 542, & saw that I had accidentally wrote the next frame as one of the death frames. So whenever he was in pain he would immediately die.

[Spectre01]

Heeey what's good? I got a question about them liquid textures. There are like 3 versions of each, e.g. BLOOD1/2/3 and same with the various falls. Now I've been using the #1 version most of the time and can't really tell much difference between them. Is there a situation where it's better to use the #2/3 versions?

[Empyre]

rileymartin said:

Heeey what's good? I got a question about them liquid textures. There are like 3 versions of each, e.g. BLOOD1/2/3 and same with the various falls. Now I've been using the #1 version most of the time and can't really tell much difference between them. Is there a situation where it's better to use the #2/3 versions?

Those aren't three versions of the blood texture. They are the three frames of the animation. Just use the first one.

[scifista42]

Indeed, they're frames of the same animation, and the one you put into the map just determines the initial frame. In other words, if you use BLOOD1 in a given sector in your map, the sector's animation will go like 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 1 -> 2 -> 3... If you use BLOOD2, the animation will go like 2 -> 3 -> 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 1 -> 2 -> 3... And if you use BLOOD3, the animation will go like 3 -> 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 1 -> 2 -> 3...

[Spectre01]

I assume it's the same with things like waterfalls and the energy FIELD textures too then?

[scifista42]

Yes.

However, it seems that the initial frame of animated flats and the initial frame of animated textures may not be in sync relatively to each other (even though the animation delays are in perfect sync), depending on which port you're using. So, avoid using custom flats + textures with such an appearance that the initial frame of the flat's animation needs to be in perfect sync with the initial frame of the texture's animation, because depending on the port, the flat-vs-texture initial frames may end up being out of sync.

[Agentbromsnor]

I'm trying to figure out what makes "A_PlaySound" tick. The ZDoom article doesn't go into a lot of depth about it, so I'm wondering if somebody can explain its workings a bit more thoroughly.

Basically, I'm trying to get this bit of weapon DECORATE to work:

         TNT1 A 0
         {
            A_FireBullets(270, 0, -1, 1, 0, FBF_EXPLICITANGLE | FBF_NORANDOM, 30);
            A_PlaySound("Weapons/SLASH");
         }

Though the ZDoom article doesn't mention SNDINFO anywhere, my SNDINFO looks like this:

Weapons		SLASH

"Weapons" being the directory that includes my "SLASH.ogg" file.

[scifista42]

Your SNDINFO maps a sound lump "SLASH" to a sound name "Weapons", not "Weapons/SLASH". So, either change your SNDINFO to this:

Weapons/SLASH		SLASH

Or change your PlaySound parameter to this:

A_PlaySound("Weapons");

Both solutions would be valid, but the former one makes more sense.

EDIT: Wait.

Agentbromsnor said:

"Weapons" being the directory that includes my "SLASH.ogg" file.

Sounds should be inside "sounds" directory. If "weapons" is a subdirectory inside your "sounds" directory, then you should refer to the sound lump as Weapons/SLASH - that is, your SNDINFO should look like this:

Weapons/SLASH		Weapons/SLASH

Please understand that the first (logical) name is completely arbitrary, whereas the second (lump) name must be appropriate to the sound lump's name (and possibly position) inside the "sounds" folder in your pk3.

EDIT2: I'm not so sure anymore how sounds in subdirectories should be treated by SNDINFO, correct me if I said anything wrong.

[Agentbromsnor]

Oh, so it has nothing to do with the directory then? I guess it's similar to sprites, where it doesn't matter what sub-directory of the PK3 the lump is in?

It's working. Thanks!

scifista42 said:

Please understand that the first (logical) name is completely arbitrary, whereas the second (lump) name must be appropriate to the sound lump's name (and possibly position) inside the "sounds" folder in your pk3.

I see. Though at the moment, I named them both SLASH in my SNDINFO and it still works. Hmm... If I change it to this: "SLASH Weapons/SLASH", the sound doesn't play anymore.

[scifista42]

Sound assignment has the following syntax:

<logicalname> <lumpname>

And A_PlaySound expects a <logicalname> given to it as its parameter. Therefore, the parameter of your A_PlaySound must match the <logicalname> from your SNDINFO, while the sound lump file name inside your pk3 must match the <lumpname> in your SNDINFO.

[Agentbromsnor]

Yeah, I get that. But apparently, the sub-directory doesn't (and shouldn't) be specified in the SNDINFO. At least, this is my experience from debugging it just now.

The PlaySound function looks like this: "A_PlaySound("SLASH");", while the SNDINFO looks like this: "SLASH SLASH". If I rename the lump-name to "Weapons/SLASH" (so that the SNDINFO looks like "SLASH Weapons/SLASH") like in your previous example, it doesn't work.