Nevander

Here's a sweet music pack created by Lorcan that really spices up the original TNT soundtrack. It's my personal favorite, and will surely make your play-through of TNT all the more enjoyable (especially if you've played TNT before and know the MIDIs). http://www.mediafire.com/file/sd1z8930fmar2s0/tnt-lorcan-mus.pk3

You guys are gonna love the Test Facility map, the one where you can see all weapons, ammo, items, monsters and props. Doing some cool stuff on it, one of which is a firing range. There's a script that will spawn Zombiemen that look like they are holographic and thrust them towards you every second, then when they cross a line close enough to you, they get removed. It would be even cooler if I could script some kind of scoring system for multiple players. Also did a fully 3D midtexture as a test. Always thought it looked weird in Doom for a midtexture to be meant to be 3D but is flat as can be when you look at it from the side, so I created a 3D one using 3D floors and void space. Gonna see what other cool stuff I can come up with.

From Memento Mori 1, my favorites are Galaxy, The Wind, and Untitled 2. From Memento Mori 2, my favorite is Anchor (without a doubt). I don't know the map numbers because I got the names from these (look under Megawad covers).

Mine is... not that short lol. I basically looked at the way Doom 64 did it originally and wrote scripts to do SetLineSpecial changes on the switches depending on which ones you pressed. It's quite long, but it works. Looking at that script through I'm trying to figure out how it knows which one you pushed. Only thing that comes to mind is that is some arithmetic sorcery where a certain switch will always fall in that number range when the next is pressed, but I haven't tried that code yet.

I think Dark Halls is your best cover. I love when it hits the 1:18 mark.

EDIT: Scratch that, figured it out. Lel. --- Well it seems I've discovered the true pain in the ass, and here I thought it was the Dark Entries Soulsphere puzzle. You probably know what I'm about to say: the switch combinations in Unholy Temple. I just got to that part during my remake of that map, and I'm kinda stuck. No joke I have no clue how to make it work, yet. The original map's macros re-assign the other lines to other macros which do the same thing, assign more new macro actions. It's like macroception. There has got to be a way to do it without needing to do a bunch of line special setting, but then again that might be the key. The problem with this part is that it's not just a single possible series, there are 6 possible combinations and only 3 of them end in success, the other 3 end in the wall closing down and spawning Hell Knights and it all resets again. This means I can't simply do what I do on Holding Area and assign a "nextSwitch" type variable and check against that since you can start with 3 different switches and still end up in success.

Basically, when fired it sends out a line of new mobjs at the player's height that spawn in each subsector that the line fired from will cross. Once fired, it connects all these laser "nodes" into a straight beam and gives us the beam we see. The tech bible explains it better. For my version, right now I have it so it fires a fast projectile which spawns a shit load of smaller projectiles behind it as it travels to "appear" linked together. It's far from perfect but it's the best Unmaker firing attempt I've seen from all the Doom 64 projects so far. I'm sure it can be improved more.

I hope it does, because that will make any and all project that wishes to use gradient lighting look infinitely better. Keeping something like that closed source will anger many, especially since there's a video now clearly showing it as a reality. I also see additive glowing strobe lights, which my project is also lacking.

Basically what enderandrew said, but one more and very important point is that all previous attempts at bringing Doom 64 to GZDoom have been quite messy and poorly made. No offense to the creators, but they are. Brutal Doom 64 so far has done the best job. The other one (which BD64 was based off of) called GZDoom64 was basically ripped straight from the Absolution TC since it was already made to run on a classic Doom type engine, that being Doomsday. This project is a fresh remake of Doom 64 for GZDoom, with no prior base being used apart from the monsters and weapons and stuff. Even then, it's been heavily modified so far to be closer to Doom 64 and also better in general. The base for this was Doom 64 WMI. You can find it by googling that exact name and the first YouTube video result is it. This was the most accurate base I could have started with, most of the hard work already being done. The maps are all being done fresh from the source, Doom 64's map WADs.

So they are doing the same thing I am, but have a custom GZDoom capable of doing Doom 64's lighting system? These changes to GZDoom's engine need to be made public so they can be used in GZDoom by default! Like I said, I see stuff in that video that can lead to really cool stuff, not just for a Doom 64 remake but for future maps and projects that want to reproduce Doom 64's style and lighting system.

What and how? I see pure gold potential in that video. But I have to also ask... "This is for our future planned Doom 64 EX conversion for GZDoom using UDMF format." Who is our?

The only information I can find is from the tech bible that Kaiser wrote on Doom 64's engine, section 12.5 on page 39. The LIGHTS lump says it's an "RGB table containing colored lighting data." Even then, this doesn't explain much. Basically just tells us what we already know. The best bet is to ask Kaiser about this, maybe find a way to get the source code to it out there since I can't seem to find it. I don't think he's released it yet. EDIT: I found this. https://github.com/svkaiser/Doom64EX Dotfloat is working on EX now, and this looks like the source Some helpful stuff might be here https://github.com/svkaiser/Doom64EX/blob/master/src/engine/renderer/r_lights.cc Like I've said before, engines aren't my specialty so I wouldn't know the first thing to look for but this is all I can find on the subject. Probably won't help. :(

The only thing about glows is that I noticed they don't appear very well or at all when a sector's brightness is 255, whereas sector colors will be green/red/blue whatever no matter the light level. They will only get lighter/darker. EDIT: And unrelated to glows, the way middle sidedef textures move with the ceiling is super annoying. Doom 64 can move sectors without affecting sidedef movement... so I have to draw really thin sectors against the walls that move to stop the textures from moving. Would it be possible for a "Don't move textures with sector movements" flag in UDMF? Or is that not possible with the engine?

EDIT: Nevermind, found them here. ----------- Has anyone already decompiled all the Doom 64 macros? I'm having trouble with Pitfalls, trying to figure out exactly which sectors move when and by how much and I've just now decompiled the macros for that level so I can see which sectors tagged what move and when. I may need the decompiled macros for other levels if something is wrong or just to ensure accuracy in general. It would save me some time if I didn't have to extract all the MACROS lumps for each map and decompile them one at a time.

Man oh man! Loving these covers! Believe it or not, my favorite one is In the Dark. You successfully managed to transform what I believe to be one of the more boring original tracks into something totally new. The personal touches really add to the overall song in a really good way. The same goes for Adrian's Asleep. Can't wait to see what you do for TNT!

I love going to that spot on RZ2 just to watch that animated texture. It amusingly also fits with the map's MIDI track. Also, RZ2 is probably my favorite map in the WAD... it's close with Candlecove. I love the ambient mood and design of that map. Once again, epic MIDI to go along with it.

I would love to see gradient colored lighting in GZDoom. I have to wonder if such a feat is possible. There's already a perfect place to implement the options. The sidedefs tab could control the color of the top and bottom of the sidedefs, and the floor/ceiling would control those colors. The sector properties color setting would control the color of things present inside the sector. Really, this is the only thing GZDoom needs to be able to accurately reproduce Doom 64's lighting. Glowing flats is possible, and it produces the effect we need. All we need now is to be able to apply a glow anywhere in a map directly using UDMF. You can't simply read formats that were designed for an entirely different engine. The only way to expect newer formats to be readable in older engines is through conversion, which unfortunately must be done manually by hand. This is what must be done to even make a map loadable. Trying to run a Doom 64 map by dragging the WAD onto GZDoom results in the engine exploding. It's like trying to put a disc into a Nintendo 64. It can't be done. You'd have to convert ALL the disc's resources into formats readable by the Nintendo 64 and then put them into a cartridge. Possible, but the end product won't be pretty. The only thing you can do is convert everything into a readable format that still looks decent, which means modifying a lot of stuff to recreate the original's presentation in the best way that the older engine will allow. Even though GZDoom is a modern source port of classic Doom, the engine is still older than Doom 64's and thus the formats are entirely different. I don't believe that GZDoom will ever be capable of directly reading and running DOOM64.WAD. That's why EX was made. A custom engine made to read those formats. The guys at Midway basically got smart and realized they could create some cool looking geometry if they changed the way the engine rendered the map and instead made it so anything behind walls that have a sky flat as the ceiling gets rendered through it. The actual geometry is no different than original Doom format. The only thing is, to recreate this effect, you MUST use 3D floors. There's just no other way. Unfortunately not every area in the original maps are set up to easily replace these spots with a 3D floor. Some require additional modification so that the sky can show up where needed but also allow a 3D floor to be placed. This has even meant changing entire areas into 3D floors, one such example being the outer walkway on Altar of Pain.

FMod, all default settings. Just now I tried Ancient Aliens and spawned a ton of health bonuses in a row and could still hear some form of popping although it was MUCH less pronounced. Classic Doom with no mods I felt like was also doing it, but could hardly tell. It seems that the sounds themselves are at fault because I can't replicate it nearly as good as the Doom 64 sounds do. Try this example WAD, it has only the Doom 64 item pickup sound (in FLAC format). Go to the room in MAP01 of Doom 2 where the health bonuses are, you can hear the pops clear as day (or at least I can). This is with no other mods or files loaded. SNDINFO is unmodified. http://www.mediafire.com/file/rb3lc5z34edk33z/soundtest.wad I'm curious to see if you can hear it too, or maybe I'm going nuts. I could stand it at first, but now I hear the pops every time I pick up two items within a second of one another. I'm pretty sure this problem is because of sudden wavelength shifts. The MIDI sound effects that EX uses has 0 popping. That at least tells me it's not my sound that's screwing up. EDIT: Fiddled around with all the sound settings and tried them all one at a time, no good. Nothing changed it. Tried both FMod and OpenAL backends, they both did it. FMod had clearer sound though.

The sounds start and end at 0 or close but the problem is if it's currently playing the sound at let's say 3 amplitude, another starts at 0 which causes a sudden shift from 3 down to 0. That causes an audible pop. Could this be resolved via limiting the sound effect via SNDINFO? I say this because I have set the limit to 0. Perhaps this is the problem? I will do some tests. EDIT: Limiting to 1 like the default SNDINFO didn't change anything. How do Doom format sounds differ from FLAC? Is there a way to convert FLAC to Doom format and keep them sounding as they do prior to conversion? I doubt that there's any sort of software related problem, since EX doesn't have the problem. All the sounds are in MIDI format, which means there are no wavelengths.

I've also wondered if such were possible in UDMF. Given that UDMF can change brightness levels of the floor and ceiling separately without affecting thing or wall brightness, it seems it could theoretically be possible. Then again, I know hardly nothing of engine mechanics, so I could be talking out of my ass here. That is most likely what I will do. The main game will be a single file, and then any additional content will be its own extra file you can load after the main file, and will automatically add new episodes to the list. So are you suggesting that players be required to have the Doom 64 ROM on their system to be able to play this file? Then, upon running some custom tool, it searches for the ROM and uses that to then decrypt the mod's file? Good idea in theory, but in practice I don't think that's a good idea. EDIT: And someone could just upload a decrypted version of the mod... Absolution requires DOOM2.WAD, and BD64/GZDoom64 require an IWAD as well. I think the simplest approach is to just require DOOM2.WAD as well. I'm getting a bad vibe from encrypting this file and requiring the ROM, then people will probably just say "well I can play BD64 without any kind of extra tools." I don't want users to need extra software to be able to run a Doom 2 mod. At the end of the day, this project IS a Doom 2 mod no matter how much I change. The base is Doom 2 at its core. The mod works though replacement and inheritance.

At this time, I have no plans to support deathmatch mode. If there is any kind of demand for it later I can see about adding some DM maps like what BD64 did in its version 2. For now, the focus is entirely on single player.

I am placing Player 1-4 starts on all maps. I most likely won't test MP since it's designed for SP but everything should work online. I am trying to write the scripts are with multiple possible players in mind.

Thank you, I appreciate the support. Any support I get will make it easier for me to put forth my best efforts. The maps do indeed take quite a bit of touchup to get them to look like they do in Doom 64. This has even meant drawing new geometry to change into 3D floors in order to allow sky to appear where it should but still allow the normal non render hack geometry to show up through it. A good example is the start area of MAP20 Breakdown. I had to raise up this area and create 3D floors for the connecting beams so that you can see the taller middle pillars above these beams. Another example is the outside area of MAP05 Tech Center. Same problem with the beams there. I plan to do the The Outcast, Redemption Denied and The Reckoning levels some time after the main level set is done. I'd think of them as their own "expansion pack" style episodes, to add more content to the main game as time goes on to eventually reach a full Doom 64 compilation game. There is one issue that I've been struggling with. It's not so much on the engine side of things, more-so the sound side of things. There seems to be an issue where if you play a particular sound, like an item pickup, and then play it again after a specific amount of time, there will be an audible "pop" sound. I believe this "popping" effect to be a sudden switch between a high and low amplitude in the wavelengths. This problem never occurs in EX because all the sound effects are MIDI, so no wavelengths. You may recall me asking in the "How do I" thread if it were possible to use MIDI lumps as sound effects. I wish it were possible, because this would not only solve this problem but also allow me to use the direct from the source sounds. It then would of course require the soundfont for them to sound correct, which is already needed for the music. I don't plan to package MP3 or OGG versions of the music if using the MIDIs with the proper soundfont works just fine. Saves a LOT of space. Right now, once you open the 3 key gates, you are rewarded with a Megasphere and two cell packs. Some early cells and a full health/armor restore. Since the two side traps are a blue armor and Soulsphere, it seems logical to give the player what they would get from the death traps (which is 200 health/armor). The original of course gives you the Features menu, but in G/ZDoom such a menu locked behind a level completion is irrelevant given the fact that you can already use any and all Features menu style cheats with the exception of EX's wireframe mode. I don't think such an option is possible in GZDoom but I could be wrong. Maybe Graf can confirm? As far as the features menu goes, I am adding a features menu that can do most of the stuff the original, Absolution's, and EX's can do. Just to really have it all.

What would you guys like to see as the reward for solving my interpretation of Breakdown's super secret? Right now I have a Megasphere and 4 cell packs, but I'm not sure if that is good enough given the difficulty of solving it. It's not like super difficult but it's out of the player's way enough that they are going to expect a great reward. I was thinking about linking a secret exit that goes to the Titlemap level but I'm undecided. Share your thoughts!

This isn't about ZDaemon but I just wanted to say again that Valiant is probably my favorite megawad. Each episode's theme is epic and I particularly enjoy the episode on the moon. The MIDI choices are really good. Beating it on UV is a satisfying experience, especially the boss. Ever gave any thoughts to a Valiant sequel? Keep on being awesome skillsaw!