More effects

[Orbis]

Hello. I've been doing some experiments to give mappers more visual effect possibilities to put in their wads, to put it simply, that actually use HOMs to the mapper's advantage. So far, two effects I achieved were 1. a much simpler way to make a shadowcasting lightbox. What I mean is, the ceiling light level oscillates while the floor remains at a constant light level, using HOMs, and 2. (based on the previous one) a crate which casts a shadow on the floor, but not the ceiling. Both are, aforementioned, quite easy to achieve. It's similar to Ultimate Doomer's simulated "instant spawning monsters" (seen in Fragport and Shadowcaster) effect; lowering the floor (or raising the ceiling) of a sector below/above the player's eyeseight, while the HOM produced covers up the "true floor/true ceiling" and produces a fake floor/ceiling. I'm twiddling around with different prototype effects as I type this, so more to come.

[Graf Zahl]

All this is well known stuff that has been used in maps for years. There are even several demo maps out there to demonstrate it.

[Orbis]

EDIT: Let me rephrase that... Do you know of any wads out there that already have splitting doors (not like the ones in Aliens TC, I have one that works nearly perfectly).

[netnomad312]

It's all old news, I'm afraid. But yeah, using HOMs to your advantage in a good thing. Try making a teleporter with an oscillating floor but not an oscillating ceiling, for instance. And it plays a part in some more advanced tricks, like "fake deep water." :-P

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Well, I think we've all invented our own effects at some point without knowing that others have done it (usually when you're outside the community), but certainly with vanilla tricks it's more than likely that someone else has done it, as collectively we've spent more time playing/mapping for vanilla than anything else. (mind you, I think there's at least one or two tricks I've done that AFAIK no-one did before me)

Orbis said:

EDIT: Let me rephrase that... Do you know of any wads out there that already have splitting doors (not like the ones in Aliens TC, I have one that works nearly perfectly).

I have seen vanilla wads with swinging doors in - probably similar to what you've done (using instant dropping/rising sectors).

(btw you can also make pit traps with illusory floors using homs, that's one of the ones I think no-one else has done)

[netnomad312]

Yeah, UD, I need to get around to playing Fragport and your other wads again... I never really got around to it...

[Orbis]

I'm not talking about that kind of splitting doors, I'm talking about a door where the top will go straight up and the bottom will go straight down, and then they will close back almost perfectly (except the slight delay between the bottom stopping and the top reaching the bottom height).

[iori]

(btw you can also make pit traps with illusory floors using homs, that's one of the ones I think no-one else has done)

This I've first seen done on a heretic dm map back in ..'95/6. I have this old CD (one of the ones that have 2354355 maps for doom1, 2 and heretic) which had this map. I read it in the text file, and was intrigued by it. There is a huge floor in the level that you fall through into a pit of Maulotaurs, it was a horrible map to say the least, but the trick was neat.

I can post the map if you wish.

[Jayextee]

With the BOOM translucent linetype covering a HOM, you can get a "blurry" afterimage type effect --- excellent with scrolling textures (Makes them look antialiased to a point) and flat colour (Such as black). That's an effect I discovered, as far as I know.

It doesn't have many practical uses, but I use it for portals and screens, and it looks good. Just watch baron fireballs shoot past one :D.

[Grimm]

Hmm, you should see if any of those Heretic WADs aren't in the archives, and upload if they ain't. There's certainly not a lot in the archives right now.

[boris]

Jayextee said:

stuff

Wasn't there once a demo level that showed this effect. With some torches IIRC. Didn't work in ZDoom though, if I'm not mistaken.

[Szymanski]

Orbis said:

I'm not talking about that kind of splitting doors, I'm talking about a door where the top will go straight up and the bottom will go straight down, and then they will close back almost perfectly (except the slight delay between the bottom stopping and the top reaching the bottom height).

Making a split door open in doom2.exe is easy enough. Making it look convincingly solid was the tricky part, here's an example:

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=11868

Having a door which will open and close properly would be cool. The difficulty I had is the upper section never returns to the proper height.

[deathbringer]

Instant raising sectors where a vanilla effect?, i thought they where boom, though ive never seen them in wadauthor's config files, well not under lifts anyway, i assume they must be under something else, i should check

[Jayextee]

boris said:

Wasn't there once a demo level that showed this effect. With some torches IIRC. Didn't work in ZDoom though, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, it was mine, kindly hosted by KDoom. I did a later one (Personal use) which had a Cacodemon fight, which showed the effect off better.

And I tested it in ZDoom, it worked, but it shows up better with higher brightness levels and/or lower framerates, so you may not have seen it. It's a subtle enough effect, though, and worth using, not overusing. All the end level "gates" in Murderous Intent 2 used the effect.

[iori]

Grimm said:

Hmm, you should see if any of those Heretic WADs aren't in the archives, and upload if they ain't. There's certainly not a lot in the archives right now.

90% of the maps on that cd were horrible, I wouldnt punish the commuinty (and in-span) with them.

[SYS]

Reminds me of my
Death Match: The ultimate players kit, For Doom doomII, & Doom They flesh consumed.

Over 7000 new levels

Master pack complete with 2cd's Plus editors, cheat codes, ETC.

If anybody's interested I don't see the harm in warezing this shit, considering it's a compilation of a buncha shit that was ripped from the internet.

[Vile1011]

I actually do have an intentional HOM in my map(by the way, what the original poster mentioned is not HOM). I could fix it, but oddly enough it looks good where it is, since it happens on a haunted mirror when you step a certain distance away from it, and since it's behind a semi-transparant line, the effect is very subtle.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

deathbringer said:

Instant raising sectors where a vanilla effect?, i thought they where boom, though ive never seen them in wadauthor's config files, well not under lifts anyway, i assume they must be under something else, i should check

It's a trick - to do instant rising sectors, use "Floor: down to highest floor" on a sector that's lower than it's surroundings. For instant dropping sectors, use "Floor: up to lowest ceiling" on a sector that's next to a hidden sector with the ceiling at the same height as the dropping sector's floor.

With Boom you can also do this with the new ceiling specials ("Ceiling: down to highest floor" and "Ceiling: up to lowest ceiling" IIRC) as well.

ZDoom can do them direct, but you'd have to learn the Hexen format.

[netnomad312]

I've noticed that "ceiling: up to highest ceiling" is an effective way to instantly lower a ceiling, if its highest happens to be lower than it. You could, say, make a bunch of hanging corpses "appear" when you enter a room...

Anyway, that's one of my favorite bugs to manipulate... not only because you can move your floor to any height you want instantly with a single dummy sector, but also because it's what makes my laser bars look good (I use them in my megawad which I need to get around to finishing... :-P). As it turns out, the type of line that turns them off, up to lowest ceiling, also has a G-type... so I have one level where you shoot a switch and on the floor above you, you can see the lasers turn off. Very cool actually. :)