CatacombGL - source port for the Catacomb 3D games

On 4/16/2024 at 5:44 AM, taufan99 said:

While we're at it, would you consider adding an option to allow the Catacombs Trilogy to playback the unused Too Hot music file in the game data? Y'know, it's kinda lonely without in-game music there, even if it's a 16-second song with a repeated 8 bar in its entirety (lol).

Thanks for your suggestion. The Too Hot to Handle music file from Catacomb 3D (and Keen 4) is indeed present in the game data of every Catacomb Adventure title. It's relatively easy to allow playback as an option. I've added it to my todo list.

Well i dream to see something like this project for 

Hovertank 3D =)

i like this source port , super cool)

@WhiteMagicRaven Thank you!

I would also be very much interested in playing a widescreen HD version of Hovertank 3D. But I don't see myself developing it anytime soon, due to the required effort. What's also a hurdle is that the game data of Hovertank 3D is currently not available as either shareware/demo or a commercial package. Requiring players to obtain the game data from abandonware sites is not my idea of a smooth user experience.

If anyone's wondering, the rights to Hovertank 3D were bought ten years ago by someone from Germany, but so far that didn't lead to a commercial release. Hopefully that will change some day.

3 hours ago, Arno said:

@WhiteMagicRaven Thank you!

I would also be very much interested in playing a widescreen HD version of Hovertank 3D. But I don't see myself developing it anytime soon, due to the required effort. What's also a hurdle is that the game data of Hovertank 3D is currently not available as either shareware/demo or a commercial package. Requiring players to obtain the game data from abandonware sites is not my idea of a smooth user experience.

 

If anyone's wondering, the rights to Hovertank 3D were bought ten years ago by someone from Germany, but so far that didn't lead to a commercial release. Hopefully that will change some day.

I agree. I find it surprising that no one has so far found the Hovertank 3D situation such a big shame, other than those who have already known and could/can only shrug about it. Pretty sure @Blzut3, who initially suggested that the game be made open source, wouldn't be happy about this, right?

53 minutes ago, taufan99 said:

I agree. I find it surprising that no one has so far found the Hovertank 3D situation such a big shame, other than those who have already known and could/can only shrug about it. Pretty sure @Blzut3, who initially suggested that the game be made open source, wouldn't be happy about this, right?

My opinion doesn't hold any particular weight, but if you want to know anyway I'm honestly fairly indifferent.  I would like to see Havoc (Rene) get around to doing something with Hovertank and Shadow Knights, but I'm happy enough with the source code being published and the rights holder being a known entity.  To that end I probably should have asked Rene for a copy of the Shadow Knights source code for safe keeping but honestly didn't think he would sit on things for so long.  Hovertank is in an arguably better position than Keen Dreams is (locked up behind delusions of grandeur), although that situation is mitigated by the fact that the game data is shareware.

In case you're not aware, Havoc collaborated with me on porting the Catacomb II code base so I was in regular contact with him at the time.

That's a good point, @Blzut3.

From a game preservation point of view, the source code has indeed top priority, since it has the highest risk of becoming lost forever. That's taken good care of in case of Hovertank 3D.

With regards to the game data we at least know that there are many copies floating around. And if someone really has the interest, time and knowlegde to develop an HD version of Hovertank 3D, the rightsholder is known and can be contacted so perhaps an arrangement can be made.

16 minutes ago, Arno said:

That's a good point, @Blzut3.

From a game preservation point of view, the source code has indeed top priority, since it has the highest risk of becoming lost forever. That's taken good care of in case of Hovertank 3D.

With regards to the game data we at least know that there are many copies floating around. And if someone really has the interest, time and knowlegde to develop an HD version of Hovertank 3D, the rightsholder is known and can be contacted so perhaps an arrangement can be made.

I think I know a guy who's making a game directly inspired by Hovertank 3D... (While we're at it, I'd like the mod to split the topic, so that the thread doesn't get too derailed.)

On 4/16/2024 at 6:44 AM, taufan99 said:

While we're at it, would you consider adding an option to allow the Catacombs Trilogy to playback the unused Too Hot music file in the game data? Y'know, it's kinda lonely without in-game music there, even if it's a 16-second song with a repeated 8 bar in its entirety (lol).

I'm wondering, does that also include the Catacomb Apocalypse? Reason is that, assuming the information currently given in the following page is correct, it has an IMF file matching the length of Too Hot to Handle's IMF, only that it's filled with empty instructions: https://vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php/Too_Hot_to_Handle

I checked all four games in WDC and the one in Apocalypse sounds the same as the others.

I had the same observation as @SiFi270. I don't think that Wiki page is correct, at least not with respect to the version of Catacomb Apocalypse that is shipped with the Catacombs Pack.

7 hours ago, SiFi270 said:

I checked all four games in WDC and the one in Apocalypse sounds the same as the others.

3 minutes ago, Arno said:

I had the same observation as @SiFi270. I don't think that Wiki page is correct, at least not with respect to the version of Catacomb Apocalypse that is shipped with the Catacombs Pack.

So the info isn't correct, at least not for v1.01. What about another version? I know that The Catacomb Abyss had at least 3 versions out (shareware versions 1.12 and 1.13, plus registered v1.24); The Catacomb Armageddon had a version titled "Curse of the Catacombs", while The Catacomb Apocalypse had one named "Terror of the Catacombs".

2 hours ago, NY00123 said:

So the info isn't correct, at least not for v1.01. What about another version? I know that The Catacomb Abyss had at least 3 versions out (shareware versions 1.12 and 1.13, plus registered v1.24); The Catacomb Armageddon had a version titled "Curse of the Catacombs", while The Catacomb Apocalypse had one named "Terror of the Catacombs".

I just opened the game data of Catacomb Abyss v1.13, "Curse of the Catacombs" and "Terror of the Catacombs" in WDC. They all have that same music file, with sound and all.

I also tried Catacomb Abyss v1.12, but unfortunately WDC couldn't open it, so I'm not sure about that one. Nevertheless, I'm still positively surprised about the range of game versions that WDC can work with.

@Arno https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/07/the-fps-that-paved-the-way-for-wolfenstein-3d-and-doom-is-getting-a-new-big-box-release

Been playing through the first game with the port and it’s great. Amazing work, I’ve also heard something about this working with hovertank 3D. Is that a option? Or is that just a misunderstanding?

overall I really enjoy this port and can’t wait for future updates. Great job mate.

@Mrcatin123 Thank you and welcome to Doomworld!

Unfortunately, Hovertank 3D is not supported. It would be nice to have, but so far I couldn't find the time to look into it.

CatacombGL 0.5.5 is released!

After a long hiatus, I've resumed work on the source port. This new version brings support for command line parameters, which was implemented by wcapes. There are also various other small features and fixes, including the possibilty to play the "Too hot too handle" music track in the Catacomb Adventure Series, as suggested by @taufan99.

28 minutes ago, Arno said:

CatacombGL 0.5.5 is released!

After a long hiatus, I've resumed work on the source port. This new version brings support for command line parameters, which was implemented by wcapes. There are also various other small features and fixes, including the possibilty to play the "Too hot too handle" music track in the Catacomb Adventure Series, as suggested by @taufan99.

Just woke up and didn't expect this. Very happy we can now play Catacomb Adventure Series with the unusued music now! Only thing I'd like to complain now would be about the SFX quality. I know it's to be expected because this behavior of simultaneous Adlib use of music and SFX wasn't expected in the trilogy, but Catacomb 3D's SFX quality still sounds good enough with simultaneous Adlib use.

Also, is there any way to set the display into dedicated GPU instead of the discrete one? Oh, and custom level loading when ;)

As always, thanks for your interest and helpful feedback, @taufan99.

Just to give you a bit of context, I fully admit that the sound department is not really my cup of tea. From the start the focus of CatacombGL was primarily to improve the graphics. The sound effects and music just needed to "work". So at that time I simply reused the sound code from other open source projects. To be a bit more specific, I reuse the audio timer from ReflectionHLE, which uses the SDL2 library and the OPL3 emulation from the DOSBox team. So all I have to do is read a chunk of bytes from disk and hand it over to the borrowed sound code with the function call "StartMusic" and the music starts playing. Hence your request for music in the Adventure series was relatively easy to implement. However, as you probably can already guess, improving the SFX quality is hard for me. Unless maybe @NY00123 has some idea's?

I found some instructions on Intel's website on how to force an application into using the dedicated GPU. Maybe that helps.

Custom level loading would be very interesting. I know the WDC level editor is capable of modifying Catacomb levels. And some custom levels exist. But still, I can imagine it would be quite some work to make it happen with a relatively easy workflow. Because unlike Doom, the Catacomb games were not originally designed with custom level loading in mind.

@Arno Thanks for the reply as well. Either way I'm glad my suggestion made its way to the latest build. I'll be waiting for @NY00123's (or maybe others') say on this issue too. Meanwhile, I'm on another city without my laptop until Saturday, so I might be unable to extensively test any further until that day, but I've noted the instructions (which I've also applied to TFix for Thief Gold).

1 hour ago, Arno said:

Custom level loading would be very interesting. I know the WDC level editor is capable of modifying Catacomb levels.

Last I checked (and it's been a bit so update me if I'm behind the times) WDC "sort of" supported the Catacomb games, you could do basic map layout edits, but tweaking other things (most annoyingly for level making, the location flavor texts) was not possible.

15 hours ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

Last I checked (and it's been a bit so update me if I'm behind the times) WDC "sort of" supported the Catacomb games, you could do basic map layout edits, but tweaking other things (most annoyingly for level making, the location flavor texts) was not possible.

I beiieve you are correct. On the itch.io page of the Peter Dreimour mod for Catacomb 3-D, there's a short tutorial that explains how the mod was put together. Maps were indeed made with WDC. The sprites and textures were bundled together into an EGAGRAPH file using a program called UGrab. But the location texts remained unchanged in the mod, so it could very well be that there's no tooling for that at the moment. That's exactly the kind of details that need to be figured out when looking at custom level loading.

20 hours ago, Arno said:

As always, thanks for your interest and helpful feedback, @taufan99.

 

Just to give you a bit of context, I fully admit that the sound department is not really my cup of tea. From the start the focus of CatacombGL was primarily to improve the graphics. The sound effects and music just needed to "work". So at that time I simply reused the sound code from other open source projects. To be a bit more specific, I reuse the audio timer from ReflectionHLE, which uses the SDL2 library and the OPL3 emulation from the DOSBox team. So all I have to do is read a chunk of bytes from disk and hand it over to the borrowed sound code with the function call "StartMusic" and the music starts playing. Hence your request for music in the Adventure series was relatively easy to implement. However, as you probably can already guess, improving the SFX quality is hard for me. Unless maybe @NY00123 has some idea's?

Given a bit of earlier experience from Keen 4-6, that is actually expected for me. The following may be attempted with the last version of CatacombGL:

- Start Catacomb Abyss with music off. If it's toggled on, turn music off and restart CatacombGL (this is important). Within Catacomb Abyss, stand near a key.

- Save a game here. Grab the key. It should sound more-or-less as usual.

- Turn the music on and reload the game. Re-grab the key. Does it still sound the way you know?

- Turn music off and reload the game again. Grab the key one more time. Any change to the sound?

What seems to happen here, is that the stock music of Keen 4-6 reconfigure at least one FM channel in a way that changes sound effects. There are ~450 bytes in the beginning of each IMF track having this impact, essentially doing chip configuration (as described by Malvineous in the thread linked below). That does not necessarily hold to new IMF tracks made for Keen mods, hence unmodified Keen 4-6 sound effects might sound different (or actually, sound more like stock Keen 4-6 when started without music).

2010-era PCKF thread of mine with more details: https://pckf.com/viewtopic.php?t=1012

Also linking to my Keen 4 video demonstration uploaded in 2021 (note - certain colors might be wrong due to varying support for input video format that I used):

@NY00123: thanks a lot for the detailed explanation! I wasn't expecting at all that there would be such a nasty dependency between the music and the sound effects.

I tested the use case with grabbing the key in CatacombGL/Catacomb Abyss; it is absolutely noticeable. Afterwards I did a similar test in the DOS version of Catacomb 3-D, but there I couldn't hear a difference. It could be that the sound effects in Catacomb 3-D were picked in such a way that they don't interfere with the music channels.

From what I read in the PCKF thread, there doesn't seem to be an off-the-shelf fix that leaves the sound effects unaltered while the music is playing. I will have to look into it a bit further. If necessary, I would always have the option to remove the feature again. We'll see.