New to slopes

[XDelusion]

I downloaded the example WAD on this page:

http://www.zdoom.org/wiki/index.php?title=Plane_Align

So far reading up on how to do this makes NO sence to me, but if I follow the examples in the WAD, I slowly figure things out.

What I've done so far is built 2 rooms, with a hallway connecting the two.

The first room and the hallway have a floor of 0 and ceiling of 128, the 3rd room has a floor of 0 and ceiling of 384.

On each side of the hallway I drew a new sector streching down the hallway, but I drew them counter clockwise so that the sides would be pointing towards the 3rd room, and therefore adjust to it's height (at least that's how I assume this all works?).

The lines that connect the hallway with the 3rd room have a linedef of 181 and the 1st two actions (align ceiling and floor) are set to 2 (what ever that does?).

Along the lines that stretch down the hallway, I have set them to 121 with the line ID set to 2 (what ever that means?).

I then put the 2 Things in the sectors in the hallway on each side just as they are in the example wad.

Now everything is JUST like the 1st slope seen in that example WAD, except for the fact that the sides of the hallway themselves do not slope up. What do I need to do from here?

[Dr_Ian]

I think you probably need to adjust the Z-Height of the slope things.

The slope things are only necessary if you want to slope a sector in two directions at once. In the example wad, the sectors are slopes in the direction of the whole corridor, and between the corridor and the wall. This is to create a sloped octagonal corridor.

A note about the Line IDs:

121 just allows the engine to mark the lines with an ID, just as sectors have a sector ID and things have a thing ID. The only difference is lines aren't often marked so to ID a line, you actually use a special.

181 allows simple (and very useful) slopes to be made. If you put it on the line of a sector, the floor or ceiling in that sector will be raise or lowered at that side to meet the other sector of the line. To control it precisely you can slope the sector on the front of the line (1) or the sector on the back of the line (2), for either the floor or ceiling.

[XDelusion]

I'm trying to understand that, but I'm failing.

If you got a second, could you wip me up a quick example of how they created the sloped hallway with the Hexagon shape? I think if I had that to look at, then I'd understand the whole thing about the Z-Height a whole lot better.

[Dr_Ian]

The slope between the two rooms is created using line type 181. However, that can only create slopes on one side, so after that, the hexagon or octogon effect must be created with 'slope things'.

These create a slope which goes from a specific marked line, and ends on the other side of the sector which will be at the height of the thing. The line is tagged with line special 121, and the thing is given the same id as the line.

[deep]

Dr_Ian said:

The slope between the two rooms is created using line type 181. However, that can only create slopes on one side, so after that, the hexagon or octogon effect must be created with 'slope things'.

These create a slope which goes from a specific marked line, and ends on the other side of the sector which will be at the height of the thing. The line is tagged with line special 121, and the thing is given the same id as the line.

Yes, however, to be sure no one is mislead here, you can make a hexagon(etc) with all type 181s. See XTHEATERIII line 9623 (and the rest there) for an example of a "pipe", tunnels, pits, etc. sbsoftware.com/download.html

For easy to create examples of various sloped objects, use DeePsea's slope prefab tool to generate a variety of shapes to learn from. Just pick a small level size to generate them in (like MAP01) so it will work even for the shareware version.
[edited to fix numbers to what I meant:)]

[KwadDamyj]

deep said:

Yes, however, to be sure no one is mislead here, you can make a hexagon(etc) with all type 121s. See XTHEATERIII line 9623 (and the rest there) for an example of a "pipe", tunnels, pits, etc. sbsoftware.com/download.html

For easy to create examples of various sloped objects, use DeePsea's slope prefab tool to generate a variety of shapes to learn from. Just pick a small level size to generate them in (like MAP01) so it will work even for the shareware version.

Wait...Different number levels have different hard-coded amounts of data or something, or am I misinterpreting something here? I currently only make maps for vanilla D2, and only using DooM Builder, so...

[XDelusion]

I am beginning to understand, got it, just need to figure how to make everything align right. I'll check out that page, and re-download DeepSea.

[Dr_Ian]

deep said:

Yes, however, to be sure no one is mislead here, you can make a hexagon(etc) with all type 121s.

This is 100% correct of course. 121 lines types + slope things can be used to add a slope to a sector, and can be combined to make any sort of slope at all. I find 181 line types to be simpler (they do not require a thing) and so I generally use them, and only add 121 slopes when I need two or more sloping angles combined in one sector.

[deep]

Actually my finger lied. I meant to say all 181 types (edited post above). I agree 181 is much simpler, esp when one realizes it can do a complete Hexagon/etc so long as it's "level".

[Dr_Ian]

Yeah. A sector can only be sloped once with a 181.