More Than 8 Episodes In UMAPINFO?

[JohnMason1986]

UMAPINFO can let creators to create their own episodic system for their WADs. But this system works not so ideal in "Woof!" and its relatives ("Nugget Doom" & "Cherry Doom"). In examples below, you can see various tests with a small project (that is currently in its compilation stage) that contains 9 mappers, so there were a 9 episodes defined in UMAPINFO lump:

"DSDA-Doom":

"ZDoom":

"Woof!" (result were same in "Nugget Doom" & "Cherry Doom"):

In the last example we have only 8 episodes in menu while defined 9 of them. Thing is that on 1080P monitor (that is not only considering very common in the 2024, but also it is kinda old (since 2K and 4K monitors is becoming more common)) not just only 8, but 9 or even 10 episodes can be easily displayed. It can be just nice to have more that 8 episodes to be shown up in "Woof!'s" episodes screen. And I am sure that "Nugget Doom" & "Cherry Doom" gonna inherit that feature as well.

[fabiangreffrath]

I agree that we should either bump the limit on number of episodes to 10, or remove that limit altogether - but then we would be lacking a means to scroll through the episodes list with the current menu implementation.

In the last example we have only 8 episodes in menu while defined 9 of them. Thing is that on 1080P monitor (that is not only considering very common in the 2024, but also it is kinda old (since 2K and 4K monitors is becoming more common)) not just only 8, but 9 or even 10 episodes can be easily displayed. It can be just nice to have more that 8 episodes to be shown up in "Woof!'s" episodes screen. And I am sure that "Nugget Doom" & "Cherry Doom" gonna inherit that feature as well.

Screen size is entirely unrelated here, because Doom is only able to render to a logical vertical resolution of 200 px.

[JohnMason1986]

I agree that we should either bump the limit on number of episodes to 10, or remove that limit altogether...

I was told that UMAPINFO specification says that it is only up to 8 episodes is allowed to be specified. Then I want an explanation why "DSDA-Doom" have no problems to show up 9 episodes?

I see that we have two ways: 1) Implement a showing support of 9 (10 at best) episodes in "Woof!". 2) Update UMAPINFO specs so it can have 9 (10 at best) episodes to be defined.

Please notice than with 10 defined episodes we can have nice stuff like: 90 usual maps + 9 secret ones. I wonder how many time gonna pass when some group of strong mappers can provide us a "giga-WAD" with 99 maps.

[fabiangreffrath]

I was told that UMAPINFO specification says that it is only up to 8 episodes is allowed to be specified. Then I want an explanation why "DSDA-Doom" have no problems to show up 9 episodes?

That's a good question that only @kraflab can aswer. 😉

1. Implement a showing support of 9 (10 at best) episodes in "Woof!".
2. Update UMAPINFO specs so it can have 9 (10 at best) episodes to be defined.

I'd say we should go for both solutions (and maybe let the port print a warning once the 9th episode is added to the menu).

Please notice than with 10 defined episodes we can have nice stuff like: 90 usual maps + 9 secret ones. I wonder how many time gonna pass when some group of strong mappers can provide us a "giga-WAD" with 99 maps.

😮

[fabiangreffrath]

2. Update UMAPINFO specs so it can have 9 (10 at best) episodes to be defined.

https://github.com/kraflab/umapinfo/pull/3

[fabiangreffrath]

Hm, maybe we should stop at 9 episodes, else the map lump names for the next one will be called E10M1 and so on.

[JohnMason1986]

Creator of "DSDA-Doom" & UMAPINFO spec commented situation with episodes count on their "Discord" server. As I understood, they are insisting on your updating of the "Woof!" source port so it can show 9+ episodes in its GUI. I guess that "Nugget Doom" & "Cherry Doom" creators would like to update that part in their source ports too.

[kraflab]

I didn't insist on anything, I rather said that if you want woof to support more episodes, you should ask for it. I also mentioned that I don't think it makes any sense to change the spec.

[Chonkblonk]

Hm, maybe we should stop at 9 episodes, else the map lump names for the next one will be called E10M1 and so on.

Well, what are the possibilities of implementing that kind of stuff in itself? It would be much more convenient to handle episodes for Doom 2 if map lumps could be named stuff like E5M2, or even as much as E10M10, rather than having maps stick to the MAP01 to MAP99 namespace. It seems very few projects would go so far as featuring 10 episodes with 10 levels each, or even more, but it'd be way more straighforward and cohesive on the mapper end and user end. This would include things like IDCLEV and IDMUS, where maybe IDCLEV18 isn't the most obvious for what's perhaps the second level in your third episode.

[JohnMason1986]

Brad Harding recently made an ASAP update due to remaster that is out now and there is a one line about multiple episodes:

Up to 9 episodes can now be specified using EPISODE and will display correctly in the episode menu.

I guess that is the number that we can use, so semi-vanilla source-ports can be more consistent between each other.

[fabiangreffrath]

Once the first PWAD with 10 episodes is released, this will work in Woof, dsda-doom and gzdoom, but not Doom Retro. 🤷