False floors - how ?

I've seen a couple of 'vanilla' Doom2 wads that use some sort of trick to create a false floor, what i mean by this is that you see a floor with a water texture but when you step on it you drop down below the level of the water texture and then the texture is above you (i guess it becomes a false ceiling). Can anyone spare the time to explain how this is done.

Are you sure they're "vanilla" DooM levels? Boom has the deep water effect, as does ZDooM, as well as other ports. For a good explanation of creating the deep water effect using ZDooM, check out Rick "Wild Man" Clark's tutorial at:

zdoom.notgod.com/zdhtech/zdoom21.html

If indeed you're sure that they're "vanilla" DooM levels then I'm stumped. Perhaps if I were to open up the levels in an editor I might be able to see how it's done. Let me know the names of those levels and I'll see what I can come up with.

Probably the best place to see an example of this effect in 'vanilla' doom is ikspecial.zip This contains a wad called underwtr.wad which displays the effect i want to achieve, but i can't quite figure out how its done (mind you, the alcohol isn't helping :-)

I vaguely remember reading about ikspecial, but I couldn't find it on cdrom.com. I assumed it was created by Ikka Keranen, so I visited his site at Planetquake (but didn't find it there) and did a broader search for the file. There was one reference to ikspecial.zip, but no link. The reference was actually an article about DooM source ports, and it mentioned that the mlook feature of ports would screw up the illusions created in ikspecial. This reinforces the idea that it's a "vanilla" doom wad.

Do you have a link to ikspecial? (However, with my limited editing knowledge, I suspect that I won't be able to figure it out.) Check with NightMare, Nigel Rowland, Fanatic, Lüt, and others who have these things down cold.

http://www.doomworld.com/tutorials/fx10.shtml

This has a tutorial and also a link to the Iikka .wad in question.

Personally after reading through that I still don't understand it, but then I use ZDoom or Boom for nearly everything nowadays so I don't really care :)

The tutorial you mention is for rooms above rooms or something, which is not the effect i was talking about. However, i think the 'shadow casting' tutorial may hold the key to the effect i'm looking to achieve.

Thanks for the comments anyway guys, cheers.

ReX said:

Are you sure they're "vanilla" DooM levels? Boom has the deep water effect, as does ZDooM, as well as other ports. For a good explanation of creating the deep water effect using ZDooM, check out Rick "Wild Man" Clark's tutorial at:

zdoom.notgod.com/zdhtech/zdoom21.html

If indeed you're sure that they're "vanilla" DooM levels then I'm stumped. Perhaps if I were to open up the levels in an editor I might be able to see how it's done. Let me know the names of those levels and I'll see what I can come up with.

The "memento mori 2" TC has a bad example of this in map09 (i think), it is near the waterfall complex, sometimes you drop into a pit that has some meanies in it, looks like water but you fall through.

EnsignBenson said:

The tutorial you mention is for rooms above rooms or something, which is not the effect i was talking about. However, i think the 'shadow casting' tutorial may hold the key to the effect i'm looking to achieve.

Thanks for the comments anyway guys, cheers.

It's the same thing. just not as hard to make.

I've seen this in quite a few wads. as room over room in Requiem and Hangar by justin the old Doomnews head honcho. and as water in a map by teppic and in others others.

Yeah, Iikka Keränen introduced us the "very deep water" (or something like that) effect long time before even BooM was out... Also another interesting variation of the effect can be seen on Requiems secret Quake level where you can see an empty room but there is a hole in front of it and when you drop down from that hole you will fall into room right below this upper room.

It's a bit tricky to figure out by looking the levels with editor but I figured it out and did the same trick in an unrealeased heretic level.

Simply create a normal sector, now create a smaller sector in the bigger sector and make the ceiling as high as the surronding sector but the floor deeper (like 16 units) now highlight the small sector and edit the second linedef. Make the second linedef refrence to the same sector as the first one.
Compile the level and load it up in vanilla doom. There, instant deep water, just one problem, if there is an enemy in the water you can see him normally not like with real water from the waste up or something. Still a cool effect, experiment.