Design etiquette - hidden linedefs

Cleaning the automap is an extra effort that is absolutely not expected from you by most players. Of course it's still very nice when it's done. I think Back to Saturn X might have been the first wad to popularize the idea.

GZDoom Builder has an automap mode where you can see how it will look and easily hide the lines just by right-clicking on them if I remember correctly.

I am a big supporter of this - the automap is a very helpful tool, integral to the way I play doom. But if it is cluttered with detail linedefs, then it becomes a hindrance to the basic function of navigation/orientation. The way I generally treat it is to hide nearly all linedefs related to "detail" especially if they are not in a place the player can reach. Then mark all linedefs involved in the boundary of the playable area of the map as red (secret). After that it's a sort of trial and error of loading up the map a bunch of times and hiding/making-red the remaining lines that I feel are confusing.

I don't know where the idea started, but the first time I saw it used and began adopting it was crudream.wad. Since the care to the automap is in every map, I can safely blame project manager @Afterglow for imparting his brand of OCD on me.

1 hour ago, Memfis said:

GZDoom Builder has an automap mode where you can see how it will look and easily hide the lines just by right-clicking on them if I remember correctly.

Also, left click makes lines look one-sided.

Great feature, and I wasn't even aware of it.

1 hour ago, Vorpal said:

I don't know where the idea started, but the first time I saw it used and began adopting it was crudream.wad. Since the care to the automap is in every map, I can safely blame project manager @Afterglow for imparting his brand of OCD on me.

In all modesty, I must say I came up with this idea by myself today after loading my current map in the latest version of DoomBuilderX with features an automap mode.

1 hour ago, Vorpal said:

I am a big supporter of this - the automap is a very helpful tool, integral to the way I play doom. But if it is cluttered with detail linedefs, then it becomes a hindrance to the basic function of navigation/orientation. The way I generally treat it is to hide nearly all linedefs related to "detail" especially if they are not in a place the player can reach. Then mark all linedefs involved in the boundary of the playable area of the map as red (secret). After that it's a sort of trial and error of loading up the map a bunch of times and hiding/making-red the remaining lines that I feel are confusing.

Thank you, this is the answer I had hoped to receive. Down my alley...

4 hours ago, ryg said:

(If I understood it correctly, it's a floor map).

The automap differentiates between height differences on the floor and ceiling, but the floor has precedence. So if there's a height difference between the floors of two sectors, the line color will be brown (with the classic Doom colors), no matter if the ceiling heights are different or not. If only the floor heights are the same, but the ceiling heights are different, then the line will be yellow.

Also, the automap doesn't show linedefs between sectors that only differ in brightness but have the same floor and ceiling heights.

Or you could pull a Dragonfly and have the automap bare no relation to the map at all, and instead be a pretty picture of a tree.

10 hours ago, scifista42 said:

Also, the automap doesn't show linedefs between sectors that only differ in brightness but have the same floor and ceiling heights.

Unless you take a computer. Which displays all lines that aren't hidden, and they stay this way even after you see them.

Which that GZDoom Builder feature doesn't account for, unfortunately, although it's a minor nitpick.

I wish 3D floors would show on the map. My 3D floor bridges are completely invisible on the map, important as they are. My only other option is to make them look impassible.