Another question from me - Doom II cut scenes?

[Ffabbia]

Seems to be my day for asking dumb questions...but here goes...:D

If you cast your mind back to the Doom II single player game you may recall that the levels are broken up by occasional 'cut scenes' that presents some text on the screen 'You have won, Earth is safe etc....'

Basically, what I want to know is: is it possible to reproduce these text intermissions within a custom episode?

I've sort of been churning an idea around in my head based on a new episode for Doom II set on the Jupitor moon of Calisto - it's a typical hackneyed and cliched 'spaceship crash lands near colony, you are only survivor, check out colony, everyone is dead, monsters have taken over, kill colonists, save the day blah blah blah blah....' but It would be 'objective' based, in that a typical 'mission' might be to locate the radio room, or seal off entrance to base in order to prevent more infestation....whatever...(I prefer actual detailed, story based scenarios with aims and objectives to simple shoot-everything-that-moves fests).

But I would need to use these screens, with my own text; between levels in order to spell out to the player exactly what is required within the objective - hence I would need to use quite a lot of them, maybe one at the beginning of each level.

Is this possible? or are the screens and accompanying text hard coded into the game and impossible to reproduce?

If it is possible, but involves a lot of custom coding or tweaking the source code then I would not know how to begin, I know nothing about programming, modelling or anything else of that nature - however I am pretty good at level design, and as such my new missions would not be a mod or a TC, but would utilise the default monster packs, and the enhanced texture sets already available.....

..it's an idea anyway...can anyone help with this??

[DaniJ]

Yeah this is very easy to do in Doomsday.

There is three options open to you (ordered here from easy to difficult). You can easily create your own intermission text (try looking at finale.ded) that appears either at the start or the end of each mission. Or you could create your own custom one using graphics and animations by creating an InFine script or you could prerecord a demo and use that as a cutscene.

[Ffabbia]

Thanks. I've actually considered the 'demo' idea, but I feel it may be a little to abstract for what I have in mind - somehow recording something from a third person perspective may work. but this presumably requires knowledge of InFine programming and is probably beyond me - as would be the second option you mentioned. That leaves the first option, and so I'll take a look at finale.ded and see if I can make any sense out of it.

[DaniJ]

Creating your own finale is very easy for instance:

Finale
{
Before = "MAP01";
Script {
music "read_m" # This is the music you want to play
flat SLIME16 # This is the flat used for the background
wait 0.5 # This is the time to wait before the text starts

Text msg 32 32 "Beware this \1highly dangerous\0\n
monster! Don't be fooled by\n
it's friendly-looking grin.\W\n
It will hurl \1fireballs\0 at you,\n
and they burn!\W\W\n\n
Oh, how they \1burn\0!\W\W\n\n
Imp, imp, burning bright\n
In the forests of the night.\n
What immortal hand or eye\n
Could frame thy \1fearful\n
symmetry\0?" # This is your text

waittext msg # This tells it to wait till the text has finished before continuing
wait 7 # This tells it to wait another 7 seconds before it ends.
};
}

The above is actually an InFine script. So you can do everything you can do in a "normal" InFine script (such as animations, sound effects etc). InFine is very easy to use, if you need any help post it here and I'll see what I can do.

[Ffabbia]

Wow :D

That my friend is sheer poetry ROFL!!
I should get you to write all the cut scenes for me!!!

Ok I'll give it a shot, what have I got to lose....however I may well take up your offer of help...I'm probably gonna need it.

[DaniJ]

Alas this poetry I did not make,
comes forth the mind of skyjake.
The cat sat on the mat etc...

That's about the best I can do :)

Do you use DoomBuilder? If you do simply open your map (and select the jDoom profile) then goto Scripts> Edit DD_DEFNS lump, click make script then paste the above into the script window. Save your map then load up Doomsday.

No problem, let me know.

[Ffabbia]

Nope, I don't have Dooombuilder. I'm currently using DeePsea.

I know that it is possible to interact with Lumps using this editor, I used it to extract the music files from Hexen, but I'm not sure whether or not it supports JDoom profiles. I'll check when I get the chance.

*runs off to check*

[Wicked Anime Kid]

Uhm, you can also (if you'd like) make fades between text and doom (so not that it instantly appears but it fades into the screen). Also you can use instead of before map01, after map01 so that it plays after map01:)

That's all i have to add to this script dani just posted:)

[Ffabbia]

WOA!!!!

Cancel that....just had a look at Doombuilder on the website...it seems to support a 3D mode for texture placement!!!!!!!!!!! is this for real?????

This brings me back to the good old days of using Build for Duke3D maps (I used to be a whizz on Build), the 3D mode made things so much more intuitive (all my old Doom maps were made using DEU Dos version). I've been dreaming of something like Doombuilder for ages now.....so I'm downloading as I type. It even seems to be freeware...

Wow....talk about a productive evening! :)