Difficulty level's text color not changing

[Grey_Wolf]

Unfortunately for you, I'm back! With more issues to solve than ever! No well, not really, at least for now.

But there's one thing that's actually bugging me.

 

I'm going to have many skill levels for my mod, to let the player choose exactly what kind of challenge he wants to take on. So I want to divide various "categories" of skill levels by color. The only thing is that the "textcolor" line in the MAPINFO lump is not giving any effect and I don't know why. Is it because I have already more than 8 skill levels or maybe it's because I'm using a custom font? Is there any way to force the color change?

[Grey_Wolf]

Yeah I already knew that and I was ok with it. But it doesn't say anything about text color for the smallfont, so I still don't understand why I can't change it. I'll tell you if I find something out. Please do the same if you happen to stumble on something useful.

 

EDIT: ok, apparently it was really a bug. GzDoom lead developer Graf told me he'll fix when he'll get the chance.

Also, here's the correct method for doing this (currently not working until he fix it)
 

Quote

by Graf Zahl » Sun Mar 03, 2019 6:38 pm

When it switches to the smaller font, entirely different menu logic is used, which cannot make use of the color settings.
To work around this, you have to integrate the color change into your skill name string - see https://zdoom.org/wiki/Print for what needs to get added.

 

EDIT2: For anyone wondering or having a similar problem, GzDoom has been updated and in the last devbuild the bug is fixed. To apply the colortext, edit the skillname to use the color format you want

 

Example:

skill normal
 

Spoiler

{
   AmmoFactor = 1
   DamageFactor = 1.0
   SpawnFilter = normal
   name = "\cGHurt Me Plenty!"
   defaultskill
}

In this case, "\cG" will make the skillname red even if smallfont is used. Thanks to Graf Zhal for his help, but also to everyone of you that tried to give me advice.

 

P.S.: I know it's a lame thing to do, but I'm gonna set this as the "best answer" since it's the only one that could help other people with the same issue.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Grey_Wolf : New informations

[Dark Pulse]

This should hopefully help you out.

 

In short, make sure you've done a clearskills before defining your custom skills.

[Grey_Wolf]

Yeah I already put it there, sadly...

All my custom skills work perfectly as intended, the only thing I can't figure out is why I can't change the textcolor in the selection menu.

[Dark Pulse]

Paste your definitions then, and someone can take a look. If it seems right, then it'd probably be a question for the ZDoom devs.

[Grey_Wolf]

Spoiler

clearskills

 

skill Horde
{
   DamageFactor = 3.0
   MonsterHealth = 1.5
   FriendlyHealth = 0.3
   ACSReturn = 32
   //FastMonsters
   //DisableCheats
   SpawnFilter = hard
   name = "Unchained Horde"
   TextColor = "Brown"
   mustconfirm = "You take 3 times the normal damage, while enemies have 50% more health. Maximum monster spawn filter. Press y/n"
}

skill DemonHunter
{
   DamageFactor = 3.5
   MonsterHealth = 3.0
   FriendlyHealth = 0.3
   ACSReturn = 32
   //FastMonsters
   //DisableCheats
   SpawnFilter = normal
   EasyBossBrain
   name = "Demon Hunter"
   TextColor = "Brown"
   mustconfirm = "Just Like Unchained Horde, but with less (but sturdier) enemies. Player takes 350% damage. Press y/n"
}

skill GiantSlayer
{
   DamageFactor = 4.0
   MonsterHealth = 4.5
   FriendlyHealth = 0.3
   ACSReturn = 32
   //FastMonsters
   //DisableCheats
   SpawnFilter = easy
   EasyBossBrain
   name = "Giant Slayer"
   TextColor = "Brown"
   mustconfirm = "Even less monstes than in Demon Hunter, but VERY resistant. Player takes 400% damage Press y/n"
}

 

 

Here are some examples. Skill levels are actually more than ten or so.

[Nevander]

Maybe try it without your font. I don't know what could be wrong but let's make sure there isn't anything weird about the new font. Are you using any other font related lumps like FONTDEFS or TEXTCOLO?

[Dark Pulse]

See what happens if you don't enclose text colors in quotes. Also make sure you're using valid colors, unless you're prepared to make your own.

 

(All of yours are so far, so if it's just due to it being in quotes, that should solve it straight away.)

Edited March 3, 2019 by Dark Pulse

[Grey_Wolf]

None of the two solutions you proposed worked. Even without the new font, I just see a low resolution font in gray. Reverting to less than 7 skill levels, (so that the characters are replaced with the "bigfont") make the right textcolor show correctly again. So I think it's something affecting the entirety of the smallfont. Strangely, when I use it in the hudmessage acs commands or with the string color formatting, the color of the font changes without problems... with  or without using the new font. It's just this skill menu I can't figure out.

 

There's a FONTDEFS lump but it's mostly related to ammo numbers, and no, there's no TEXTCOLO lump.

[Kappes Buur]

I have not done anything with skill settings, so I searched around and found that Demonsteele, the Cacowards map from 2014, has done just that.

 

I changed the Textcolor settings from the original white and got this

 

 

Maybe take a look at the pwad and see how they did it.

[Grey_Wolf]

From my previous post just above yours...

Quote

Reverting to less than 7 skill levels, (so that the characters are replaced with the "bigfont") make the right textcolor show correctly again. So I think it's something affecting the entirety of the smallfont.

 

[Dark Pulse]

In that case, yes, probably a limitation of the small font. It may be something you want to bring up to the ZDoom developers to see if they've got anything to say about it?

[Grey_Wolf]

I just made a brand new .wad file with only the MAPINFO lump and some custom skill levels. Starting from 9 skill levels and up the font switches from BIGFONT to SMALLFONT, and all the skill level names are automatically translated to grey. So yes, I don't think it's something I have to fix, rather than something I have to learn how to do or work around, since as Dark Pulse said, seems to be some kind of limitation.

 

Quote

It may be something you want to bring up to the ZDoom developers to see if they've got anything to say about it?

Should I just post on the Zdoom forum or is there some kind of way to contact the developers directly?

[Kappes Buur]

From the WIKI

Quote

 

skill <name> { properties }

Creates a new skill level. <name> is arbitrary so long as no two skill blocks use the same one. Use one of the name or picname properties below to specify what to show in the skill selection menu. If there are more than eight available skills in total, the skill list will be displayed using the small menu font instead of the traditional big font; and skill pictures will not be shown.