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jester
February 6th, 2007, 02:12 AM
I've had this idea for Legacy, but it's pretty meaty, so I figured I would start it as a new thread rather than put it in the feature request thread straight away. Basically my idea is that for each wad that you play with Doom, you could have some kind of config file.

First, each config file would include all the correct names for the maps in a wad, so that even if you're playing custom wads, you still get all the correct names inside the menus in Doom. Obviously someone would have to make up loads of config files for the old wads out there, but if you needed someone to do it I'd be willing to. They could also be set up to end a particular game and take the player back to the main menu once they've played all the custom maps in a particular wad (instead of just sending them to Doom2 map 2).

Also, the wad config file could also include which music file to play in each map. Of course if you're specifying a path for a certain piece of music then it'll be different for each player's computer, but maybe Legacy could do something like say “can't find track x in this folder, please enter the correct folder here” or something, when you first play the wad.

This would be really useful, say if you want to listen to the PSX Final Doom mp3s while you're playing PC Final Doom. The config file would come with the correct mp3s assigned to each map, and then all you have to do is tell Legacy the directory where you keep your PSX Final Doom mp3s at. Maybe each wad config file could include multiple music playlists, so you could choose between them in Legacy or something – e.g. one playlist could be the Playstation music, another could be some of those high quality mp3s of the original PC Doom music that you can download off the net.

Wad config files could also include other information about the maps like which sky to use in them. For example, in Final Doom, the skies in Playstation version are much more impressive than on the PC (well, I think so). So if you could have a wad config file that allows you to specify which sky goes with which map, that would be cool.

Finally I'm also guessing this kind of thing would be pretty good for people who like editing stuff for Legacy? From what I've seen of the feature requests loads of people would find this kind of thing useful. On that note, I guess maybe wad config files could even include more detailed information, such as who made the levels, thumbnails for when you're choosing your map from a menu etc.

So that's my idea. Tell me what you think!

Cheers.

smite-meister
February 6th, 2007, 03:46 AM
I think you're pretty much describing what MAPINFO (http://doomlegacy.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/*checkout*/doomlegacy/legacy/trunk/docs/JDS_MAPINFO.html) is designed to do.
It's already fully implemented. Of course the menu bindings can always be made more flashy...

jester
February 7th, 2007, 01:48 AM
Awesome.

So does this mean that someone could make up a bunch of these things for existing mega-wads, then you could include them with Legacy, and they would make these wads run better? By run better, I mean stuff like exiting when you get to the end of the levels in the mega-wad, improve some of the graphics like the title-screens etc.

If that's possible, I would be willing to like, create some map info files for you guys, so that when people play old mega wads, they just kind of work a bit more smoothly.

Also when you're playing Legacy would there be an option to switch between map info files and wads? That would be cool, so you could kind of play different versions of episodes etc.

Cheers.

smite-meister
February 7th, 2007, 03:00 AM
Yes, you can write MAPINFO lumps for an existing megawad, make it a single-lump WAD file, and make Legacy use both the megawad and the MAPINFO PWAD.
The cleanest way would of course be to include the MAPINFO lump in the megawad itself, but this is not convenient with existing wads (and you would need the author's permission).

Legacy uses MAPINFO files such as this (http://doomlegacy.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/*checkout*/doomlegacy/legacy/trunk/resources/MAPINFO_Doom.txt) internally to handle the classic map orderings, intermissions etc.
There is a console command for changing the "active" MAPINFO lump, but presently you cannot switch wad files while running the game.

jester
February 7th, 2007, 06:07 AM
Could you use that MAPINFO thing to alter the way particular sectors are lit in a map? It would be awesome if you could use it to put coloured lighting into sectors. That way someone could make MAPINFO files for the main wads from Doom, Doom2, and Final Doom, and then you could include them with Legacy. That would let you play the original Doom maps with coloured sector lighting, like you get in the Playstation version. That would rule.

smite-meister
February 9th, 2007, 04:34 AM
No, but you could do that with scripting. You'd need to modify the original IWAD though to include the scripts. We'll think about it.

jester
February 10th, 2007, 03:45 AM
Awesome.

I don't know if you've played the Playstation version at all but the coloured sector lighting effect does work really well. It's class when you're on maps where there's like a sunset or something, especially the last episode in Ultimate Doom.

Of course, the problem is, the Playstation version of Doom sucks compared to the PC version in practically all other respects.

MR_ROCKET
February 11th, 2007, 10:53 PM
This sort of has to do with what your saying about colored sectors and things.
By default maybe legacy2 could have it's own sky lightmap color?, something like what jdoom does with ult-doom.

smite-meister
February 12th, 2007, 03:21 AM
Do you mean the lightlevel colormaps used in the levels?

MR_ROCKET
February 12th, 2007, 04:37 PM
Um well, it reflects in a way the color of the sky at use.
So say there's a red sky in the map, well every open area below the sky will illuminate a redish color including any sprites in the given area. kind of a neat effect.

It's kind of like a lightmap shader effect, but in this case I'm not really sure what it's called.
It's not a standard lightlevel, and I don't think it has anything to do with colormaps.
I'm thinking it's only a script driven effect when ult-doom is ran, I havn't looked into it yet but it's probably a .ded script having to do with the texture name.

jester
February 14th, 2007, 03:20 AM
Maybe you could have a similar thing for like, slime and lava. I mean, they could automatically throw coloured lighting upwards. Other textures (e.g. lights) could work in similar ways. I guess if you did it this way, Legacy would automatically give you coloured sector lighting in any map.

That said it would still be cool to be able to customise it in your mapinfo file.