"voodoo script" primer?

Alright, I'm working on my first Boom map, and though I have a general idea how "voodoo script" works (conveyor belt sectors and player clone/voodoo dolls?), I don't know how to do create the conveyor belts. I'm working toward a somewhat simple effect; when the player hits a switch, I'll have that switch raise two floors - the first will crush some barrels (producing the appropriate explosion sound), the second will release a voodoo doll player who will make a ceiling raise at the proper moment.

So far, though, the only obstacle I've found so far is creating the conveyors. Boom doesn't seem to have an editor's wiki to my knowledge, and the Doom Wiki doesn't appear to have links to a readme or anything similar. Any help?

Crossposted from le IRC channel:

wildweasel: make a dummy sector somewhere outside your map, i usually use a triangle. draw it so that one of the lines of the triangle is facing in the direction you want your conveyor to move.
now give that line a tag, and put line special 252 on it.
put the same tag on your scrolling sectors.
to adjust the speed of the scroll, make the line shorter or longer.
there are also some more complex types you can use for weird special cases, like there are some scrollers that speed up or slow down based on the movement of a tagged sector or something, but i don't know much about them

Also, whenever possible I'd recommend using instant-lowering or turbo floors as your voodoo blocker. I'm not sure if it makes that much, if any, difference, but having them start out 25 units above the floor should be the optimal height to let the voodoo cross to the other side and trigger your "script" lines with as little delay as possible.

Also make the areas wide enough so that the voodoo dolls do not touch the walls, and that means accounting for some possible drift as well, especially if the objects are sent through silent teleporters.

If voodoo dolls start to wall-run, the results can be catastrophic to your intended "scripting." I have seen them accelerate fast enough to skip triggering lines entirely when this happens.

Not that it necessarily matters much, but I prefer using instant-rising doors instead of anything to do with floors. With floors you can run into compatibility problems between different ports (related to where the voodoo doll is spawned), and if for some reason you put the player into a rising pit that's big enough that it won't be touching any other sectors, you'll have to give more sectors the scrolling effect...

Also, although it might require more sectors/lines depending on implementation, doors tend to be "better" for monster teleports than "a raised floor which' line connecting it to the "monster den" works as a teleport"...

I put my voodoo dolls in a 252 scrolling sector, and use thin 32-high blocks to stop them moving. I trigger the doll with a Lift Lower Floor To Next Lowest Floor (Fast) on the blocking sector.



I figure moving 8 pixels down fast (as the scrolling doll can walk over the lift when it's at 24 high) is quicker than waiting for a 56 high gap when using a Door Open (Fast). This also potentially lets you teleport the doll back to the start, and make the whole thing re-useable.

Note in this picture, I've also stuck a vertex in the middle of the Walk trigger. You can trigger two things at once this way.

WildWeasel said:

Boom doesn't seem to have an editor's wiki to my knowledge,

Not everything has had a wiki, you know. You can get a text documentation for everything you need to know about Boom editing. It comes bundled with Boom: http://www.teamtnt.com/boompubl/getit.htm

Super Jamie said:

I figure moving 8 pixels down fast (as the scrolling doll can walk over the lift when it's at 24 high) is quicker than waiting for a 56 high gap when using a Door Open (Fast).

Ceiling Lower to Highest Ceiling. (of course there's a similar option for floors, especially with generics, but I still prefer doors to be consistent with my own mapping :P)

midnight thought so bear with me. For a staggered monster teleport, after insta-opening the first block have a linedef open and close (fast) the door for the monster teleporter, then have a linedef closing then opening a door to the voodoo-doll-being-pushed's teleporter, and having the whole thing repeat infinitely while your monsters are coming in a staggered teleport at the player.

Just thought I'd put that out there.

Doesn't esselfortium know much about accelerative scrollers?

As for doll blockers, I use turbo doors (regular turbo doors) with their floor sunken. Unlike their mother sector, they don't scroll, because of different tag. Sinking them makes sure the doll always stays on the scrolling floor of the mom sector.

For scrolling teleporting monsters, in order to avoid eternally blocked monsters, you can put a silent teleporter at the end of the line, to bring back at the start. Or, with the power of crushers or perpetual lifts, you can make the floor slide back and forth.

printz said:

As for doll blockers, I use turbo doors (regular turbo doors) with their floor sunken. Unlike their mother sector, they don't scroll, because of different tag. Sinking them makes sure the doll always stays on the scrolling floor of the mom sector.

You don't have to lower the door's floor, because thanks to the doll's momentum it will always go past the door sector anyway (unless you use super thick doors or very short control lines).

Quasar said:

Also make the areas wide enough so that the voodoo dolls do not touch the walls, and that means accounting for some possible drift as well, especially if the objects are sent through silent teleporters.

If voodoo dolls start to wall-run, the results can be catastrophic to your intended "scripting." I have seen them accelerate fast enough to skip triggering lines entirely when this happens.

This answers a question I have been trying to work out. Thanks for that. :)

Jodwin said:

You don't have to lower the door's floor, because thanks to the doll's momentum it will always go past the door sector anyway (unless you use super thick doors or very short control lines).

Unless I make the scroll trigger way too slow (like from 8-long lines: very slow) :)

Doomworld's own Boom editing tutorial can be found here.