eDuke32 is amazing!!!! Thank you! + Questions + Suggestions

[Lope]

I've registered a few times on this forum, but my nick seems to have disappeared each time, probably from not posting often enough.

This is a fairly long post with many topics.
1 Duke was indescribably awesome
2 The experience of Duke's engine sucked compared to new games
3 DUKE IS AWESOME AGAIN
4 Comments on HRP / Cache / Load times
5 Duke crashes on my laptop
6 Suggestions for making Duke even more fun and awesome**
7 Suggestions for making Mapster easier for noobs
8 Idea for improving organization for HRP projects

THANK YOU ALL!!

eDuke has restirred my love for the game of Duke Nukem 3D!
I played this game for many years, having countless modem and network games with friends. (playing with keyboard only)

Unfortunately after leaving the game for a few years, playing UT and other games, I came back to Duke3D and it was sh*t to play. I just couldn't make myself play it. The mouse aiming was terrible, and whole POV was not smooth, everything was just dodgy. The JF port improved it a bit, but not enough for me to really enjoy Duke again, and not enough to get any of my friends to want to play it for more than a few mins.

The HRP went into development, but I didn't have a PC that could run it, and I just forgot about the game for a while.

I loaded up eDuke32 a few days ago, and was blown away. Its truely amazing what you've done with the engine. Its just so smooth, the mouse aiming is perfect. And it just brought back all the goodness of Duke3D for me. The fast gameplay, the awesome feeling when you RPG an alien bastard and hes blown into pieces of guts and gore and blood splatters with a big satisfying fireball and then duke says "I'm gonna put the SNAGGED TAB ON YOUR ASS!" hahahah. I could really see myself getting retarded playing the game a lot again.
I already lanned with a friend and played for an hour or 2.
Now I need some good DM levels, and to organize a bigger LAN

I tried running the HRP version 3.3, it looks really nice, but I'm a bit rusty at the game, and died a few times, and each time I died all the textures had to reload. For me, waiting 20-30 seconds each time I respawn is not really worth running the HRP. Also I had some problems with the HRP being a bit jittery occasionally, causing a bit of a frame freeze. I've read that a lot of bugs were fixed in HRP 4.0, I still need to try it out.
(Running on Intel C2D 3Ghz, Geforce 7900GT 256mb, 3GB RAM)

I don't know if this on the 'wishlist' and I'm sure there are more important things, but getting the cache working so that you don't have to reload the textures every time you respawn would be great.
Is eDuke32 making use of all available memory?

eDuke crashed heavily on my laptop a few times on the S01E01 map. I couldn't even Ctrl-Alt-Del. I tried updated my laptop's gfx driver.
(Intel mobile 965 chipset, 1.86 Celeron, 2.5GB RAM)
What can I do to track down the problem?

I've already spent about 20 hours making a DM map

When I press F6 in mapster (for Sector Effector help) it said "file not found". What file do I need?

Okay, I'm going to indulge in my fantasies and ideas now... so this could get a bit out of hand.
I appreciate everything that has been done on the Duke3D project and your work is absolutely awesome.
I only tell you my ideas in the hope that you like them and implement some of them. I've been programming for many years, so I know how even the simplest sounding thing can be a massive amount of work, and can increase complexity a lot, so I mention these ideas without any expectation. Thanks a lot. Lope

1. Automatic map transfers.
In a multiplayer game, when someone selects a User Map, the CRC is checked, then all other players in the game are sent that map if they don't have that exact map. The maps could do to a MP_Download folder, stored with the map name followed by the CRC.
Each player can decide in their config if they are willing to automatically upload/download maps depending on max size, IP starting with (192 or internet IP), etc.
I don't know if this is already in place... CON files should also be checked automatically, with an error if they are different.

2. Weapons from other BUILD games.
I don't know how difficult it would be... If we could get a mod, to run the Redneck rampage weapons, the SW weapons, and the Blood weapons in Duke I'd be over the moon.
In my opinion, Duke's most fun weapons are the RPG, Pipebombs and Tripbombs. Imagine Sticky Bombs in Duke I cant think of all the other weapons now.

3. Skins & Voices of Main characters from other build games.
Imagine we could get the skins of the SW, Blood and Redneck Rampage players into duke, with their voices and weapons.
Then in a death match, you could set up your player to be a particular guy, like duke, samurai, redneck killer etc. Or when you respawn, your character is ramdomly selected from the list of player types set up for the game.

4. All textures and sprites from other BUILD games
While we're at it we could make use of all the textures & sprites from each of the 3 games, flipping through texture files in mapster32 with the press of a button

5. Mods to place more Pipebombs and Tripbombs
Another thing I'd like is mods for the pipebomb, so that you can throw extra pipebombs in a spread out pattern, but increase the delay for each extra pipebomb so the weapon doesn't get over powered. And a similar mod for the tripbombs, being able to place 3 tripbombs on a wall at once (in positions of duck, stand, jump).
Maybe an option for changing the tripbomb activate delay in game.

6. Mapster new features (2D mode)
* Copy and Pasting sector floor/ceiling height
* Improved sector copying/paste/delete
* Option to select multiple sectors in 2D mode and set the floor/ceiling height for all.

NOOB STUFF:
I realize the following stuff is quite noob, I regard myself as decent in Duke3D level editing, but there are many keys and techniques I don't have memorized.
Having these help features would make level editing quicker for non-pros, and encourage newcomers to level development.

7. Mapster Automatic Help for Sector Effectors
Something like this:
What special effect do you want? (User selects Water)
Make 2 sectors identical in size
Sector above water: lotag 1
Sector under water: lotag 2
Place a SE in each sector in the same place with lotag 7, and a unique hitag number for this pair of water sectors.

This automatic help concept could be extended. Hints could be given about what keys to press which may be relevant for what they want to do.
(Automatic help could be enabled/disabled)

8. Easy to use texture editor & Organization
I saw in the Shadow Warrior forum people don't know which textures have already been redone, which causes people to work on things for nothing + frustration and its generally not very easy for people to get into it.
An organized process for re-doing textures could speed up and improve the process of texture updates.
Here is my idea:
Master Texture List showing what textures need to be redone, and who is working on them. People can comment on the textures and say "this texture is in S02E04.
Then artists can submit their textures, and people can vote if there is more than one submission for a texture.
Accepted artist list. (artists whos textures have been accepted)


Thanks again to everyone who worked on making eDuke32 what it is today.
And of course a big thanks to 3D Realms making this awesome game.
Without Duke's voices, Music, the awesome weapons, the friggin aliens, and the strippers, the game would be pretty dull, as most other games are in comparison
So yeah, its awesome.
I can imagine that 3D Realms must have had a lot of fun making the game. I know I've had countless hours of fun playing the game, and devoted many hours to making levels in anticipation of more fun playing the game.
I see that Duke3D has an almost religious following.

So Duke Bless you all. May you always have atomic health, a full compliment of weapons, and jetpack your way to the heavens

[SwissCM]

tldr.

[gorath]

Originally Posted by SwissCM

tldr.

ADHD

Using original textures/sprites from other commercial build games would be illegal, as well as using the original sound files. And by using I mean having those files included to the eduke32 installer / package.

I remember that someone did put up a webpage containing information about which textures were already done and which were not.

[Mblackwell]

You can already place 3 tripbombs on one wall by jumping, standing, and ducking... in that order. For pipebombs, press the pipebomb key again after you've thrown one to throw a second (or 100th).

Try turning on the texture caching options for better load times.

Make sure to use:
http://wiki.eduke32.com/stuff/eduke32_current.zip

[Lope]

Originally Posted by gorath

Using original textures/sprites from other commercial build games would be illegal, as well as using the original sound files. And by using I mean having those files included to the eduke32 installer / package.

I realize its illegal to include textures/sounds from other games in a eDuke32 package. I'm meant merely having the functionality to *use* the textures/sounds if the GRP file from those games is present, (same as Duke3D.GRP situation).

Mblackwell: I know about placing multiple tripbombs manually, its just a bit time consuming, and I often get blown up being too thorough
I said yes to the texture caching from the eDuke32 launcher & enabled all the caching game options.

[Micky C]

About the HRP level load times, I found that if you hold down the space bar during the loading screen, it skips straight to the game. It makes me wonder what it's actually doing while loading the level.

[TerminX]

It's loading textures while it says it's loading textures. What a surprise, eh? Holding down space just skips the rest of the textures and causes them to be loaded when they're accessed, which causes stuttering.

[Sang]

Originally Posted by Lope

I'm meant merely having the functionality to *use* the textures/sounds if the GRP file from those games is present, (same as Duke3D.GRP situation).

You mean kinda like ZDoom? Can't see nothing wrong with that idea but is it worth the effort? Redneck Rampage and Blood are perfectly playable in DosBox. For Duke3D and SW windows ports already exist.

When I press F6 in mapster (for Sector Effector help) it said "file not found". What file do I need?

You need a file called _SE.HLP or something or other from your Duke3D disc. (I'm not sure if it still works with Eduke32 but I'd assume so). Alternatively you can look up some online tutorials or assign a lotag to your SE and Mapster32 will tell you what it does (with a few words).

* Improved sector copying/paste/delete

The only thing that's wrong with the copypasting of sectors is that it bugs out when you select a too large amount of sectors. I remember that a too big part won't copy over to a new map. Maybe it actually crashes the editor upon selection too or something or other, I'm not sure about that one.

I don't know if this is already in place... CON files should also be checked automatically, with an error if they are different.

This already exists, it's called the Out of Sync notification.

7. Mapster Automatic Help for Sector Effectors

Yeah no.

8. Easy to use texture editor & Organization

What you suggest in here already exists (at least for the Duke3D HRP).. There's an online list somewhere but you'll have to dig around in the HRP thread to find it. Maybe it doesn't exist anymore, I don't know.

[Tea Monster]

Its "I'm going to put the smack, dab on your ass!" A quote from Pulp Fiction.

Amusingly, I did a google search for it and most of the references were to Duke Nukem!!!

[Lope]

I just loaded up HRP 4.0 with maphacks and the ogg soundtrack Its AWESOME. looks so good, and plays perfectly smoothly. Texture load times are only about 3 seconds on respawn now which is perfectly reasonable.

Tea Monster: Haha. cool. What the hell is a smack dab? apparently it means: Exactly; directly; precisely; dead-center.

Sand: I haven't tried ZDoom. (only GZDoom, which is okay, but doom is kind of boring to me)
Is it worth checking out?
Basically I'm talking about a mashup, so we can have access to other build game weapons, textures & sprites in the user levels.
Player models would be cool too.

One thing I've always thought to be lacking from FPS games is the ability to easily load a PNG of yourself or whatever you want to make your own player model, which synchronises as you join the game, so you can surprise your friends by playing as yourself, or a photoshopped version of yourself, or chuck norris. that way you dont have to remember "oh, joe is the blue guy this time" the technology is perfectly capable, why are we still using generic player models which get boring so quickly?

I agree that MS Office assistant sucks. I was thinking more along the lines of 'code complete' like you get in MS IDEs

re: sector copy/paste/delete
When you copy a double sided sector into another sector, you have to paste it into an identically sized single sided sector or its not gonna work. Its a bit of a mission counting squares every time you want to copy a sector.
Sometimes you try delete a sector (with the mouse inside it) and it deletes some other massive sector and a whole load of stuff that you want to keep.

Now that I think about it again, I think its not worth making big changes to build.

Are most duke players interested in Duke for the single player? personally I enjoy single player for a while, especially now with all the nostalgia and modern comforts, but for me multiplayer is where the fun is.

Has anyone discussed the possibility of Duke breaking away into a MP only version? kind of like how Quake broke away from Doom or how Unreal Tournament evolved from Unreal.
That would allow for big changes to the engine, without the work of maintaining compatability with the maps or converting them to a new format.
Maps are basically all thats left of the old game. We're running a new rendering engine, new textures, ogg music, old maps and old sounds. (sounds are irrelevant in terms of compatability or conversion)

I realize that what I'm talking about is a whole new game, and that I'm going off topic.
What I'm really starting to think of is open source FPS games.

I'll check out what open source FPS games there are (for fun) and stop rambling.

[Sang]

Originally Posted by Lope

I haven't tried ZDoom. (only GZDoom, which is okay, but doom is kind of boring to me)
Is it worth checking out?

Uh well sure if you're into Doom or any of the other supported games. I simply offered that one as an example because it has the feature you're proposing here - you need a WAD for one of several games like Heretic, Hexen, or, of course, Doom - sortof like the GRP files for Duke, Shadow Warrior or Redneck Rampage. At least that's how I remember it. Not sure if any game besides Duke has GRP files.

One thing I've always thought to be lacking from FPS games is the ability to easily load a PNG of yourself or whatever you want to make your own player model, which synchronises as you join the game, so you can surprise your friends by playing as yourself, or a photoshopped version of yourself, or chuck norris. that way you dont have to remember "oh, joe is the blue guy this time" the technology is perfectly capable, why are we still using generic player models which get boring so quickly?

That sounds neat. But I don't care if it's in or not. Maybe later you can become a programmer and make a mod that does this for a popular online game. Currently you can use your own skin in an online game, but only the people who have the skin can see it. All you'd need to do is make a skin transfer to all players in a certain room.. Though this could become somewhat intrusive for other players. Maybe your mod should also add the feature "enable additional custom content" or something - when disabled, the skin will not be transferred. This option should be set by the room's admin obviously.

Yeah you could try doing something like that for UT.

When you copy a double sided sector into another sector, you have to paste it into an identically sized single sided sector or its not gonna work. Its a bit of a mission counting squares every time you want to copy a sector.

True. This is rather annoying.

Are most duke players interested in Duke for the single player?

Of course they are. You'll still find a bunch of people who play Duke online using YANG these days, but there are still much more people who don't give a shit about online play.

Has anyone discussed the possibility of Duke breaking away into a MP only version? kind of like how Quake broke away from Doom or how Unreal Tournament evolved from Unreal.

That is up to 3D Realms. It is not up to the community to discuss this (unless some 3DR employee asks for our opinions but they won't do that on this forum because I'm sure they realize most opinions will be worthless)



I must say you have nice ideas. I just don't think it's very realistic.

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Tea Monster

Its "I'm going to put the smack, dab on your ass!" A quote from Pulp Fiction.

Except that "the" should be "this", referring to whatever just jibbed the enemy. Unfortunately, he says it after the fact, so it doesn't make much sense.

And while I'm nitpicking, I'll also point out that the way he says it, with the pause after "smack", is not the way the expression "smack dab" is normally used. I wonder if Jon St. John wasn't familiar with that expression and was winging it.

[Sang]

I have no idea what "smack dab" means either

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Sang

I have no idea what "smack dab" means either

Heh. I never actually thought about what it meant When Duke said it, all I thought was "Duke is saying something cool - NOW DIE!"

[Sang]

Yeah, same here!

Or the F5 taunt.. "What are you some bottom feeding scum sucking algae eater" or something like that. I had no idea what it meant, but as a kid I still repeated it at times lol

[Commando Nukem]

Originally Posted by Sang

I have no idea what "smack dab" means either

The only time I heard it in reality was to refer to being where something is directly located. "Smack dab in the center of town." and the like.

[Lope]

Thanks, yeah, would be awesome.

i like my version better
I'm gonna put the snagged tab on YOUR ASS!

[Micky C]

I have an eduke32 question. What's the difference between the 16 bit openGL and 32 bit openGL renderers?

[NightFright]

Dunno if there even is 16-bit mode in EDuke32, never used it. But if there is, you wouldn't be able to use HRP with it, then. This is for 32-bit only.

[Micky C]

well I just started up Hollywood Holocaust with the 16-bit openGL renderer with the high resolution pack and dukeplus enhancer. It had high res textures and 3d models. I can't tell any difference between the 16-bit and 32-bit modes. (in my video setup, there are 3 options; software, 16-bit openGL and 32-bit openGL)

[TerminX]

Originally Posted by NightFright

Dunno if there even is 16-bit mode in EDuke32, never used it. But if there is, you wouldn't be able to use HRP with it, then. This is for 32-bit only.

If you don't know what it is, why are you saying it won't work?

[Blade Nightflame]

Originally Posted by Micky C

I have an eduke32 question. What's the difference between the 16 bit openGL and 32 bit openGL renderers?

You'd rather read up on what 16-bit and 32-bit would mean for graphics than ask what it does for the renderer. It does the same for every other one.

(say http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16-bit and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit, but seek other sources too.)

[Freedan]

Originally Posted by Sang

Yeah, same here!

Or the F5 taunt.. "What are you some bottom feeding scum sucking algae eater" or something like that. I had no idea what it meant, but as a kid I still repeated it at times lol

Well, that would basically be calling them an unevolved, bottom of the food chain critter that feeds on pond scum, basically.

Who knew Duke was so educated in science?