Difference between revisions of "Boom"

	Boom
Codebase	Final Doom v1.9
Developer(s)	Jim Flynn, Stan Gula, Ty Halderman, Lee Killough, Rand Phares
Latest release	2.02 (1999-10-09, 24 years ago)
Development status	Discontinued
Written in	C
Target Platform	DOS
License	Doom Source License, GNU General Public License v2+

[checked revision]

Revision as of 21:43, 10 April 2014

Boom is a source port created by TeamTNT. The design goals of the Boom project were to create a source port of professional quality, fix bugs and remove limitations of vanilla Doom, and add extra editing features, while keeping the same "feel" and "spirit" of the original Doom engine. The final version of Boom was released on October 22, 1998.

Boom itself only ran under MS-DOS and was developed using DJGPP, the DOS port of gcc. The code was later ported to other operating systems.

Boom can be viewed as a much more conservative source port than some others because of its strong emphasis on maintaining the original feel of the Doom engine. While many contemporary source ports concentrated on adding Quake-like features (such as a console, restructuring menus, or adding impressive new graphical features), Boom behaves very similarly to the original Doom executable. Many of the changes made in Boom are not immediately visible, such as the removal of limits (e.g. the visplane limit error) and the addition of editing features which, while immensely useful to level designers, may not be obvious to the player.

A large number of WAD files have been developed which require Boom to run. Because of the attractive editing features provided by Boom, many popular source ports have adopted support for these features. This has led to the term "Boom-compatible engine": such WADs may run on many different source ports provided that the source port used supports the Boom editing extensions.

Features

Removal of engine limits and bugs. This includes the visplane limit, the tutti-frutti and medusa effects, the savegame size limit, the venetian blind crash, and many others.
Optimizations to the engine.
New editing features. These include:
- Configurable animated and switch textures.
- Deep water effects.
- Scrolling walls, floors, and ceilings, including support for conveyor belts.
- Translucent walls and sprites.
- Friction effects, such as mud and ice.
- Custom colormaps (which can provide, for example an underwater blue "tint").
- Silent teleporters, which can be useful for fake "room over room" effects.
- Elevators which move the floor and ceiling of a sector together.
- Generic linedef types - a particular linedef behaviour can be "calculated" using a separate linedef calculator program called TRIGCALC.EXE.
- A DeHackEd extension standard, BEX.

Authors

The primary authors of Boom were:

Derived source ports

After the Boom project ended, several source ports arose which were derived from the Boom source code. These include:

LxDoom, which later merged to PrBoom, a portable version of Boom.
MBF, Lee Killough's continuation of his work on the Doom engine.

External links

Source code genealogy
Based on	Name	Base for
Final Doom v1.9	Boom	LxDoom
Final Doom v1.9		MBF
DOSDoom v0.2		PrBoom
DOSDoom v0.2		RORDoom

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 == Features ==
-* Removal of engine limits and bugs. This includes the [[visplane limit]], the [[tutti-frutti effect|tutti-frutti]] and [[Medusa effect|medusa]] effects, the [[savegame]] size limit, the [[Venetian blind crash|venetian blind crash]], and many others.
+* Removal of engine limits and bugs. This includes the [[visplane limit]], the [[tutti-frutti effect|tutti-frutti]] and [[Medusa effect|medusa]] effects, the [[savegame buffer overflow|savegame size limit]], the [[venetian blind crash]], and many others.
-* Optimisations to the engine.
+* Optimizations to the engine.
-* Extra editing features. These include:
+* New editing features. These include:
 ** Configurable [[ANIMATED|animated]] and [[SWITCHES|switch]] textures.
 ** [[Deep water]] effects.
-** Scrolling walls, floors, and ceilings (including support for [[conveyor belt]]s).
+** Scrolling walls, floors, and ceilings, including support for [[conveyor belt]]s.
-** [[Translucency|Translucent]] walls.
+** [[Translucency|Translucent]] walls and [[sprite]]s.
 ** [[Friction]] effects, such as mud and ice.
 ** Custom [[colormap]]s (which can provide, for example an underwater blue "tint").
 ** Silent [[teleporter]]s, which can be useful for fake "room over room" effects.
-** Generic [[linedef]] types - a particular linedef behaviour can be "calculated" using a separate linedef calculator program called TRIGCALC.EXE .
+** [[Elevator]]s which move the floor and ceiling of a sector together.
+** Generic [[linedef]] types - a particular linedef behaviour can be "calculated" using a separate linedef calculator program called {{c|TRIGCALC.EXE}}.
 ** A [[DeHackEd]] extension standard, [[BEX]].