Deafness not working

In the spirit of my last post, here's a new problem I can't figure out...again, for the life of me. I'm finishing up this one WAD, and the very last part of the level has these monsters that just will not be deaf no matter what I do. I tag them as deaf, give the actor flag +AMBUSH, put them inside "block sound" lines, nothing works! It's a long outdoor area, and by the time I get there, one monster has already crossed the entire thing most of the time! I don't get it. What can interfere this badly with making monsters deaf?

It's some bug that happens sometimes and kinda impossible to predict. Try moving the monster a bit on both the X and the Y axis (even 1 unit might be enough).

That doesn't do it...when I step into the adjacent sector, all of them wake up and know where I am (adjacent since I set up those "block sound" lines around them, anyway). This is nuts! I make this awesome level and then a stupid bug shuts me down. I mean, I'll figure out something, but it's gonna take a redesign of that last part.

when I step into the adjacent sector, all of them wake up

That sounds like these monsters can see you..? Perhaps an unclosed sector somewhere, messing things up?

What Memfis describes is only true in vanilla and ports with good vanilla compatibility, not in ZDoom (which, I believe, is the port you're using), so the cause must be in something else. Keep in mind that monsters can see through midtextures of 2-sided linedefs (even those that appear fully opaque) and also wake up when they spot just the top of your head or the bottom of your foot through various windows etc. - check if anything like that could happen in your map.

You claim that your monsters wake up at a moment when they don't have any line of sight with the player, right or wrong? Or do they just wake up when having a line of sight but looking away from the player? In the latter case, it would mean that you've set up the sound blocking lines wrong (not a double layer of them, not separating different sectors, leaking through a joined sector somewhere...).

Yeah, at least one of them wakes up without line-of-sight...unless they can see through a sector that should block them completely. It's basically a sector that doesn't need to be there, because its floor and ceiling are the same height and it's basically a barrier with ways to walk around it. They're facing it.

I didn't know block sound requires two layers. Do the linedefs have to face different directions as well?

No, the line's direction doesn't matter. What also matters is that sound freely propagates between (even physically separated) parts of a joined sector, which can easily bypass sound blocking lines if you're not careful with those sectors.

I've been trying to see if there's a joined sector issue, but it's hard to tell. I'll try some of this other stuff and see what result I get.

Since you are editing for ZDoom, you could explore the action specials 130 and 173.

That is a solid solution. Only thing that's worked so far. Thank you, Kappes Buur. This level should be ready to roll in less than a day!

It's GZDoom, but the basics still seem to apply. I just hope enough people will be able to play it.

Aside from different renderers (and features that absolutely rely on a particular renderer type), ZDoom and GZDoom are practically the same engine. Their game behavior related features are constantly developed and updated in sync with each other.

Ah, well that's good to know. I just went through a huge section of my level and applied the dormant property to a ton of monsters, along with a tag to activate them. This level has been tough but rewarding. I mean...for once I've pretty much made exactly what I wanted to. But it's a huge file...gotta figure out where to host it so that there's no problem downloading it.

rabidrage said:

Ah, well that's good to know. I just went through a huge section of my level and applied the dormant property to a ton of monsters, along with a tag to activate them. This level has been tough but rewarding. I mean...for once I've pretty much made exactly what I wanted to. But it's a huge file...gotta figure out where to host it so that there's no problem downloading it.

I was going to say, upload/post it so we can take a look. It could be a joined sector issue, if you run your cursor over the sector it'd light up other sectors joined to it.

Upload to mediafire.