Moving trains.....

[Nmn]

All is more than fine.

Except the author of the thread wants real moving trains and what You suggest is still, a perfect, but still an imitation.

[Manc]

Nmn said:

All is more than fine.

Except the author of the thread wants real moving trains and what You suggest is still, a perfect, but still an imitation.

Then quite simply the answer is it cannot be done in Doom. All this jabbering about how none of the suggestions are LITERALLY what he's asking for is getting nowhere. It's obvious you can't have moving sectors (with the exception of polyobjs, a very specific exception), so the answer is NO. However, as with many things in the doom engine, there's ways to make the player THINK he/she's moving in a train. That's what the doom engine and its variants are about: faking it. If it gives the illusion of movement then is it not movement in the eyes of the player? I again refer to both the car chase sequence and the boat sequence in action doom. You go from a point A to a point B in each case.

The only other reasonable alternative to this is to use models in Doomsday.

[Mordeth]

Using skyboxes for trains is a bit flawed, because skyboxes are not fixed in place. So when you move side to side inside the train, the surroundings move in pace with you. Very noticeable in eg. a tunnel. Skyboxes work much better for eg. aircraft moving around.

[Scuba Steve]

Mancubus II said:

The only other reasonable alternative to this is to use models in Doomsday.

Or get the hell out of Doom.

Mordeth: Portals would likely work in place of skyboxes. But that might be a bit more tricky.

[sitters]

After Lost City there comes a real train.

greetings.


Edit : of course in doomsday.

[Nmn]

Scuba Steve said:

Or get the hell out of Doom.

That is most likely the best option.

[Tormentor667]

Scuba Steve said:

You guys are dense and Veddge is right. You could make an amazingly complex skybox with a winding train path through the woods would be flawless. Have waypoints for the skybox viewpoint to follow and encase the train in this skybox and it would look like it was winding around bends and through the countryside. A couple simple silent teleporters and you would never even know it wasn't moving. It doesn't matter one iota whether it ACTUALLY moves or not, no matter what you say. As long as you execute it to FEEL like it's supposed to then that's all that matters.

I'd like to see a demonstration because I am actually not exactly sure how to do that!

[Dr.Doom]

LOL. Ehem, the skybox technique is the best one there is, but what happens when In a coop game, one player goes in the train and the other one stands outside of it? If you ask me, one player will be inside a "moving illusion" and the other one wont see the train move at all, but he will see the skybox moving. That's kinda supid. But if it were just a single player WAD, then the skybox is reccomended.

[Dr.Doom]

I'd like to see a demonstration because I am actually not exactly sure how to do that!

Tagged path nodes! But is it possible to make a skybox viewpoint move like that? Oh well, We'll find out.

[chaoscorp]

You can do it maybe with fragglescript of doom legacy. This allows you to do many impressive things. The problem is that the objects (sprites) would move back(physics)

[kristus]

sitters said:

After Lost City there comes a real train.

greetings.


Edit : of course in doomsday.

I still don't believe Doomsday uses anything but a hitbox for models. But, I suppose you'd know that better seeing as you actually used the port.

[sitters]

kristus said:

I still don't believe Doomsday uses anything but a hitbox for models. But, I suppose you'd know that better seeing as you actually used the port.

When you make the model solid, with a high of 16 ( the model may be higher ) and a radius of 64 you have a platform where you can step on and walk over.

[kristus]

What about walls then?

[Dr.Doom]

I need to re-install Jdoom :(

[sitters]

kristus said:

What about walls then?

You can use the line def to make it impassibly so you cant walk true the model wall, or you can use a solid invisible model to block you, or a visible model that is the wall and make them solid and 64 high ( higher then you can step up, but then your item is a multi model design ).

[alando1]

You know, I have a wad which takes place on a train. You really don't need to actually have a train move, you can make it seem like it is moving. You don't need all this advanced stuff. Keep it simple. If you look in my wad Train.wad, you'll see it looks like the train is really moving but it really isn't. It's the floor that is.

Remeber, keep it simple.

-Alando1

[chaoscorp]

he said , he wanted just a REALLY TRAIN MOVING, not a simple stuff.

[alando1]

Well, you know it's just another alternative just incase if this type of effect doesn't turn out the way he wants it. If you think about it, this type of thing sounds very difficult to do. Well to some, it might come easy but as a whole, it is very difficult.

-Alando1

[Scuba Steve]

chaoscorp said:

he said , he wanted just a REALLY TRAIN MOVING, not a simple stuff.

Don't you get it? It doesn't MATTER if it ACTUALLY moves. If you can flawlessly simulate the APPEARANCE of a train you get into, it takes off and moves, then pulls into somewhere else, flawlessly, then it is performing EXACTLY the same thing.

Would you cry to your mother if you had asked her to buy you Fruity Pebbles at the store but instead she returned with Dino Bites?

[sitters]

Scuba Steve said:

Don't you get it? It doesn't MATTER if it ACTUALLY moves. If you can flawlessly simulate the APPEARANCE of a train you get into, it takes off and moves, then pulls into somewhere else, flawlessly, then it is performing EXACTLY the same thing.

Would you cry to your mother if you had asked her to buy you Fruity Pebbles at the store but instead she returned with Dino Bites?

DON'T YOU GET IT ? funny guy
they want travelling in the wad and see everything coming beyond.

[TheDarkArchon]

chaoscorp said:

You can do it maybe with fragglescript of doom legacy. This allows you to do many impressive things. The problem is that the objects (sprites) would move back(physics)

ACS > fragglescript

(More because ACS gets updated a lot more frequently than Fragglescript)

[Mordeth]

Scuba Steve said:
Mordeth: Portals would likely work in place of skyboxes. But that might be a bit more tricky.

They work like a charm :) Except you can't really use them to change scenery or have buildings scroll by, because (Eternity's) portals are fixed in place. Portals work by linedef tagging, so you can't move them around in relation to their target. Skyboxes can be made to travel around because their viewpoint is controlled by a camera Thing, which can be moved around easily.

I tried using moving skyboxes to make a train appear to travel around (tunnels, open area, then back inside a tunnel etc). It works, provided you do not do extremely long tracks because when the camera Thing gets too far removed from its 'anchor' it will go bonkers (technical term). But, the illusion is easily shattered if you move from side-to-side inside the train... your surroundings will match your movement instead of being fixed in relation to the train. You will not notice that if you are surrounded by wide open area's, so it's better suited for planes or spacecraft flying around and stuff.

Watch the Daedalus shuttlecrash, and start moving around while looking at the canyon walls right at the beginning. You will notice this effect there too. Clever not to include side windows :)

You could restrict the player from moving inside the train. Like, activate the train, sit back and enjoy the ride. Nice to use as an introduction scene, or as ending. Or a level where you are a space pilot and get to fly a shuttle.

My solution: Scrolling surroundings. For extra effect, a moving skybox above (train moving through narrow canyon... walls stay put in relation to train... buildings on surface appear to move by, due to distance you won't really notice it's a skybox). Optional: manipulation of train station before, during (walls close, scroll), and after (walls open up again, sectors in station manipulated to make it look different) travel. For this last thing you'd want to block the player's view to the outside world for a bit... perhaps by shutting down the train inside a windowless engineblock or something.

By the way, about an actual Duke3D-style moving train... does it matter, if you can simulate it? Reminds me of this old Star Trek episode, where the Enterprise meets this weird spacevessel, inhabited by creatures that claim they are not travelling around but instead are making the Universe shift around them :)

[sitters]

I must take all my words back, I try to make a train in doomsday with models. The train is running fine but alone.
When I step on the train, he stop scrolling and only the player start scrolling, when the player is of the train the train start scrolling. The floor is not moving things ( player and models) on the same x y coordinates, only different coordinates.

Sorry.

[Mordeth]

sitters said:
When I step on the train, he stop scrolling and only the player start scrolling, when the player is of the train the train start scrolling.

Oops yes forgot to mention that... things on top of each other prevents it from moving/scrolling.

[bartwart]

Dr.Doom said:

LOL. Ehem, the skybox technique is the best one there is, but what happens when In a coop game, one player goes in the train and the other one stands outside of it? If you ask me, one player will be inside a "moving illusion" and the other one wont see the train move at all, but he will see the skybox moving. That's kinda supid. But if it were just a single player WAD, then the skybox is reccomended.

Or just have the level end as soon as one player enters the train, and then put all the players on the "train level."

[Scuba Steve]

The problem with that is it breaks the "seamless" appearance. Best to just create the train in an alternate area and use silent teleporters to bring you there.

[Snarboo]

You could possibly use a Hexen-styled hub system which, while still not as seamless as teleporting to the train as Scuba suggested, would not be subject to the jolting end of level transmission that regular level transitions have. You could even setup the Hub system such that the train takes the player between the levels by hitting specific switches on the train, making it a sort of intermission sequence between levels that's a little more interesting than walking to the levels as seen in most Hubs. The train would be set up in a skybox that would be affected by which switch the player hits, like, if they hit a switch that says "To BLAH", it would take them along a different path than if they had hit the switch labeled "To YADA YADA". It's not a perfect solution, but it works, and I think Action Doom used a similar effect that worked quite well.

[alando1]

Honestly I think it would be best to keep it simple. Just make the floor move. But you know, it does sound interesting to use a sky box for something like this as Tormentor667 stated. But if you really want a train moving, you should use the polyobject script to make the train move. (P.S.: it's gonna be time consuming as well as tedious.) If you look at Enjays wad NJtrain, that's an example of a train moving which is sort of like my wad, Train wad. I would highly recommend that you keep it simple and create the illusion of the train moving by scrolling the floor and walls.

-Alando1

[Veddge]

alando1 said:

If you look at Enjays wad NJtrain, that's an example of a train moving

I just so happened to have played Enjay's train yesterday. It was probably one of the best train levels made for Doom. Also, Enjay, it says on your website that your train level is just a part of a larger wad. Is this project of yours out yet? I really liked Marine assault, and just want to play more Enjay projects :)

[kristus]

That wad will never be released, it's finished and enjay is keeping it on his own computer.