Freedoom 1.0 will be vanilla-compatible

Well, I have to say I'm not happy about this: I did a map for Phase 1 that is non vanilla compatible (but I may work to make it such way) and the map I'm working right now contain many big areas (maybe I can make it vanilla compatible, let's see).

So I'm sorry to see two maps of mines rejected from Freedoom.

But I can always trying making new maps vanilla.

I still don't understand why vanilla and not "limit removing" as most of the ports are?

Ohh crud all my maps going to be removed then lol since they have lot of detail that probably not going to fit in vanilla compatible unless its limit removing, well i guess im going to find where to use those maps then. probably should add to the to do map list: map12, map15, map28 C1M5 and C2M5 since those are my maps and im sure they arent vanilla compatible

Ignoring visual limits, a lot of the maps in FreeDoom can be converted to Vanilla without issue; they only use generalized linetypes that mimic Vanilla's ones.

I've always been against going vanilla. Removal of Boom specials is one thing: most of the useful ones are just shortcuts for things you can do in Doom anyway with more control sectors, and I find the more exotic Boom features usually more annoying than enhancing. However I have no interest in caring about vanilla rendering limits, and I doubt I'll test them when I do map fixes.

It is a significant regression to lose Z0k's maps, they are amongst the best in the project. And I will be surprised if Double Impact can be vanillified without spoiling the look of it. (On the other hand, if you do end up removing all the nice outdoor shadowcasting there's no reason to keep the starry sky texture, which will make some people very happy I suppose.)

man i dont know what i meant in my previous post XD

maybe its time to convert all the current good maps into a megawad (the first freedoom specific one yay!) and reboot all maps from zero. i mean this community makes new megawads each year, surely the freedoom team can pull it off too

RjY said:

It is a significant regression to lose Z0k's maps, they are amongst the best in the project.

Indeed.

raymoohawk said:

btsx and dtwid are vanilla and they look and play real good

andrewj said:

But projects like BTSX prove that high quality maps that work in Vanilla *are* possible. So I'm sure that, at least eventually, Freedoom will contain a full set of good quality vanilla-compatible maps. I hope to contribute to help make that happen.

Come on, most released maps don't look as good as BTSX even when ignoring the limits. To make maps like that isn't an easy feat and I'm not even sure if there's a substential amout of people who can pull it off (with keeping great gameplay at the same time).

You'd pretty much have to start from scratch. Not sure if that's necessarily a bad thing - that way an art direction could be applied, making the transition between the maps less random.

raymoohawk said:

man i dont know what i meant in my previous post XD

maybe its time to convert all the current good maps into a megawad (the first freedoom specific one yay!) and reboot all maps from zero. i mean this community makes new megawads each year, surely the freedoom team can pull it off too

You mean creating a megawad for vanilla-freedoom before having a vanilla freedoom?

Angry Saint said:

You mean creating a megawad for vanilla-freedoom before having a vanilla freedoom?

He means creating a Boom megawad for Freedoom before having a vanilla Freedoom.

boris said:

Come on, most released maps don't look as good as BTSX even when ignoring the limits. To make maps like that isn't an easy feat and I'm not even sure if there's a substential amout of people who can pull it off (with keeping great gameplay at the same time).

Not sure what you're saying here -- are you saying Freedoom should not set high standards because there won't be enough talented contributors to achieve it?

I think it's a valid concern.

andrewj said:

Not sure what you're saying here -- are you saying Freedoom should not set high standards because there won't be enough talented contributors to achieve it?

Of course you should aim for the highest quality possible. But just deciding that you want to make BTSX-quality maps isn't enough, you have to make them. It's just easier to make high quality maps without the self-imposed vanilla limitations.

Vanilla limitations can actually lead to better visuals and more carefully planned layouts. They teach certain discipline.

At the price of slowing you down considerably.

Da Werecat said:

Vanilla limitations can actually lead to better visuals and more carefully planned layouts. They teach certain discipline.

They teach discipline for the ones who have the patience to learn. Many others simply prefer limit removing or even gzdoom for nice stuff like 3d bridges and such.

Sounds like you'd rather have many maps by eager amateurs. Which is what Freedoom was all about for most of its development.

For the record: I don't know what's the right approach.

Well, someone could write a utility to give the maximum/minimum render views in a map by brute forcing it from many positions (Chocorenderlimits and visplane explorer can do this) and then check for Boom specific sectors/lines/things. Then tie this into some fancy web interface (that is not Javascript and Web 2.0 to the insane, function before beauty) which shows which maps have Boom stuff and areas of the maps with high visplanes, segs, etc.

Then at least with git it could be done with every other revision.

And there could also potentially be the ability to upload where users could upload their map and see a result after the checks have been done.

I could probably write a local Java 8 application which does this.

@Ghostly: Tools to make limit-testing easier are important and useful for sure, but they can't fully replace the legwork of actual human testing.

Even if you could test every possible position in a reasonable amount of time, which would be a challenge in and of itself, it's impossible for an automatic tool to know whether a certain position at a certain height is accessible (say, by jumping off a ledge, maybe even one that raises or lowers at different points in the map, or by archvile jumping), or whether a visplane-heavy region is accessible without noclipping into it.

Chocorenderlimits and Visplane Explorer are great tools, but they can't completely automate away the work, and it's a good idea not to encourage the belief that they do.

esselfortium said:

@Ghostly: Tools to make limit-testing easier are important and useful for sure, but they can't fully replace the legwork of actual human testing.

Even if you could test every possible position in a reasonable amount of time, which would be a challenge in and of itself, it's impossible for an automatic tool to know whether a certain position at a certain height is accessible (say, by jumping off a ledge, maybe even one that raises or lowers at different points in the map, or by archvile jumping), or whether a visplane-heavy region is accessible without noclipping into it.

Chocorenderlimits and Visplane Explorer are great tools, but they can't completely automate away the work, and it's a good idea not to encourage the belief that they do.

I never said that they would nor have I encouraged it.

They would more be of a guide and could be used in the initial state to determine quickly which levels that currently exist are the worst offenders. As more maps are fixed and translation the use of the tool diminishes where at the point where Freedoom 1.0 is near released it would be rather pointless to have. Therefor the reason behind my suggestion is to help the translation of existing maps rather than newly created maps from scratch.

As for every human obtainable position, a bot with navigational data and such would be able to determine which areas should actually be tested for limits. However there are no currently viable bots to do this.

Hrmmmmmn.... It's good that I did my levels in Vanila.

Angry Saint said:

So I'm sorry to see two maps of mines rejected from Freedoom.

nobody said anything about cutting maps, just that vanilla is the eventual target. Unless it's absolutely crazy, most maps will probably be able to be converted.

I'm just glad someone stood up and made a decision on the matter, controversial or not.

Captain Ventris said:

I'm just glad someone stood up and made a decision on the matter, controversial or not.

This is just my opinion, but I thought it was more controversial that Freedoom's goal was to be a drop-in IWAD replacement without vanilla maps.

chungy said:

I kind of want to see how it plays out immediately, but yeah, I kind of hinted at something like this in the opening post. I wouldn't mind 0.11 remaining Boom-compatible if the need arises, but trimming things down to limit-removing then vanilla does make a lot of sense.

One thing to consider is that there are several limit-removing source ports that aren't Boom compatible. So if you target limit-removing first, you immediately make the project more usable as soon as you achieve that target. ie. a complete limit-removing conversion is more useful than an incomplete full-vanilla conversion.

Captain Ventris said:

I'm just glad someone stood up and made a decision on the matter, controversial or not.

It's not the first time a decision is taken on this matter; it's just the first time the decision goes vanilla's way.

frithiof said:

This is just my opinion, but I thought it was more controversial that Freedoom's goal was to be a drop-in IWAD replacement without vanilla maps.

I would have taken that stance as well, but my understanding of the project goals as a whole is obviously more limited than many of the folks who frequent this forum, so hey, maybe I'm wrong!

Gez said:

It's not the first time a decision is taken on this matter; it's just the first time the decision goes vanilla's way.

Ah, well it's definitely a good sign that the essential tech-level for the project hasn't been nailed down yet. Yep.

The repo already has a vanilla modded map. I suggest we make a megawad of 0.10 maps to preserve them and maybe release them on idgames.

Instead of taking steps to make maps limit removing then vanilla, I think we should focus on vanilla maps directly.

Why the megawad talk? The attic is enough to preserve these, not like they're going to disappear.

Sodaholic said:

Why the megawad talk? The attic is enough to preserve these, not like they're going to disappear.

I guess it is not about preserving the maps per se, but making the maps more readily available to the general public to play. Things that sit in an attic tend to gather dust.

would be a good idea to post a map list once again of maps to be done again, this so mappers can do a new vanilla maps compatibles for the new iwad.

while my maps were made in doom and doom2 format to be vanilla im pretty sure those wouldnt be vanilla compatible due the amount of sectors and vertex to detail them, and honestly spent like 3 months per map only to end removed from the version and preserved in an alternate wad that barely anyone would play, and in that case i would prefeer to take my maps for future projects if they were removed.

Your maps are great and you could release of pwad of them. Could also save them for other projects. I would much rather see the best maps preserved than have them converted to vanilla.