Widescreen weapon graphics for JFDuke3D?

[vanfanel]

Hi there @jonof

Do you happen to know what widescreen graphics pack is compatible with JFduke3D?

I tried loading this one:
https://github.com/NightFright2k19/duke3d_widefix

with this command that usually works for loading music packs in .zip format:

duke3d -gduke3d_widefix.zip

...but it doesn't seem to work with JFDuke3D. Any ideas?

[jonof]

It's very likely that modern packs lack native support for JFDuke since Eduke32 has moved on some way from where I left things. It may be possible to adapt packs by editing the .def files to remove things incompatible with JFDuke.

If the widescreen fixes work like I think they do, it'll have no effect with JFDuke because there's no support for defining tiles loaded from individual files, which Eduke32 supports.

[vanfanel]

@jonof So a new pack specifically tailored for JFDuke3D is needed, right?

[jonof]

A version at least that would patch the TILESxxx.ART files with the updated artwork.

[vanfanel]

My guess then is that https://github.com/NightFright2k19/duke3d_widefix should work (unless I am missing some details).

As you can see on it's repository, it includes tiles097.art, tiles098.art and tiles099.art.

Also, duke3d.def (is that expected to be the name of the main .def file?) simply does:

include duke3d_widefix.def

and in turn, duke3d_widefix.def does:

globalgameflags 1

include scripts/widescreen.def

..where finally scripts/widescreen.def does things like this:

tilefromtexture 2325 { file "tiles/widescreen/2325.png" xoff 24 ifcrc 0xC28B6D5C }
tilefromtexture 2326 { file "tiles/widescreen/2326.png" xoff 16 ifcrc 0xABA45CC7 }

Then, some questions: does jfduke3d support tilefromtexture? Does it support .png textures being loaded like that?

[jonof]

does jfduke3d support tilefromtexture? Does it support .png textures being loaded like that?

It doesn't.

[jonof]

To illustrate, it is possible to patch in the art updates for weapons using my arttool program included in JFBuild's repository, but it's a terrific nuisance. First the PNG file from NightFright2k19's repo needs to have the Duke palette correctly set and be saved as PCX format. Then the new tile must be inserted to the appropriate tilesxxx.art file with the correct tile origin, e.g. arttool addtile -x 141 -y 189 2544 2544.pcx
After all that, you will have widescreen-adjusted weapons as expected:

Question is, how worth it is it?

[jonof]

(Apparently worth it enough to learn that I've got faults in the tile replacement function of arttool 🤦‍♂️)

[inf78]

Hehe, that widescreen image post is from a date of my birthday, interesting. ;)
Anyway, I am glad you fixed some of the arttool faults, because yes, it's not so necessary for Duke, but definitely quite useful for SW, seeing the katana being chopped off so abruptly there is pain.
I tried more ART tools, but there aren't many really. Apart from the java BAFed, all seem to be Windows only and quite old. I am not aware of any other that can be build on Linux. So after getting the hang of arttool (which is rather quick) I just had to do something with the katana. I mean that horribly looking and distracting chunk of blood hanging from it, no, it had to go.

Add those cool skyboxes and one can get something like this (which is also perfectly vanilla DOS .exe compatible):

Well, dealing with Doom stuff is simpler, but it's all just a matter of habit I guess. But Slade can handle GRPs just fine, so it's a plus.

(Edit: Just a quick cleanup of the blood chunk edit, I was in a hurry. One of the katana sprites was also quite wrong in terms of offsets, but that's not visible here)