This article contains all changes between versions 1.9.0-beta1 and 1.9.0-beta4.

(by )

Development of the Doomsday Engine has continued during the first half of 2005 at an uneven pace. Other commitments, such as work and my Master's Thesis, have oftentimes required all of my time and energy. As far as the next couple of months are concerned, the situation will not change in this regard. However, the talented Daniel Swanson (of jDRP fame) has been working on various aspects of the source code (including the commonization of various subsystems like the menu and automap). Thus development has not been at a standstill even though I've been unable to put much effort into the engine.

What is significant enough in this release to warrant bumping the version number?

• This is the first release of Doomsday made simultaneously on three platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

• The first thing Windows users will notice is the new installer, powered by [http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php[Inno Setup]]. (The new installer has already been introduced in the repackaged 1.8.6.) The installer provides all the functionality one expects from a typical Windows installer, including generation of desktop icons, start menu entries, and uninstallation.

• The most important new feature in the engine is a new lighting model called bias lighting. It is a combination of manually-placed light sources and smoothed sector lights. Once finished, it is intended to be the new default lighting model for Doomsday. In this release bias lighting must be enabled manually (by setting rend-bias to one), and it has not been fully adjusted: many maps will mostly become too dark (Doom 3 fans rejoice).

• If you've been using previous releases of Doomsday, it is likely that you have encountered a memory zone error. This release removes the fixed-size limit of the memory zone and allows Doomsday to use any amount of memory it requires; this should make it easier to use large resource packs. The -maxzone option has been removed as obsolete.

• The virtual file system has been enhanced with the possibility to map entire directories to a virtual location. By default there is a virtual mapping from (runtime)/Auto to both Data/(game)/Auto and Defs/(game)/Auto.

• General stability of the engine should be better.

While you're getting excited about all the new stuff, bear in mind this is only the first beta release. Many features (bias lighting in particular) are still clearly unfinished. You will likely encounter many bugs and small glitches; be sure to file bug reports on the deng SourceForge project page. The beta phase will likely last for a couple of months, depending on how much time we can spend on working on the project.

There are some obvious shortcomings in this release:

• Per-map initialization of the bias lighting is extremely slow. Its performance will be improved in future beta releases.

• Bias lighting suffers from inaccurate line-of-sight tests and leaking of smooth sector light. To an extent these issues are insignificant, but there are several things that can be (and will be) done to improve the current implementation.

(by )

The beta phase of Doomsday 1.9.0 continues. At the moment it looks like we'll be going up to Beta4, at the least.

Beta1 had some problems with distribution packaging; hopefully this time around the build scripts are working like they should on all platforms.

Bias lighting grid initialization was fixed. It's now considerably faster and prints no messages in the console.

Console text during map load was fixed.

Texture color processing was fixed so that Hexen's menu text color is closer to the right color.

Color selection menu items are now drawn correctly under MacOSX.

Bias lighting still hasn't been tuned or optimized. It's still too dark and a bit slow in certain situations (lots of moving planes, many sector light changes). The LOS test hasn't been touched yet.

• 3D model renderer is broken. Most models in =jdoom-resource-pack-1.01.zip= will show up as strangely squished shapes. Will be fixed in Beta3.

• Automap is not clipped to its window.</noinclude>

• removed the -maxzone option as obsolete
• fixed: crash during startup when running with extra_verbosity

• removed fixed limit on the number of particle_generator stages
• fixed: minor memory leaks concerning definition data

• removed fixed limit on the number of opened files
• less chance of file name collisions thanks to CRC32 in Dir_FileID
• fixed: auxiliary_lump_cache not checked for lump_names when searching

• fixed: missing textures/flats no longer cause a fatal error. Surfaces with an unknown/missing textures/flats are now rendered with a “Missing” texture

• fixed usage of GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3 (caused problems with rendering shiny surfaces).
• fixed: light & halo not centered to sprite correctly (batman_tc, wall torches).
• fixed: mobj shadows sometimes rendered above the object casting the shadow.
• fixed: animated_textures/flats would flicker after a console RESET.
• fixed: pegged middle textures “bouncing” on moving planes.
• fixed: alignment in view border patch drawing.

• sliders now eat up/down keys (so the user isn't confused when the focus jumps to some other control when up/down is pressed in a slider)
• game_view_window is now resized in the ticker

• fixed: CVE-2006-1618 buffer overflow.
• fixed: vsprintf security vulnerabilities (buffer overflow) on all platforms. Thanks to the Gentoo crew, Florian Westphal and Alexey Dobriyan for their part in helping to resolve these issues.

• fixed several endianness_issues in model rendering, xg, wav loading, buttons
• fixed: network games (now compatible with Win + Linux)
• fixed rendering of shiny_models (multitex and non-multitex)
• fixed many minor compilation issues

• fixed: bug that prevented sector chains from working correctly under certain circumstances (due to dummy_activators in sector functions)
• fixed: XSTrav_PlaneTexture - the xg_dev message “couldn't find suitable” was printed even when a suitable reference WAS found.
• fixed: ltc_plane_move sector type was incorrectly being set to type 0 when the move finished if no end type change was specified. Result was sectors “losing” their type after a plane move.
• fixed: XS_GetPlane - when a act_tag reference was specified it was incorrectly being compared to the regular sector tag during iteration.
• fixed: XS_GetPlane was incorrectly referencing sector tag 0 when called during XS_Trav functions which implicitly set ref data to zero when used in conjunction with spref_tagged_ or spref_act_tagged_. Now checked with -1 and an xg_dev warning message is printed.

• memory_zone expands as necessary

• tweaks to the console appearance (new defaults for console_background picture, color, and alpha)
• console: game information texts moved to the title bar
• improved: console_history buffer uses different colors for items based on their type (yellow for commands, white for variables)

• decoration:Light:Flare texture is deprecated. Use “Flare map” instead

• ccmd 'listbindings': List bindings in a specific binding class (

  listbindings map

  )

• ccmd 'bind': Bind a command for a specific binding class to a key/button (

  bind map +f follow

  )

• ccmd 'delbind': Delete a binding in a specific binding class (

  delbind map mpanup

  )

• optimized allocation and handling of runtime map data (zblocks, levelstatic_blocks, fast_alloc_mode), reduced map setup times significantly
• changed: expanded map structure element limits.
• changed: expanded blockmap limits by enlarging BLOCKMAP data at runtime
• changed: bsp data is no longer required to load maps if runtime node building is enabled (cvar 'bsp-build' = 1). This allows playing eg maps created by SLIGE without generating the BSP data prior to loading the map in Doomsday
• improved: map load time greatly improved with large maps
• improved: sectors now have three sound origins (center, floor, ceiling). Sector sounds are played from the most appropriate source.

• changed: cameras can now move above/below the ceiling/floor unrestricted.
• changed: always do a full texture reset after using the “lowres” ccmd

• slightly more pronounced fake_radio (default darkness changed from 1.0 to 1.2)
• improved: emulation of doom.exe faked sector-over-sector tricks
• improved: fakeradio now handles complex geometry and DOOM.EXE tricks better
• improved: fakeradio wall shadows are now affected by plane glows and the sky

• removed: Doomsday.wad is obsolete, all data is now loaded from doomsday.pk3

• Build scripts require zip (package zip on Debian/Ubuntu)

• optimized release builds now work correctly

• changed: the dd_xgdata lump is now deprecated.
• improved: end_level_xg_class_: specify next level on exit (Ip3).
• improved: wall_texture_xg_class_ and plane_texture_xg_class_: set the surface color, blendmode and alpha properties of the referenced surfaces.
• improved: wall_texture_xg_class_:Set Mid If None: add/remove midtextures on twosided linedefs.
• changed: mimic_sector_xg_class_ was using the line's act_tag when the mimic target reference was set to SPREF_ACT_TAGGED_. This is the opposite to the way it works with all other classes which use these data references. New sprefs have been added which retain this functionality.
  • IF YOU'VE USED SPREF_ACT_TAGGED_FLOOR/CEILING AS THE MIMIC TARGET REFERENCE IN YOUR PWAD: Your pwad will no longer work as expected and you should update and redistribute it.

• dmu (Doomsday Map Update): map data objects are no longer directly accessible from plugins; all changes go through DMU, and notifications are routed to the correct places inside the engine for efficient operation

• light:Halo radius
• light:Flare map: the flare map to use for this light's halo. Either a path and resource_name OR a built-in_flare_resource_number
• decoration:Light:Flare map: same as above for light decorations.
• flag:Info: text string containing a comment about this flag
• ded reader: the “Copy”/“*” directive (used to initialize the current definition being read with the values of the last) can now be used with thing, state, line_type and sector_type definitions.
• thing:Flags2 'mf2_radiusattacknomaxz': z dimension is ignored when calculating if a radius attack hits a mobj with this attribute (in PIT_RadiusAttack).

• vdmap_option_: map files in one directory to another directory (virtual_directory_mapping)
• automatic_file_mapping_in_pk3: files in 'keyword-named' folders in the root_of_a_pk3 mapped to directories
• subdirectory “Auto” of the runtime_directory mapped automatically to both “Defs/<Game>/Auto” and “Data/<Game>/Auto”
• dehacked_patches (.deh files) are now loaded automatically from Data/Game/Auto and from the root folder in pk3/zip archives.

• binding_classes: multiple commands can be bound to the same event
• ccmd enablebindclass: Enable/disable/toggle binding classes or view their status
• ccmd listbindclasses: Print a list of available binding classes

• listmobjs_cmd_: print a list of the mobj ids + names (if set via DED) to the console.
• unknown/missing_textures/flats are reported in the console after loading a map
• cvar blockmap-build: when/if new data is generated (default = when needed)

• bias_lighting: direct sources and smooth sector lighting
• cvar rend-bias-grid-multisample: multisample factor used when determining sector to light_grid mapping. Larger values increase accuracy at the expense of map load times.
• light_range_compression: increase light in dark sectors/decrease light in bright sectors
• cvar rend-fog-default: default fog algorithm
• flaremaps: loaded from “Data/Flares” - used for custom_halos on objects
• surface colours: individual walls and planes can be given a unqiue color. Wall section surface colors are blended between sections to achieve color fades. Surface colors and fades can be used to accurately recreate doom64 style lighting.
• alpha'd/blended midtextures on two-sided_linedefs
• flag 'LUMF_DONTTURNHALO': disable the view angle rotation of halos and lens_flares for this luminous_object.
• blendmode: BM_ZEROALPHA (GL_ONE, GL_ZERO) “draw with no translucency”
• new dfn font format that supports RGBA bitmaps
• cvar rend-sprite-mode: 1 = draw sprites and masked walls with hard edges
• cvar rend-dev-mobj-bbox: debugging aid - render mobj bounding boxes (sized to match the box used for collision detection) for debug.
• cvar rend-dev-cull-subsectors: disable non-visible subsector culling for debug.
• cvar rend-glow-scale: multiplier for wall glow height

• new fixed and variable-width fonts (with normal, bold, and light variants)

• console uses the Doomsday title bar, which is visible in the other UI screens
• control_panel UI fades away to display the game view when adjusting gamma, contrast, and brightness
• control panel offers 16:10 resolutions
• new console controls:
  • F5: Clear console text buffer
  • Alt + C: Clear command line
  • Shift + cursorleft/cursorright: Move cursor to start/end of the command line
  • Delete: Delete the character under the cursor
  • Insert: Toggle character insert input mode. When off - new replaces old
  • Shift + Tab: Use “other” unknown word auto_completion mode
  • Right arrow: a “command history fill” to the command line (ala DOS command prompt) when the cursor is at the end of the command line
• cvar con-move-speed: (0 - 1.0f) speed of console opening/closing

• A new world mapping subsystem based on that used previously in j_doom.
• All controls are bindable in two new bindclasses map and mapfollowoff which are active during normal and pan-mode respectively.
• All colors are fully customizable.

• A new menuing subsystem based on that used previously in j_doom.
  • All controls are bindable via two new bindclasses menu and message which are active during navigation and message-response-mode respectively.
  • cvar menu-color2-x: (x = R/G/B) Secondary colors used for menu text items.
  • cvar menu-fog: Added two new modes: 3= Grey fog, 4= Darken.
  • cvar menu-patch-replacement: Mode 2 = Use built-in patch replacement when available.
  • cvar menu-quick-ask: Ask me to confirm quick save/load actions.
  • cvar menu-slam: Slam the menu when opening/closing.

• A new widget suitable for displaying HUD messages.
  • cvar msg-align: Default horizontal alignment for messages.
  • cvar msg-blink: Number of tics a message should blink before fading to normal.
  • cvar msg-color-x: (x = R/G/B) Default color for messages.

• line_type: xg_line_type definitions now have alternate names for the iparms.
• line_teleport_xg_class_: boom-style line→line (silent) teleport
• teleport_xg_class_
• Added more xg_dev messages. Reference types are printed by name instead of ID.
• line_type:Act type: Set line type on activation
• line_type:Deact type: Set line type on deactivation
• Flag 'ltf2_override_any': override boom 'Any Trigger' Linedef flag
• line→line references (lrefs):
  • lref_none
• line→plane references (lprefs):
  • lpref_back_floor
  • lpref_back_ceiling
  • lpref_thing_exist_floors
  • lpref_thing_exist_ceilings
  • lpref_thing_none_floors
  • lpref_thing_none_ceilings
• sector→plane references (sprefs):
  • spref_back_floor
  • spref_back_ceiling
• line→sector references (lsrefs):
  • lsref_none
  • lsref_back
  • lsref_thing_exist
  • lsref_thing_none
• light level reference (lightrefs):
  • lightref_back

• SDL joystick support (by zachkeene)