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MasterofJKD

Ladders in Zdoom

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The "cheap" way of doing it that is compatible with any format as far as I know, is simply having stairs with very, very skinny sectors each about 8 units tall, I think even 1 unit wide should be fine.

There's a multitude of ways to do it. Here's one:

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3360

I think you could also just have a swimmable sector in front of your ladder texture to make it seem like you're climbing it.

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Ladders can be done quite easily. First you'll need a straight linedef with a ladder texture. Open linedef editor and select type 128 "thing thrust Z" and activates on player bump. Set force to 25 and leave others at zero. There, done.

But.. I think it can work for Zdoom. This works on GZDoom though.

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If I'm not mistaken the "Thing Thrust Z" linedef method doesn't let you "climb down" the ladder, only up. Of course doesn't matter too much if you've not got falling damage active or it's not very high to begin with.

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Nomad said:

The "cheap" way of doing it that is compatible with any format as far as I know, is simply having stairs with very, very skinny sectors each about 8 units tall, I think even 1 unit wide should be fine.

I usually do it using this "cheap method" with some slight modifications.

First, I make the steps 24 tall. No point in making more steps than you need and the player can step-up a difference of 24 units.

Second, I use transfer heights using the sector that the steps start off in as the reference sector. This makes the steps invisible.

Finally, I put a ladder-looking texture on a 2S line (or if GZDoom I may use a model) as near as possible to where the ladder should logically be. With narrow steps (1 unit) this is usually pretty easy.



It would be nice if there was an actual ladder line type: perhaps pressing [use] to attach to the ladder then forward/backward (or look direction) to ascend/descend the ladder. However, with the Doom physics engine being a tricky and easily upset beast to work with, I suspect that adding such a feature would not be trivial.

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I think EDGE (maybe Legacy?) has a ladder line type. I've always been surprised that ZDoom doesn't have one. Ladders are the bane of my existence in FPS games, so it doesn't bother me much. Your attach idea is great; that's what most modern games do, and it's so much better than the Quake 2 style of ladders.

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Enjay said:

I usually do it using this "cheap method" with some slight modifications.

First, I make the steps 24 tall. No point in making more steps than you need and the player can step-up a difference of 24 units.

Second, I use transfer heights using the sector that the steps start off in as the reference sector. This makes the steps invisible.

Finally, I put a ladder-looking texture on a 2S line (or if GZDoom I may use a model) as near as possible to where the ladder should logically be. With narrow steps (1 unit) this is usually pretty easy.



It would be nice if there was an actual ladder line type: perhaps pressing [use] to attach to the ladder then forward/backward (or look direction) to ascend/descend the ladder. However, with the Doom physics engine being a tricky and easily upset beast to work with, I suspect that adding such a feature would not be trivial.


Enjay: Could you upload an example WAD? I am having trouble understanding your method. Thank you.

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Dragonsbrethren said:

I think EDGE (maybe Legacy?) has a ladder line type. I've always been surprised that ZDoom doesn't have one. Ladders are the bane of my existence in FPS games, so it doesn't bother me much. Your attach idea is great; that's what most modern games do, and it's so much better than the Quake 2 style of ladders.


Yes, EDGE has one, I'm not sure if Legacy does/did.

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I use similiar method, with the 3d floors usage, as I'm more accustomed with them.
It works just like the one Enjay described - steps are invisible (alpha for the 3d floor is set to 0), but is done in another manner.

reference .wad

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Aghh, I see, thankx!

So the same thing can be accomplished in classic DOOM using the old Sector Index trick. I.E. Draw a set of sectors outside the map, adjust the heights to be the heights the invisible steps should be then draw lines in front of the Ladder Texture with Sector Indexes that match those of the fake sectors.

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Breeder said:

Enjay: Could you upload an example WAD? I am having trouble understanding your method. Thank you.


I'm sorry. I totally missed this reply. It's probably too late now but here's the example that you requested.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ttk2aiuom1afgbh

It's in Boom format (only tested in ZDoom though) but the principle works for any port that supports a transfer heights line type.

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Enjay said:

I'm sorry. I totally missed this reply. It's probably too late now but here's the example that you requested.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ttk2aiuom1afgbh

It's in Boom format (only tested in ZDoom though) but the principle works for any port that supports a transfer heights line type.


Thank you sir, this does indeed work in non-ZDOOM ports.

I noticed that all the invisible steps are tagged with "1", but what are they associated with? I can't figure it out! :)

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Breeder said:

I noticed that all the invisible steps are tagged with "1", but what are they associated with? I can't figure it out! :)

Look close. Look very close. The 1 unit long line on the north most face of the tallest step is a transfer heights line. :)

Oh, should have said, if you are editing in ZDoom Hexen mode or UDMF the line type is 209 not 242.

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I was just about to come back and say,"hey, I'm noticing a pattern here!"

Interesting, very interesting. I've seen this method before, but never in relation to sectors you can actually reach from within the map, only with unreachable sectors.
Curious, I'm going to have to see if I can duplicate it myself.

Thanks again!

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Just so that you know what is going on, the transfer heights line is facing the main sector that the player starts in. So it is using that sector as a control sector (which are commonly made as little sectors outside the play area). Because of the transfer heights line, all the sectors tagged 1 are rendered with the same appearance as the control sector - ie the main starting sector. Et voila, the steps vanish!

Although this isn't perhaps the most common use for such line types, there is nothing unsupported or hackish about it so you can use the feature with confidence. (I also use it to hide door sectors when making see-through doors out of midbars textures etc).

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Oh fuck, long thread. In any case, there's a ladder in KDiZD Z1M3 that acts pretty convincing: the player climbs at a finite speed, and (IIRC) also goes down steadily. The ladder is somewhere in the original E1M3's layout.

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Enjay said:

(I also use it to hide door sectors when making see-through doors out of midbars textures etc).


Could I trouble you to upload an example of that to? Just so I can better imagine what you described. If not, no worries, :)

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Breeder said:

Could I trouble you to upload an example of that to? Just so I can better imagine what you described. If not, no worries, :)


Sure, no worries. I actually have a ready-made example of that sitting on my HD from ages ago. I think it is in ZDoomHexen mode. It could possibly be improved by making the door sector a bit thinner and, perhaps, putting the door texture on both sides of the 2S door lines.

http://www.mediafire.com/?yca8yiya73uu3r3

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Enjay said:

Sure, no worries. I actually have a ready-made example of that sitting on my HD from ages ago. I think it is in ZDoomHexen mode. It could possibly be improved by making the door sector a bit thinner and, perhaps, putting the door texture on both sides of the 2S door lines.

http://www.mediafire.com/?yca8yiya73uu3r3


Genius!

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Breeder said:

Genius!

Thanks but I think that's going a bit far. :P

Transparent doors of this style have been possible since the days when the vanilla executable was the only choice. The door was hidden using a self referencing sector in the original exe. The method I posted works on the same principle as the original transparent doors but just uses a newer (IMO better) way to hide the door. I have been doing that for a very long time now (shortly after I first started messing with transfer heights lines when BOOM introduced them) but I couldn't say with any confidence that I was the first to do it.

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There were doors like this in DOOM? I don't remember seeing any of them, then again I could have also been distracted by all the carnage.

Either way, this is pretty cool!

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Breeder said:

There were doors like this in DOOM? I don't remember seeing any of them, then again I could have also been distracted by all the carnage.

No, transparent doors are not present in the original DooM or DooM2. However, they can be achieved with a bit of trickery.

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MasterofJKD said:

On some wads mappers have made ladders I was wondering how to make one.


I was going to mention the 3D ladder in MAP03 of Rex's PARANOID



But, I guess it's a bit late now.

Speaking of transparent doors, a while ago I looked at the various techniques to do just that.

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Kappes Buur said:

I was going to mention the 3D ladder in MAP03 of The Persecution Complex's PARANOID

The GZDooM method of doing ladders is, indeed, somewhat more elegant than ZDooM's (pre-3D sector) method of using transfer height specials. Also, GZDooM allows a truly 3D representation of the ladder, while ZDooM's transfer height special method only permitted the ladder to be represented by a flat texture.

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