Building the New Evolution

When I say the format should be designed in the open, I understand why you might not like the idea. But I am not saying it should be designed by committee, that would be ridiculous. I am saying you should give ample time for anyone to comment on it, have at least one beta, etc.
Anyone who has not said their piece by that point can only blame themselves.

And also, as I was trying to imply, I really don't care if DB works on linux or not either. As a linux user I have learned to accept that I can't have everything. But I have also learned to hope that no problem is irreparable :)

So by all means use DB as the starting point. But if you are going to try and actively block people out just because you can't quell a few debates, then maybe the project should be doomed to fail...

Graf Zahl said:

A properly designed text format can easily be extended by new information.

How can I be reassured that it will be properly designed?

Check Quasar's thread in the Source Ports forum. It's obvious that he put some thought into it.

Just an idea, have that when you rightclick you can "Play or Goto 3D mode from here"

chilvence said:

As for the extended map format, its something that should be considered before the editor is even built, and by anyone who might be interested.

Problem with that is that not everyone who is interested actually knows what he is talking about. You'll have some people spending hours typing huge posts with their 'demands' that don't have a clue what is involved.

BlackFish said:

Just an idea, have that when you rightclick you can "Play or Goto 3D mode from here"

Not a bad idea, but it would have to be a shortcut key (or a mouse button other than left/right), because right-click is used for editing various things.

Well, you don't have to listen. You don't even have to listen to me, certainly I have nothing to give. I gave up mapping before ports even existed.

I only have my opinions.

Personally I think this whole endeavor is short sighted. There are plenty of 2.5 d games out there that are similar and could use the same degree of life support that Doom enjoys. The resurrection of Strife has shown that it is possible, in fact there are plenty of projects on the internet to keep other kinds of games alive that never had a source release. Scummvm, gemrb...

Since there are no more of these games in production, I think it would be much more interesting to design a format that is all encompassing, build the framework of an engine that can be gradually extended to understand all these games, and start working on a 'one editor to rule them all' sort of thing.

Since that won't be happening here though, I leave you in peace.

Who is saying that this isn't open enough?
Besides, I somehow doubt that many Doomers (even mappers) are too familiar with the inner workings of other engines. For example, my knowledge of Build is rather limited and I'm not qualified to judge how any of this might be usable for it.

But what I do know is that thinking too big right from the start will only help killing this faster. We have to start somewhere and then go on.

Quasar said:

reasonable dialogue with input from people to whom this actually matters

I hope it's not Eternity with ExtraData the one questioned whether itself matters. Some maps need to be done quickly to justify the uses of ExtraData.

printz said:

I hope it's not Eternity with ExtraData the one questioned whether itself matters. Some maps need to be done quickly to justify the uses of ExtraData.

The purpose of ExtraData was to allow for expandable additional fields and parameters when map editing (i.e. to be able to align flats or set transfer lights or whatever without needing to make dummy sectors or control linedefs), as a sort of midway between the Doom format and an entirely new format. This thread is not about ExtraData.

oh, I've just remembered something.

some of us have mice with 4-6 buttons, but currently we cannot bind these buttons in doom builder. I recall there being some technical reason why it was not possible, but perhaps this feature could be implemented into DB2? not a grave demand, it would just be nice.

MasterOfPuppets said:

oh, I've just remembered something.

some of us have mice with 4-6 buttons, but currently we cannot bind these buttons in doom builder. I recall there being some technical reason why it was not possible, but perhaps this feature could be implemented into DB2? not a grave demand, it would just be nice.

That would be fantastic.

Holy shit! I think I may have to reinstall Doom.

Planky said:

(Doombuilder1)...
It is still the same as it was 'in its day' and still remains a good functional editor now. [/overthetop]

Right. I agree. So the BIGGEST IMPROVEMENTS that a new DOOM Builder possibly could bring would be:

- PORTABLE SOURCECODE for Unix/Linux/OSX
- GPL

But unfortunately, CodeImp let these chances go.

Windows Vista sucks and Microsofts future is uncertain.
Linux (and therefore OSX) is getting stronger from day to day.


WHY -again- NO DOOMBUIDER FOR X?

A shiny, easy to use Editor with 10.000 new features is useless when it works on the wrong operating system. And I really would like to have it GPL'ed. Do not forget the DOOMCONNECTOR-Desaster that happens to ZDaemon. Maybe this would not has happened with a largher Dev-Team.

DoomGater said:

Windows Vista sucks and Microsofts future is uncertain.
Linux (and therefore OSX) is getting stronger from day to day.

In which parallel universe is that happening?

Graf Zahl said:

In which parallel universe is that happening?

Haha, well. If you look around, Linux is becoming better known thanks to dell selling some ubuntu powered machines.

But lets be completely honest here. Linux is still a drop in the bucket compared to windows.
Whenever a company puts fourth the effort to make their program/game Linux compatible, they are pouring resources in for a fraction of the bigger picture: Most people use Windows.

Vista may suck, but it's not Windows Millennium Edition: 2.
It's solid, just kinda slow and annoying.

DoomGater said:
A shiny, easy to use Editor with 10.000 new features is useless when it works on the wrong operating system.

So it's the wrong operating system just because your not using it?

I'm all for a linux version here, but isn't CodeImp using C# or something? AFAIK, your SOL if it's not completely C++.

Mike.Reiner said:

Vista may suck, but it's not Windows Millennium Edition: 2.
It's solid, just kinda slow and annoying.

It's really strange then that I don't have any problems with it, including (most importantly) no performance issues (I disabled Aero though because I find it annoying.) The system very rarely uses more than 1% CPU power.

ME was a major disaster. I had the 'fun' of having to work with it for 6 months.

Graf Zahl said:

It's really strange then that I don't have any problems with it, including (most importantly) no performance issues (I disabled Aero though because I find it annoying.) The system very rarely uses more than 1% CPU power.

ME was a major disaster. I had the 'fun' of having to work with it for 6 months.

I guess it just varies for some people. Just about every experience I've had with Vista has been really slow and annoying. I don't care for eye candy myself, hell, I don't even use the XP skins. Classic all the way.

All I know is, if somebody had a relatively old machine that ran XP just fine, chances are it won't run Vista very well at all.
I use XP on all my machines, the weakest being a pentium III 866Mhz with 512mb ram.
XP works just as fast as 2000 did on it.

Not a chance in hell you would even think about trying vista on it.

DoomGater said:
So the BIGGEST IMPROVEMENTS that a new DOOM Builder possibly could bring would be:

- PORTABLE SOURCECODE for Unix/Linux/OSX
- GPL

But unfortunately, CodeImp let these chances go.

from the Doom Builder site:
This program is released under GNU General Public License.

DoomGater said:
WHY -again- NO DOOMBUIDER FOR X?

That's what Yadex and SLADE are for...

CODOR said:

That's what Yadex and SLADE are for...

SLADE doesn't work in OS X either...

esselfortium said:
SLADE doesn't work in OS X either...

Whoops, I thought he meant X as in X Window System...

CODOR said:

Whoops, I thought he meant X as in X Window System...

Oh, lul. I think he actually did. My mistake, I had just woken up and I misread it.

edit:

- PORTABLE SOURCECODE for Unix/Linux/OSX

Well, I was half-right at least. :p

DoomGater said:

Right. I agree. So the BIGGEST IMPROVEMENTS that a new DOOM Builder possibly could bring would be:

- PORTABLE SOURCECODE for Unix/Linux/OSX
- GPL

But unfortunately, CodeImp let these chances go.

Doom Builder is GPL and CodeImp shows no sign of changing that. As for cross platform, as much as I'd like it, realism kicks in and tells me C# is definitely the best language he could have chosen for the project. Also it is cross platform so when you get full Windows forms support put into Mono compiling on other OSs should be simple.

If I were to write an editor, I would write it in Python and get portability for free. But that's just me (and I'm not writing an editor).

Ok, I have to admit that I was wrong, maybe it'll be GPL'ed.


...But Vista still sucks.

C# is the weapon of choice.
And judging by the fact CodeIpmp is using WinForms, I guess this will be NET 2.0 compatibile.

The new 3D mode looks very clean, and... slopes! 3D floors!

Way to go! C sharp for the ultimate win!

(and just curious, what was the DoomBuilder 1 language?)

John Smith said:

Doom Builder is GPL and CodeImp shows no sign of changing that. As for cross platform, as much as I'd like it, realism kicks in and tells me C# is definitely the best language he could have chosen for the project. Also it is cross platform so when you get full Windows forms support put into Mono compiling on other OSs should be simple.

It's not. The problem is the choice of DirectX over OpenGL, but as CodeImp is the author, thats his prerogative to choose. I've attempted to build under mono, and while windows forms will be implemented for mono, I rather doubt a DirectX wrapper will be.

ellmo said:

(and just curious, what was the DoomBuilder 1 language?)

A mixture of Visual Basic and C.

Will there be a way to use the old flat colours for vertices/things instead of the junky plastic pop-up ones showcased so far? Something about them doesn't fit right imho. That's about my only complaint so far.. OH and that white background for the texture browser creates a strange contrast which might not be beneficial to mappers with dark monitors :P

Everything else looks superb though.

I just have one question, how long time will there go before we see a version for download on the page? :P
Or else I can't think of any functions I want in db2, at least not at the moment, It looks great.

iori: Yea perhaps i'll make an option to simplify the graphics.

Torn: Not in a while I'm afraid, it is still an alpha verion, most of it doesn't work yet. Right now I'm very busy with a girl and finishing school, but I'm sure I'll pick up the pace in a month or two.

Also, please make Doom Builder 2 act in such a way that it doesn't remove unseen textures every time I split the sector. It's annoying and unnecessary. Thanks.