Help required from Edge gods...

... I don't know if this is even possible -- I'm stuck without it -- but how would I make an enemy appear to 'swim' under a floor, like the swamp monsters in Hexen.
I'm using Edge's DDF feature, and I can't think of a way how to do it. I mean, I have the animations, and that, but how do I get it to swim without it just being an invisible thing you can still hit and/or interact with (Like walking into or on it). In effect, I want to make something inert in it's chase states, so how do I do this?

Thanks in advance...

urm

you mean like the fish in quake/qdoom?

Nah, the serpent things from Hexen. Most of the time invisible - under the surface. Occasionally you see the ridge of their back "breaking" the surface, and they rise up fully to attack. This is not in true deep water, just on regular flat floors.

It can be faked in any port that allows sprite replacement (ie basically all of them). I did a version of the Star Wars monster that grabs Luke Skywalker in the Death Star garbage pit using graphics from Dark Forces. Basically it looks like an eye on a stalk most of the time, but has taller graphics when it rises up to attack. It was actually for a mod I did for Heretic way back. It replaced the "Clink" monster IIRC. Once you have your graphics sorted, you just place one in a "water" sector bound by monster blocking lines to stop it getting out of the water.

With a little bit of extra work (probably extending the walking cycle using dehacked), it would be easy to make it have some invisible frames - giving the impression of being totally submerged, and a frame or 2 of rising up and going back down, as well as the fully visible attack.

The true Hexen monster has a few advantages, however. I believe (though haven't checked thoroughly) it is coded so that when "submerged" it is no longer shootable, maybe not impassible either and I dont think it leaves the sector it is placed in - removing the need for block enemy lines. This allows other monsters to walk into/fly over the pool instead of having to go round.

Of course, you could wait for the new version of Zdoom. Because it supports Heretic and support for Hexen is on the way, it will be possible to spawn Heretic and Hexen monsters into Doom levels using ACS scripts. The water serpents are already fully included in the Zdoom exe, so all you have to do is provide graphics and sounds for them (from Hexen.wad) and include a few SNDINFO entries for them and they can be spawned in your doom level.

The current beta allows you to summon them from the console, but there is an acs command that will be included for the release version that will allow you to spawn items by their internal actor name - including Heretic and Hexen monsters into Doom levels at a position predetermined in your editing program by placing a map spot where you want the monsters to be. Then all you will have to do is have a script like this:

Spawnspot ("Serpent", spawn-tid, set-tid, angle);

Where spawn-tid is the thing id of the map spot where the monster is to appear, set-tid is an optional parameter to give the spawned monster a thing id (eg to allow it to then activate a script or other special) and angle is the direction the spawned monster will face.

Enjay rules

Does this mean I can remake most of the enemies from heretic so I can have new enemies in Underworld (it uses Zdoom) instead of ones that replace the old ones? And what would I use? HHackEd?

Does this mean I can remake most of the enemies from heretic so I can have new enemies in Underworld (it uses Zdoom) instead of ones that replace the old ones? And what would I use? HHackEd?

Yep, it's possible in doom (you don't need any special port for it, i saw something like it in a pwad for DOOM2.EXE), although I never tried it. The pwad I saw didn't even need a .DEH file, it just showed me (the space marine), with the floor coming up to his shoulders. You'll need a level editor with some 'special features' like DeepSea or something, browse for some tutorials on how to 'lower the floor without actually LOWERING it'. Sounds really lame, I know, but this is how it was explained to me.

Also keep in mind that the creature from Hexen is also drawn this way, so if you would use, let's say, the Imp for this feature, you'd have to erase some textures (to make it 'under water') and change others (like the snake-like movements of Hexen's serpent). The tallest textures should be the imp attacking (just as it is in Hexen).

Good luck