Why don't people just use UDMF format?

[Da Werecat]

45 minutes ago, MTrop said:

As the resident old man who has mapped for every conceivable format that a map can be in from Doom's inception up until now, every last person who is still posting in this thread after Xaser's post on page one should be ashamed of themselves for the white noise that they have created (I honestly expected better of some of you).

Obligatory THEN DON'T POST ANYTHING EITHER attack.

[Graf Zahl]

3 hours ago, Da Werecat said:

There is a significant correlation.

 

It's still not correct. NIH's rants were not about UDMF but about ZDoom-exclusive features.

 

3 hours ago, Da Werecat said:

 

If we're talking in practical terms, is there a reason to use UDMF if you're gonna use it for vanilla features only? Especially considering that no simple engine allows UDMF as of this moment.

 

The minimum UDMF standard is Boom. Aside from that, yes there might be one reason to use it, if such an engine existed: You can flag different things for ITYTD/HNTR or UV/Nightmare.

 

[baja blast rd.]

On 11/16/2017 at 5:24 PM, Eris Falling said:

I've often thought the idea of a new path opening by the simple act of retrieving a key could be kinda cool but I'm not sure if I've ever seen it before. Makes more sense for skull keys rather than keycards, admittedly.

A couple of my early speedmaps do precisely this. 

 

 

[Arctangent]

19 hours ago, Da Werecat said:

Obligatory THEN DON'T POST ANYTHING EITHER attack.

I mean, he is doing the exact same thing only he's taking pride in that his physical and metaphorical dong has more wrinkles in it, all while also blatantly using the "I'm older and more experienced" to feign fading hearing so he can justify blanket proclamations without actually looking at what's been really going on.

 

It's honestly so egregious that I'm not entirely sure if it's some muddied parody.

[riderr3]

Many people just don't use even 20% features of UDMF. So why do they need to use this format? It is funny about some beginner map authors launching Doom Builder for the first time and choosing UDMF/ZDoom formats, in hope they will create something... But it result they are abandoning their projects, in cause of UDMF format have too many features and authors even didn't know what to choose. Familiar feeling, right? I remember myself in 2012 when I tried to make huge ZDoom wad and for sure abandoned it. At current time, I'm slowly evolving from vanilla to limit-removing and boom.

[Graf Zahl]

50 minutes ago, riderr3 said:

Many people just don't use even 20% features of UDMF. So why do they need to use this format? It is funny about some beginner map authors launching Doom Builder for the first time and choosing UDMF/ZDoom formats, in hope they will create something... But it result they are abandoning their projects, in cause of UDMF format have too many features and authors even didn't know what to choose. Familiar feeling, right? I remember myself in 2012 when I tried to make huge ZDoom wad and for sure abandoned it. At current time, I'm slowly evolving from vanilla to limit-removing and boom.

 

What would you say about games then where you do not have a less feature-rich format?

Let's be clear: It's not UDMF that's posing problems for such mappers but a lack of vision. The same people will normally use every hack in the book if they have to work with something more limited, because it cannot be done directly and in the end throw in the towel just as they did with UDMF.

 

 

[jazzmaster9]

5 hours ago, riderr3 said:

Many people just don't use even 20% features of UDMF. So why do they need to use this format? It is funny about some beginner map authors launching Doom Builder for the first time and choosing UDMF/ZDoom formats, in hope they will create something... But it result they are abandoning their projects, in cause of UDMF format have too many features and authors even didn't know what to choose. Familiar feeling, right? I remember myself in 2012 when I tried to make huge ZDoom wad and for sure abandoned it. At current time, I'm slowly evolving from vanilla to limit-removing and boom.

Is this really the fault of the Format or the Author who clearly had no vision of what he wanted to make so bit off more than he could chew?

 

Dont blame the tool for a bad artist's failed creation.

[Da Werecat]

Bad artist? Lack of vision? Inexperienced - maybe, but what do those things have to do with anything?

[jazzmaster9]

Be cause when someone fails to create/finish a good UDMF map its somehow the formats fault for having too many features.

[Da Werecat]

Well, I wouldn't use the word "fault" here, personally.

[stonedbaroness]

10 hours ago, riderr3 said:

Many people just don't use even 20% features of UDMF. So why do they need to use this format? It is funny about some beginner map authors launching Doom Builder for the first time and choosing UDMF/ZDoom formats, in hope they will create something... But it result they are abandoning their projects, in cause of UDMF format have too many features and authors even didn't know what to choose. Familiar feeling, right? I remember myself in 2012 when I tried to make huge ZDoom wad and for sure abandoned it. At current time, I'm slowly evolving from vanilla to limit-removing and boom.

I use the format because boom doesn't do 3D Floors, sectoral lighting (With ease, there is a vanilla alternative bu it isn't worth straining yourself over) , Portals (These especially), ACS, etc. I know some of the stuff mentioned makes up only like 5% of UDMF features, but even those can help create cool looking levels. 

[Shadow Hog]

On 11/12/2017 at 8:36 AM, Graf Zahl said:

I had been hoping that my UMAPINFO work would eventually be picked up, but sadly it didn't happen.

For what it's worth, I'm still chugging away at a WAD that supports UMAPINFO! I know that you're mostly talking about engine support, but still, it's something!

 

I do kinda wish that had caught on more; it's turning out to be quite handy.

[Koko Ricky]

You don't want to jump on the drums expecting to play like Max Roach or Neal Pearl. You take it slow and build your way up. I think the same can be said about vanilla versus UDMF.

[Doomkid]

On 11/17/2017 at 5:57 PM, MTrop said:

As the resident old man who has mapped for every conceivable format that a map can be in from Doom's inception up until now, every last person who is still posting in this thread after Xaser's post on page one should be ashamed of themselves for the white noise that they have created (I honestly expected better of some of you).

I dunno, my points about how it can be easier for beginners to start with a less restrictive format seemed pretty legit :^) It's a shame we're only ever given one side of the "where should newbies start" story because I mean, unless your goal is to map for Boom or Vanilla, it's simply not productive use of time to learn/overcome/work within a gazillion arbitrary limits.

 

I'm honestly shocked this thread is still going though, even though I think several good points were made by several people, they're completely buried under a large heap of dung. Then again, "quality" lulz were provided by this thread, so I can't complain too much.

[leodoom85]

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

I'm honestly shocked this thread is still going though, even though I think several good points were made by several people, they're completely buried under a large heap of dung. Then again, "quality" lulz were provided by this thread, so I can't complain too much.

I agree with you that we did good points and for both sides but sadly, negative points are more "relevant" than positive points. The lolz are optional nonetheless. 

And I called it before that we continue arguing with points that we ALREADY discussed 5 pages ago....

[Arctangent]

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

It's a shame we're only ever given one side of the "where should newbies start" story because I mean, unless your goal is to map for Boom or Vanilla, it's simply not productive use of time to learn/overcome/work within a gazillion arbitrary limits.

I wonder how much this stems from people never actually trying UDMF, or trying UDMF for all of five seconds, opening up the linedef window, and then running away with the fear that one of the options will nuke their house or something.

 

Like, there's always the argument that it's more complex, but is it more complex to the point where it's actually difficult to use after experimenting with it for a bit? Everything's pretty well labeled if you don't use an outdated editor, GZDB in particular provides plenty of preset options for line actions and such so you don't need to actually know how fast a particular door speed is numerically, and there's not really much in the way of unintuitive stuff that isn't inherited straight from vanilla Doom anyway. Hell, like what you mentioned with the limits and stuff, it sheds quite a bit of unintuitive stuff.

[Shadow Hog]

I expect the problem is more paralysis of choice - the sort of thing that you get when you own tons of video games, but don't particularly feel like playing any of them. In this case, you're offered nearly unlimited potential, to the point that a newbie won't decide what to focus on and the end results will be a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" scenario, or perhaps they'll feature creep their map to hell and back and it never gets completed.

 

I dunno how true it is, TBH, but I expect that's where the Boom-format people are coming from - with a far more limited feature set, it forces the newbie mappers to focus a lot more narrowly on the basics.

 

As far as my cart in the race, I like both formats a lot. Granted, I like being able to script in ACS a lot more than voodoo doll trickery, and I also really like that UDMF lets me shift around flats, or define different offsets for different parts of a sidedef - but by and large, I can work just fine in Boom as well.

[Da Werecat]

When you learn programming, you learn algorithms first. Something technically not appliable in the real world. We don't really have this for 2.5D mapping.

Then you quickly graduate to your first language. Typically something simple and not very powerful. You probably won't be able to write enterprise software with it, but that's not the point.

[Cynical]

1 hour ago, Da Werecat said:

Then you quickly graduate to your first language. Typically something simple and not very powerful.

Eh?  Since about 2000, the standard "first languages" for people in computer science courses have been either C++ or Java.

[Da Werecat]

Depends on where you live, I guess.

[Graf Zahl]

Even in programming, the major problem is mostly the same as in mapping: The language you learn first is rarely the issue (that is, unless you learn programming with something like C which doesn't support any modern programming paradigms) but the fact that a beginning programmer needs to learn some discipline first. Whether C++, C+, Java, Javascript or Swift, those wo let loose all those exciting featues at once are in for a very rough time.

 

And comparing a feature-poor vs. a feature-rich language is nearly the same as well. Give an inexperienced programmer a feature poor language, and they will use all the hacks in the world that turn their code into a mess. Give them a feature rich language, and they use all the language's features in a way that turns their code into a mess - and last but not least - give them a very liberal language like Javascript and they inevitably create a mess - just that this language gives no assistance learning to do it better at all.

 

But all in all, a good learning language doesn't restrict its feature set - what it restricts is the ways in which problematic code is written, as an example let's use Java's lack of pointers. That alone closes a huge field of potential programming errors. But binary maps vs. UDMF more compare to C vs. modern languages, i.e. you have a wide open field of making errors but no assistance to find more stable ways to handle these cases.

 

 

[Cacodemon345]

This thread is a total mess of what supports and what-not.

I would prefer start mapping with UDMF instead.

And everyone seems to be forgetting about DEHACKED in lieu of the UDMF vs Boom format.

UDMF is not ZDoom,ZDoom is not UDMF.It is a map format supported by Eternity too.

The highly important part is the OpenGL shit that GZDoom depends on.

Not all people have computers and capable GPUs that can even run it, as it requires newer OpenGL hardware.

That's why most still prefer using Boom format to make them playable on most source ports.

As for Nuts.wad,not many GPUs will be able to handle it (will run at lower FPS.)

[Edward850]

57 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

As for Nuts.wad,not many GPUs will be able to handle it (will run at lower FPS.)

nuts.wad performance has very little to do with GPUs.

[scifista42]

^ Which, as not all of us might know, is because the wad's main performance bottleneck is not rendering, but movement and AI.

[Da Werecat]

6 hours ago, Cacodemon345 said:

And everyone seems to be forgetting about DEHACKED in lieu of the UDMF vs Boom format.

Boom is not a map format.

[Cacodemon345]

Then why people mention that boom is a map format?

[Da Werecat]

Probably for the same reason they connect UDMF to advanced features. Some are misguided, others only take the most obvious and practical ways to use map formats into account.

[Gez]

It's a rather common confusion between format and standard.