Name: Familiar Summon
Type: Summon
Palette: Custom
Summon: FamiliarSummon, Familiar
Use type: Inventory
Duration: One map
Added States: none
ACS: n/a

Submitted: MagicWazard
Decorate: MagicWazard
GLDefs: MagicWazard
Sounds: Raven
Sprites: Raven, MagicWazard
Sprite Edit: MagicWazard
Idea Base: Dark Servant/Summon Sphere

Description: Summons a Familiar (an upgraded Afrit from Hexen) to fight on behalf of the player. Includes item versions themed to both Doom and Heretic/Hexen.

Preview:

Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xk51qh80uoaz7 ... Summon.zip

I like the idea of being able to summon a creature on the player's behalf, but I wanted a creature with more agility than the Baron. I also wanted something that could work in Heretic/Hexen. This is what I came up with. I decided to use the Afrit as a base for the creature, since its visual design fits pretty well in both types of environments. The Familiar itself has fairly similar behavior to the Afrit, but with heavily upgraded stats; has 500 points of health, so it's fairly durable, but only does 2-16 damage per shot (with 4 shots fired per attack). It's intended more for tanking than spanking, if you catch my drift, but it can solo some medium-grade creatures if you let it. (I watched 3 kill a Maulataur once!) I was contemplating giving it one or two additional attacks (like a homing shot or splash damage attack), but I wanted to get your feedback on whether that was really necessary or not.

As for the item, I've included two versions, each in its own WAD; a sphere, for Doom users who want all their supernatural artifacts to be in orb form, and a scroll, for Raven users (or Doomers who like variety). The two versions aren't designed to be used in tandem--the filenames and actor names are identical (though the DECORATE script for each item's animation sequence varies slightly). Also, the Familiar itself is the same regardless of which item you choose to summon it from.

You can carry 5 of these at once; all 5 can be transported between maps.

Unlike the Summon Sphere, this item does not replace any pre-existing item class. It's fully self-contained and doesn't reference any other items or assets, and has minimal inheritance. It should be safe to use in any game environment. Also, there was one drawback of the Summon Sphere that I was trying to avoid--if you use it too close to a wall or object, it will fizzle out without summoning the Baron. I think I managed to make my version a little more foolproof, but I'm curious to see if you guys experience any issues, or if you think I ought to execute the spawning in a different manner.

This package includes GLDefs, but no brightmaps. Since it's a flaming monster and a powerup item, I felt it was OK to have everything fullbright in this case.

I'd love any constructive feedback you may have on the item and the creature that it summons. Thank you in advance for looking!

EDIT: Fixed inventory bar icon display issue.

EDIT 2: Recalibrated scroll item's inventory bar icon for Heretic. Added notes in DECORATE for each version regarding offsets for other games. Fixed a bug where the Familiar will stay invulnerable if hit with a FOILINVUL attack before his "see" sequence finishes.

Very cool

I just love mods/games that allows me to summon helpers!

Very nice!!

Whoops, turns out that I was using the first pickup sprite as the item icon, and as a result, the sprite offsets were pushing the icon out of the inventory bar when not playing in full-screen. Didn't realize that would happen. I updated both WADs with a dedicated inventory bar icon with proper offsets.

Not bad. One thing I noticed is that the inventory image in Heretic and Hexen still looks a little off. This happens with the sphere as well. Here's screenshots with and without the inventory bar.

Hmm, I'm not exactly sure how to handle this, since the offsets look fine in Doom. I'm guessing the problem is that the different gametypes (that is, Doom vs. Raven) use different amounts of offset for inventory icons, but this usually isn't a problem, since most items are only used in one game or the other--whereas this item was designed to be a little bit more interchangeable. What if I was to adjust the scroll version offsets to fit the Raven HUDs better, and recommend that the scroll version of the item is only used for Raven? And keep the sphere version with its current offsets, so it looks OK in Doom's HUD? Or is there some other solution that would be preferred? I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks for pointing this out!

I think this is to expected. Doom nerver had an inventory system, thus never had a place on the status bar that was designed to show inventory items in the first place. In ZDoom, by default, the mugshot background is used as the place to displaying the items, which is not the same as the one that was made specifically for that in Heretic and Hexen's status bars. The mugshot background is bigger than the inventory display box in the two Raven games.

That's more or less what I thought. Still, I have no problem redoing the offsets for the scroll version of the item in order to make it fit the Raven HUDs better, since it although it "works" in Doom just fine, it WAS designed to fit more into the Raven style than the Doom style. What do you guys think?

I think this could work...


Alternatively, you could have two sets of icons with one set's offsets adjusted to fit Doom's status bar and the other to fit Heretic and Hexen's. And in DECORATE you could do something like this:

The sphere... Code: Actor FamiliarSummon : CustomInventory {   [...] some code here   Inventory.Icon "FSPDOOM" // Use this icon when playing Doom //  Inventory.Icon "FSPRAVEN" // Use this icon when playing Heretic and Hexen   [...] some code here } The scroll... Code: Actor FamiliarSummon : CustomInventory {   [...] some code here //  Inventory.Icon "FSCDOOM" // Use this icon when playing Doom   Inventory.Icon "FSCRAVEN" // Use this icon when playing Heretic and Hexen   [...] some code here }

However, that's just a suggestion.

That's not a bad idea, but I'd rather not have two of the "same" icon in the WAD. I think I'm going to go with my original idea--having the sphere offset for Doom, and the scroll offset for Raven--and probably put some comments in the DECORATE for each version telling the user what offsets to use if they want to use the icon with the "other" gametype. Thanks for the suggestion, though!

EDIT: I updated the offsets for the Scroll version to fit Heretic's HUD better. Annoyingly, Hexen requires slightly different offsets than Heretic--at least, for an item with this dimensions. So, I added notes in each version's DECORATE listing the appropriate offsets for any other games.

Also, I found that if the Familiar is hit with a FOILINVUL attack (like a PoisonBag cloud) while he's uncurling during his "see" sequence (while he's supposed to be invulnerable), he'll jump straight to his "pain" sequence and never call his "UnSetInvulnerable" function at the end of his "see" state. So I added this at the end of each "pain" state as a safeguard. It's not too inelegant of a solution, IMO.