GZW -Tricks & Help

Put the Mus on/off

 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//
Music on/off script for Doom, by Jive for GZW
//
http://gzdoom.doomwadstation.net (GZW)
// Originally created
by janiz on Jan 06, 2003
//
http://www.kolumbus.fi/janiz/doom/mystuff/zdoom_cfgscripts/
//
Modified and simplified to fit my own needs
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

alias
mus_off "snd_musicvolume 0;snd_midivolume 0"
alias mus_on
"snd_musicvolume 0.2;snd_midivolume 0.5;echo Music On"
alias
mus_0 "mus_off;echo Music off"

bind m mus_0
bind
, mus_on
// French keyboard: ";" will put "on" the music, and
"," will cute it off 

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Making flickering lightings

Using the file "Lights.pk3"

The file "Lights.pk3" is a zip file containing 4 text files. Each is containing informations for the OpenGl lightings of the games Doom, Hexen, Heretic and Strife. The one for Doom is named "doomdefs.txt". Open it with an editor of text files, and go to the section "Doom Decorations".

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OpenGl lightings

Important news (as of Oct 2008) HERE
about the fact that a new file "Lights.pk3"
is replacing all the other files
used by the recent past for OpenGl lightings.

Graf gave us HERE explanations about the different formats for the lightings proposed on the control panel:

Standard : means a linear distribution with constant depth fog.
Bright : means linear light distribution with increasing depth fog for darker light levels.
Doom : means a non-linear light level distribution that is designed to match Doom's original light levels as closely as possible with standard hardware rendering methods
Legacy : is a special mode that tries to use the same light levels as Legacy's GL mode. This is only recommended if you want to play a level made for Legacy. For everything else it's far too bright.

I suggest also to put the gamma correction to 1.1 or even 1.2 for darkest wads, the gamma setted to 1 is way too much dark!!!
But the most important setting is concerning the brightness: when you're playing with a wad which is too much dark (and it happens a lot of times...), don't push the gamma more than 1.2, but the "Ambient Light Level":

Of course, you are aware that, by the recent past, you had to use the file "lights.wad" (made by Slayer ), which was giving the necessary definitions for all of the lightings of the OpenGl mode.
Here is what is written about it on the Graf Zahl's site:

"If you want dynamic lights for standard items get the ZDoomGL light definitions. NOTE: This file is not officially supported. I just grabbed the light definitions out of ZDoomGL's distribution and put them in here." (Graf)

Nothing very special on it: it was the file used with ZdoomGL since a long time, without any modification. What you don't know, perhaps, is that you had to put it within the "skins" folder. If this folder didn't exist, you had to create it. All files of this folder are automatically loaded when GZDoom is launched.
Another way to use this file was to complete the empty line "Doom.autoload" of the config file ("zdoom-your username.ini"), like I done it:

[Doom.AutoLoad]
PATH=C:/Doom/KDX/ports/GZDoom/lights.wad

Once made, you can put the file within the root GZDoom folder (where is installed GZDoom).
Here is this file: Lights.zip (zip file= 11 Kb, 68 Kb unzipped, was times downloaded)

*** News *** Today, the pwad ("Lights.wad") is officially supported by the Gzdoom engine. Graf made a special file, named "Lights.pk3", automatically launched at the startup if you put its name in the "Doom.autoload" section of the config file ("zdoom-your username.ini"). It contains the 3 text files for Doom, Heretic & Hexen, with the needed definitions contained within "Lights.wad", which means that you don't need anymore nor "Lights.wad", nor "Lights.ini", nor any other external file, apart "Lights.pk3".
You can edit the file, using WinZip. Yes, this file is simply a zip file, renamed with the extension "pk3" !!!

Lights.ini and EcoLights.ini (version 1.0 lastly updated on Feb. 22, 2002), were containing the definitions tweaked by Slayer for an outdated version of ZdoomGl.
If you have those files, don't use them anymore: they won't work with GZDoom. Here is what said to me Slayer himself about it.

And don't forget to go on the Control Panel (while playing) and to customize the settings for your OpenGl mode ("Dynamic Lights Options"). All the values are setted to zero by default because not everyone can use the OpenGl mode (The openGL renderer is by default disabled).

You'll have also, maybe, to change the value for "Texture Filter Mode". I had to do it myself in order to play with my laptop. The "Trilinear Mode" selected on the picture upon is possible thanks to my Ati Radeon 9700 Pro. So, if you have on your screen a pure garbage with the textures, be quite sure that you'll have to change the type given for "Texture Filter Mode"

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The config files

An explanation by Enjay

If you add the exec console command to the command line:

+exec configname.cfg

you can execute any config file at startup.

Zdoom uses cfg files to set up bindings, aliases and other preferences (usually) at game startup. It uses ini files to store settings across game sessions. I guess this allows a little confusion to creep in because doom.exe used to store its between session info in a file called doom.cfg. In fact, because of this, in Zdoom you can load an ini file like this:

zdoom -config myini.ini

A useful tip is to keep a file called zdoom.ini in your (G)Zdoom directory. To create this file, copy your zdoom-username.ini file to zdoom.ini then edit it with a text editor. Leave only the entries you usually set up yourself, and which are important to you in it (perhaps key bindings, mouse preferences, aliases, whatever) and remove the other stuff the engine normally sets up automatically. Now save the file. Whenever you start (G)Zdoom without there already being a zdoom-username.ini file present, it will read the contents of zdoom.ini and import them into a newly created zdoom-username.ini file. As long as (G)Zdoom finds a zdoom-username.ini file, it will not use zdoom.ini So, using this method, it's easy to delete your zdoom-username.ini file and recreate it, should you need to, simply by running (G)Zdoom again. It's also quite useful if you keep your Zdoom install on some kind of portable medium where you may be using different usernames on different computers.

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Using resized patches : how to !

An explanation by me, using an example given by Enjay

A user asked on the Gzdoom forum how to use a texture having a writting on it and sized 64x12, and being translucent around its text: Patch with text

. What you see here is the picture. His problem was that the text was resized while playing and was huge.
The solution was quite simple, using XWE :

in the menu "Entry", select "Load" (and not "Load (raw data)", being used only for highres pictures), and put the picture, being sure that the color of the background is "cyan".
Then, right click on it and select "Add to Patch Names", then "Add to Texture". It will create, if not existing, the lumps "TEXTURE1" and "PNAMES", or it will simply add it at the end of the lists.
Click on the button "Textures" (at the bottom of the window). It will display the entire list of all the patches used for the selected episode of Doom. Localize your texture. You'll see a line displaying all its specifications (name, height, width...). The most interesting part of this line are the columns "X Scale" and "Y Scale". x Scale and y Scale control the sizing of your texture. Values:
- 8 (or 0 which is default): normal size
- 1-7: larger size, e.g. 4 will be double.
- 9-255: smaller size, e.g. 16 will be half.
- Let say that you want to have your texture sized normally : x Scale= 8 and Y Scale=8 (or x Scale= 0 and Y Scale=0)
- Let say that you want it having a half size: x Scale= 16 and Y Scale=16.
- Let say that you want to have it sized normally on the X axe, but doubled vertically : x Scale= 8 and Y Scale=4.

Let say that you need to have one picture sized normaly, one doubled and one having half size, each being the same picture but resized. Right click on the name of the texture, in the table on the right side of the window, and select "Duplicate". The name will be changed automatically (but you can rename it freely). Then, you'll have to change the values of the "x Scale" and "y Scale" columns. The one having a double size: x Scale= 4 and Y Scale=4., and the one being half sized: x Scale= 16 and Y Scale=16, the normal one having x Scale= 8 and Y Scale=8.

Here is an example of what you can obtain:

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Page created on July 11, 2006

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