Abnormally bright flats

[netnomad312]

I recently picked up some info about Legacy effects, and over the few days that followed I made a reactor-style DM map using them. In this map, I used a swimmable radiation dummy sector with a lighting of 120, while the sector it was associated with was 160. It turned out fine and I even got a "nukeage reflection" on the floor of the pit.

Yesterday I was playing Heretic on Doom Connector, and suddenly got an idea for a Heretic wad with Legacy effects... a 3d castle design. Not original, maybe, but fun to make. What I have so far is a cave with a swimmable lava pit, leading to an open area with the castle. In the center of the castle is a well through which the player will ultimately enter the castle, by using the tunnels I built with 3d floors. Since it was a well, this tunnel was also filled with water... and I made all the dummy sectors have a light level of 80.

In testing, though, the flats in the tunnel seemed abnormally bright... more like the 200 of the outside sector than the 80 I set them to. Thus the water flats I put on the dummy sector would display on the floor like I wanted them to, but they'd be so bright they'd cover the stone flat below. I removed them, but then the stone flat was also bright. I eventually tried everything, including setting EVERYTHING to a light level of 80, and also setting everything to 0... but nothing worked. The wall textures would change light levels accordingly (and the weapon would dim), but the flats wouldn't.

This problem has also occurred in the water pit I just built in front of the front door. And looking back at it, the lava pit in the starting cave also has this problem.

I wish I could take some screenshots, but Legacy doesn't have a decent screenshot engine like ZDoom does...

[The Ultimate DooMer]

You can take them, just bind a key to 'screenshot' in the console.

[netnomad312]

n00b question: how do I do that? The Legacy site doesn't have any console FAQ that I could find. I only know a few commands that I've used in multiplayer (gravity, chasecam and map changing).

[DooMBoy]

Bring down the console, type:
bind s screenshot
Then hit s and voila! A screenshot :)

[netnomad312]

Ah, yay. *tries to figure out how to use printscreen instead*

Oh, I noticed something else. By default, I play Legacy in software mode because GL hates my wads and I hate GL nodebuilders. But I tried GL, and the floors looked normal! Ack, that just pisses me off more...

Well, anyway. Off to take some shots now.

EDIT: Uploaded a few screenshots of the problem. Since Tripod is evil and doesn't like remote linking, copy and paste the addresses to see them...

moat01.jpg: A view over the water pit in front of the door (can't really be called a moat but I did anyway). Notice that you can see the watery bottom but not the stone underneath.
well01.jpg: This is a view of the tunnel you will eventually use to get into the castle. The wall textures dim, but the floor doesn't. I didn't use a watery floor thing here, but both the well and the tunnel are water sectors.
well02.jpg: This one's taken in the tunnel and shows the well. Same deal.
lava01.jpg: In the lava pit, inside the cave where you start. Again, the textures and even the volcano things dim... just not the floor.
stairs.jpg: This doesn't have to do with the problem; it's just another little feature I managed to do.

[Sporku]

could you possibly make a .html with those images in it? I click the links and see HOSTED BY TRIPOD images.

[Fredrik]

AgentSpork said:

could you possibly make a .html with those images in it? I click the links and see HOSTED BY TRIPOD images.

Copy the link locations and paste them to your location bar.

[Mordeth]

I don't know how Legacy's new features work, considering i've never worked with them. But, I suppose you need to tag the fake lava floor/ceiling to display a brighter light level? In that case, I suspect you've tagged one floor too many... play around with those tags (take off 'bright fake floor' and see what happens) to see if you can toggle this.

Of course, it might also be a Legacy bug... in which case you need to contact the authors and providing a small example level.

[netnomad312]

The way 3d platforms work is, you make one dummy sector with its ceiling and floor equal to the heights of the 3d platform you want. Then you make one of its lines type 281 and tag it to whatever sector you want the platform in. Same thing for water sectors, except you use type 301.

The light level you give the dummy sector is what light level you see UNDER the platform/water, as opposed to the sector's normal light level being displayed above it.

I noticed that it's only water sectors that have this problem. By now I've used 3d floors in other places to make spiral staircases, and they turned out fine. But the well sector (which has no platform, only a water sector) has the bug, and so do the sectors connected to it that go under the rest of the courtyard (they do have platforms above the water sectors).

I've also made the well tunnel go under the "moat." So that area has TWO water sectors and a platform sector in-between. In this case, both the moat water and well water sectors had bright flats.

[Mordeth]

Well, sounds like a bug. The ultimate test: take a functional non-water 3D platform and change it into a water one. If you can toggle the bright flats you can be sure it's a bug.