Direction of stair-building in SLADE 3

[nick nick nick nick]

Heya, I'm just sort of studying the classic DOOM93 maps in SLADE at the moment, and I was wondering about stair-building. For instance, towards the end of E1M3, there's a stairwell leading up to the exit. The selected linedef in the image has special `8: W1 Build Stairs 8`, and triggers the first step. The subsequent stair sectors alternate tags between 0 and 999, up to the top stair.

 

I'm trying to understand the setup for future reference. If I wanted to change the direction of the stairs, is that just a matter of flipping the linedef directions? Or does the order of the alternating tags matter? SLADE's action window doesn't seem to have as many options as the action wiki suggests, so I'm not sure how to change/setup these things. (Also, first-time SLADE user/mapper-in-general, so I'm still very much learning all the different tools 😅)

 

[Gez]

40 minutes ago, nick nick nick nick said:

If I wanted to change the direction of the stairs, is that just a matter of flipping the linedef directions? Or does the order of the alternating tags matter?

It's just a matter of flipping linedefs, as well as swapping the sector tag of the formerly first step to the formerly last step, which is now the new first step.

 

Only the first step matters as far as tags are concerned -- the other sectors had alternating tags only because of a technicality in the editor used by id Software at the time; the only purpose was to give these sectors a difference so that they wouldn't be automatically merged.

 

Spoiler

If you want the full explanation: it didn't save sectors, only lines and things. All sector properties were put on the lines instead. And then the nodebuilder would create sectors automatically from connected lines that have the same properties. So to avoid having all the steps merged into a single sector, which obviously wouldn't work as a stairbuilder because it'd have only one large merged step, they made them artificially different with tags that aren't actually used by the game.

 

 

40 minutes ago, nick nick nick nick said:

SLADE's action window doesn't seem to have as many options as the action wiki suggests

The ZDoom wiki details the parameterized specials used in Hexen format and UDMF. The old Doom map format doesn't have parameters, each special has only a single behavior and a single trigger.

 

On the ZDoom wiki, you can sometimes see a table of conversion from the Doom format to the parameterized specials, e.g. this stairbuilder corresponds to line types 7 and 8.

 

And yes, there are several different map formats, because that was needed to have room for more modding features.

[nick nick nick nick]

Oh that rules, thanks so much for the detailed explanation!

 

Do you know offhand if stairs can "build" down as well in the old Doom format (e.g., if I'm making a trap door down to a basement area, or something). Stairs_BuildDownDoom does exist on the ZDoom wiki, though I'm not seeing the equivalent in SLADE, though maybe that's due to the software & not the format.

[Gez]

14 minutes ago, nick nick nick nick said:

Do you know offhand if stairs can "build" down as well in the old Doom format

Not in vanilla compatibility*; but it can be done in Boom compatibility with the generalized stairs.

 

In SLADE, if you make sure to select Boom or above (e.g. Boom + MBF, or Eternity, or ZDoom) as the "port" in the "Launch Map Editor" window, then when you edit the line special that you want to trigger the stairs, make sure to switch from "action special" to "generalized special" and then you get a drop down where you can choose "stairs" type and you can have it building down (it's actually the default option for direction on the generalized specials).

 

(* Unless you're making a map for Strife, not for Doom.)

[Stabbey]

17 minutes ago, nick nick nick nick said:

Oh that rules, thanks so much for the detailed explanation!

 

Do you know offhand if stairs can "build" down as well in the old Doom format (e.g., if I'm making a trap door down to a basement area, or something). Stairs_BuildDownDoom does exist on the ZDoom wiki, though I'm not seeing the equivalent in SLADE, though maybe that's due to the software & not the format.

 

There is no official "build stairs down" feature, however any vanilla actions which say "floor lower to highest floor" (or 8 above highest floor) can produce an effect like that with the proper setup (attached sectors behind a wall, dummy sectors in the void, or an internal sector inside one of the steps which is small enough and has untextured sides). My map Water, Fire, and Blood has examples in the water and fire areas.

[nick nick nick nick]

Alright, this is all super informative. Thanks so much folks 🙏