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Maes

Self-referencing sectors: how far can they be pushed?

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I wanted to make a sort of "3D" table using self-referencing sectors. By studying the legendary UAC_DEAD.WAD, I noticed there are at least two different ways of using them: both use a "sector in sector" technique, where the inner one is completely self-referencing and doesn't have any common linedefs of vertexes with any other sector.

However, the "stairs" use a ground-level "outer sector", which makes them actually walkable on, and they don't appear to have a visible "upper floor", other than the one of their "outer sector".

The cyberdemon room uses the "impassable box" technique, in which however makes the floor VISIBLE if viewed from a sufficient height.

Is there a way to exploit this partially visible floor in order to make e.g. a Table which has a normal "floor" underneath, but e.g. a different floor flat at its surface? I tried this, but when visible, the "surface" of the table "bleeds" all over the invisible sector's sides and the whole thing looks like t3h bugz0rz.

It doesn't have to be walkable under, just give the necessary "floor over floor" visual illusion and at the same time keep the "second floor flat" contained without bleeding to the sides of the insible sector.

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Sorry, you may succeed partially but the engine is generally not capable of handling 2 floor places at the same place.

And let's not forget that some source ports may have problems with extreme hacks. The more you abuse the engine the higher the probability that some renderer can't handle it anymore.


If you absolutely have to have 3D stuff better use a port designed for it.

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The closest thing to your idea I can think of is that bridge on the first map of Mordeth. However, for the effect to work properly, you would have to be below the top of the bridge if you were looking at it from the side (as opposed to being on top of it).

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Yeah, stuff like EE's portals are excellent for 3D architecture. SoM has shown me some linked portal test maps that redefine the essence of Doom map design ;)

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Graf Zahl said:

Nothing beats true 3D-floors! :P

Thats right Graf! Risen3D and Vavoom for the win!

FFS the guy wants to do it with rendering tricks let him do it with rendering tricks.

Neways Maes, this here is what you are looking for. You cant walk under said bridge, but it looks really convincing and sexy. EDIT: heh Ichor sortof beat me.

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Hobbs said:

Thats right Graf! Risen3D and Vavoom for the win!


What about Legacy then? It was the first after all!


Anyway, another worthless remark by Hobbs... :P

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Ojesus I thought you knew this much Graf, Legacys 3D floors are really just a huge hack. They arent any more 3d floor than EE linked portals. Also I fail to see where a post in which I link to a tutorial to do whats requested in the topic post is useless. But then again your logic is infallable.

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Hobbs said:

Ojesus I thought you knew this much Graf, Legacys 3D floors are really just a huge hack. They arent any more 3d floor than EE linked portals.


They work, don't they? Although it has been some time ago, last time I started Nimrod or HTH2 with Legacy they worked.

Also I fail to see where a post in which I link to a tutorial to do whats requested in the topic post is useless. But then again your logic is infallable.


That's why I said 'worthless remark', not 'worthless post'. At least you should read the stuff before questioning others' logic. :P

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As always your logic is infallable!

I will point out one small thing before I depart. RORDoom was the first port to feature 3D floors, at least under the very loose definition, not Legacy.

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Maes said:

Is there a way to exploit this partially visible floor in order to make e.g. a Table which has a normal "floor" underneath, but e.g. a different floor flat at its surface?


Nick Baker has a good example wad for these type of effects on his webste http://haunt.8m.com/levels.html. There is a very similar effect to the table you describe. If 3d effects are important its best to use a capable port, it will save time avoiding limitations and bugs.

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EE's linked portals are much closer to true 3D than you think. The translation of space is complete -- objects, tracers, lines of sight, even sound pass through the links. They are effectively seamlessly joined spaces. The automap even displays them properly by overlaying the areas and grayscaling those that are not at your current level.

The fact that you construct the various layers of the linked areas at different locations on the map is, if anything, a major convenience. Seeing how it would become impossible to manage similarly constructed areas if they actually had to be overlayed on each other in our present 2D map editors.

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Sounds interesting. I have one question: How does this handle visibility clipping? The problem with ZDoom's portals has always been that the viewpoint could be behind a one sided wall which in return causes HOM in the portal. Does this have the same limitation or have you found a way around it?

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Wow, thanks guys, I think I'll study the Doomworld editing tricks for that :-)

Even by complicating editing with such tricks, Doom mapping must surely remain easier and more accessible than mapping and modeling for "truly 3D" games.

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Graf Zahl said:

What about Legacy then? It was the first after all!

No, EDGE was the first, SoM put the 3D floor code from EDGE's first release into Legacy.

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Maes said:

Is there a way to exploit this partially visible floor in order to make e.g. a Table which has a normal "floor" underneath, but e.g. a different floor flat at its surface?

The Mordeth example/tutorial will work, though it doesn't explain how. What you need to do to get rid of the bleed is add a short middle texture for the tabletop's border. The flat of the raised inner sector will be drawn out to those textures(top of the table), but not beyond, while the space below the textures remains transparent(under the table).

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Actually DosDoom was first, but DosDoom technically "became" EDGE, while Legacy's code was copied from EDGE later on (and virtually completley rewritten because just 'putting it in' didn't work, suprise suprise)

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deathbringer said:

Actually DosDoom was first

I don't think so.

I joined the DosDoom team shortly before it became EDGE, and have been a member of the EDGE team since (with a break in between). I wrote the extrafloor code for EDGE. I'm quite sure there was no public release of DosDoom with support for extrafloors.

The first public release of EDGE was version 1.24 (or 1.23, I'm fuzzy on that), because the internal releases of EDGE started at version 1.00 and increased by 1 each time. A big part of that development was the extrafloor code.

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Maes said:
Even by complicating editing with such tricks, Doom mapping must surely remain easier and more accessible than mapping and modeling for "truly 3D" games.


In regard to tools and construction, yes. But (IMO) Doom requires more (creative) skill if you want to do similar things. With a firm grasp of the tools know-how you can "translate" real-life scenes almost 1-to-1 in 3D engines, which just isn't possible in Doom.

For example it's easy to design eg "a factory with working machinery" in true-3D games. The first image that pops into your head can be translated into something similar in-game. In Doom, this "translation" is much more difficult since some designs are just not possible. To make "a factory with working machinery" in Doom you need more creativity to make it look believable, since you're working with (much) more engine restrictions.

And as for the "portals are not true 3D like 3DFloors are"... That's simply not true. As Quasar pointed out, the EFFECT of portals IN-GAME does not differ from 3D, since the translation of the two spaces is seamless. How you actually constructed this in your editor does not matter.

Portals are not a gimmick. They changed the way I design my levels like no other feature has done before.

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Mordeth said:

the EFFECT of portals IN-GAME does not differ from 3D, since the translation of the two spaces is seamless. How you actually constructed this in your editor does not matter.

I once looked at an eternity map that duplicated large parts of the map to one side, presumably so that in-game the two spaces can stacked vertically. Is that how portals work?

Seems like such a system would be quite a pain to edit, as you'd need to be very careful to exactly duplicate any of your changes to both copies (like moving a linedef or vertex).

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It's not elementary, but it's the best you can hope for in a Doom level. You probably need to think ahead with the design quite a bit more, since obviously changing it is going to be more complicated than usual. This hasn't so far stopped people from putting them to some amazing use (De Kerker, OPF, Millennium screenies...)

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If you compare the power of 3d floors to the power of portals. You'll get something of a tie.

3d floors are easier to work with from a small details standpoint. Like making handrails and whatever else you want. If you would make those with portals, you could do it. But you wouldn't want to.

While portals wipe 3d floors away when it comes to complex 3d structure building. Same as with the previous example. You COULD do this with 3d floors, but there's no way in hell that you would ever want to.

It's a matter of what you prefer. Personally, the portals are definitely the one feature I value higher. Since it alows so much more than 3d floors ever will.

EDIT: AJapted: I remember the 3d floors being showcased as a new feature before Dosdoom were renamed to EDGE. Not sure if it were released within any Dosdoom version though. Don't think it was.

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kristus said:

If you compare the power of 3d floors to the power of portals. You'll get something of a tie.

In that case, we need a port that supports both, heh. I've never experimented with portals personally, but I've seen a few impressive screenshots showing what they're capable of. Can they match the vertical movement 3D floors allow in order to create moving platforms?

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DooMAD said:

In that case, we need a port that supports both, heh.


Yeah, we need. ;) If I could figure out how to resolve all the visibility clipping issues I would add better portal support to GZDoom immediately. But with the current state of things the ZDoom portal stuff is just a little too limited... :(


Can they match the vertical movement 3D floors allow in order to create moving platforms?


Portals are essentially 'windows' into another area of the map. As such they are not that good to realize small-scale 3D effects or moving geometry within a sector. I can't say whether any portal implementation will be able to do stuff like this but somehow I doubt it.

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