Weather Effects in ZDoom

I got to thinking, would it be too hard to put weather effects in ZDoom? Imagine how much this would add to the atmosphere of a given level or levels. Does anybody know of any ZDoom wads that have weather effects such as rain or snow in them? Thanks. :)

It's not too difficult to put wind effects in, simply put the 'blow player' property into the sectors, and use an appropriate ambient sound to go with it.

ZDoom is supposed to have lightning effects in it, but apparently this isn't working yet, or something. (and I've not actually tried it yet, just the wind effects)

in my newest wad (see sig) level 3 has some pretty good rain effects. I have a skybox with a sludge sky and a blue particle fountain aboe the skybox camera. so its rain in a storm. I was going to put fog in but decided not to.

The lightning seems fine in the latest betas. You need to include the lightning instruction in your MAPINFO and for further effect, a world/thunder (IIRC) SNDINFO entry will let Zdoom make synchronised noises with the lightnin flashes.

I've tried the above, and they work, but apparently it is also possible to use a SKY1 and SKY2 MAPINFO entry for levels with lighning effects in a different way from normal levels. SKY1 is shown normally, and sky2 when the lightning flashes (I think). Hmmm, I'll have to go and try that.

As far as rain and snow go, they are not supported (although the idea above sounds interesing). And there has been a DM map that used modified fireballs and a script to simulate rain (pretty well too). I forget the map name though.

There was a Christmas WAD out in '99 that used a modified Zdoom engine to add snow effects. Worth the download 'cos it's a cool mod.

http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~jonasf/xmasdoom/

Edit:

OK, I tried the 2 skies effect in Zdoom, and it looks really cool. Just get a sky picture, then make a copy of it with some lightning strikes drawn on it. Then use the first (plain) one as SKY1 and the second as SKY2. If you have set up everything correctly, you should get the following effect:

At random intervals, all areas with an f_sky ceiling will flash brighter, a thunder sound will play (if you have defined one) and your sky will switch briefly to SKY2.

Cool.

The MAPINFO entry for the level I tried it on:

map MAP29 "Resolute Fortress"
cluster 12
sky1 njsky14 0.2
sky2 njsky14b 0.2
forcenoskystretch
lightning
music N_0047
fallingdamage
next EndgameC

Ghostbusters doom has rain sprites & sounds in some maps.

Icy floor can mean wind i guess.

Icy floor for wind is silly. There's an actual wind or sector friction thing you can set for your sectors in ZDoom.
Check out my Doom Arcade Release 1 MAP90 for a scripted lightning effect if interested (link is in my sig).

RailGunner said:

Icy floor can mean wind i guess.

Icy floors mean slipperyness, silly.

You can mimic a lightning effect by using a skybox with a "light flickers
randomly" tag. I think it was used in Doom Arcade.

Enjay said:

The lightning seems fine in the latest betas. You need to include the lightning instruction in your MAPINFO and for further effect, a world/thunder (IIRC) SNDINFO entry will let Zdoom make synchronised noises with the lightnin flashes.

I've tried the above, and they work, but apparently it is also possible to use a SKY1 and SKY2 MAPINFO entry for levels with lighning effects in a different way from normal levels. SKY1 is shown normally, and sky2 when the lightning flashes (I think). Hmmm, I'll have to go and try that.

As far as rain and snow go, they are not supported (although the idea above sounds interesing). And there has been a DM map that used modified fireballs and a script to simulate rain (pretty well too). I forget the map name though.

There was a Christmas WAD out in '99 that used a modified Zdoom engine to add snow effects. Worth the download 'cos it's a cool mod.

http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~jonasf/xmasdoom/

Rain could probably be faked if there were some way to set more properties on the particle fountains:

* Take a bunch of particle fountains producing, say, 75% translucent particles colored (192,192,192) [light gray]. (This is the part that'd have to be added to the current engine.) Put these at the ceilings of the sky sectors and distribute them fairly evenly.

If you've packed them densely enough, you can vary the amount of rain that falls.

Now all you need is puddles...

VolteFace said:

You can mimic a lightning effect by using a skybox with a "light flickers randomly" tag. I think it was used in Doom Arcade.

Can't remember whether I scripted the lighting changes or used that tag, but the way I did the rest of it was tag all sectors with f_sky1 as their celing flat and tagged a control sector for a transfer_ceilinglight which altered the ceiling light of the skybox. If that explanation sucked, go take a look at the map itself, it'll explain it better (I hope).
EDIT: I think I just answered my own question there in that paragraph. I tagged all the sectors and used scripting to change the light level so that the light flashes would remain consistent instead of just blinking all over the place.

I just remembered I did a scripted lightning effect in my NJZD2001 secret map 32 as well. Nothin too fancy, just lighning that starts half way through the level. From memory, I changed light levels in the skybox, and maybe all outside sectors too, by a script and probably had a thunder sound as well.

If you want it:

ftp://3darchives.in-span.net/pub/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/njzd2001.zip

(About 3.5 MB)


As far as rain is concerned, it has been discussed a few times on the Zdoom forum. Particles are usually suggested as a sensible way to go. Perhaps this could be done in conjunction with an "outside rain" command similar to the "outsidefog" command for MAPINFO (which makes all sectors with f_sky have a fog effect). Or maybe a rain "thing" you could place in a sector to make it rain in that sector, setting arguments for how heavy, colour and I dunno, speed? A rain thing could presumably be activated and deactivated as well to change the weather during play, if it were implemented that way. And/or a sector special settable via scripting. Whatever, I don't think it is on Randy's "to do" list. At least not for the version currently under developement.

As a result of this thread, I have just thrown together 2 example files that show off the lightning effect and the double scrolling sky effect in Zdoom. I have posted about it in the Zdoom forum, and linked to the files from there. If you are interested, pop along to:

http://notgod.com/phorum/read.php?f=12&i=4067&t=4067

You will need the latest Zdoom beta before these work.

http://zdoom.notgod.com/ftp/123beta33.zip

Enjay said:

As far as rain is concerned, it has been discussed a few times on the Zdoom forum. Particles are usually suggested as a sensible way to go. Perhaps this could be done in conjunction with an "outside rain" command similar to the "outsidefog" command for MAPINFO (which makes all sectors with f_sky have a fog effect). Or maybe a rain "thing" you could place in a sector to make it rain in that sector, setting arguments for how heavy, colour and I dunno, speed? A rain thing could presumably be activated and deactivated as well to change the weather during play, if it were implemented that way. And/or a sector special settable via scripting. Whatever, I don't think it is on Randy's "to do" list. At least not for the version currently under developement.

See, this is why I say we should just ask for a generic particle fountain (which would be more useful as well).