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cycloid

naive wanderings: slopes in all ports

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so any port wort it's salt supports the boom standard, but what's next. is there any chance that a majority of ports could, should, would support slopes any time soon.

now, from what i gather zdoom's implimentation requires the map to be in hexen format, so that's out.

are there any spare linedef specials left over from the boom spec that could be used?

should the user be made to use slopes only as a visual effect (so turning them off won't break the map, it would just default back to steps)... i.e no slopes > 24 units that you were expecting a player to get up (though you could stack a bunch together for a longer slope)

would it be possible to preserve demo compatibility for this new doom-engine step-up (presumably if the ports used the same algorythm so that in some ports an imp fireball wont skim your head instead of smacking you in the face)

discuss:

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cycloid said:
so any port wort it's salt supports the boom standard, but what's next. is there any chance that a majority of ports could, should, would support slopes any time soon.

Unlike Boom's stuff, slopes would have to be added from scratch, not from ZDoom, because of its smelly license.

That said, personally I could care less for slopes. If they are ever added to other engines, that's good for whoever. I do hope PrBoom-branch developers work mainly on more important stuff though, like they've been doing all along (fixing bugs, making sure everything works fine, improving networking, and ironing out issues on the base of the engine, such as output/input related stuff.) Feature adding tends to derail this kind of work, which is the most important for any engine that's honestly going to act as a port.

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cycloid said:
so any port wort it's salt supports the boom standard, but what's next. is there any chance that a majority of ports could, should, would support slopes any time soon.

now, from what i gather zdoom's implimentation requires the map to be in hexen format, so that's out.


Actually it doesn't. The slope linedef types are also available in Doom format maps. Just check out MAP07 of Freedoom. It contains some decorative slopes which logically only show up in ZDoom.

are there any spare linedef specials left over from the boom spec that could be used?


Lots of them. The largest one used by Boom is 269, other ports go up to 350 but then comes a long gap until the first generalized type which is somewhere around 8000. ZDoom uses 340-347 for slopes in Doom format, btw.

should the user be made to use slopes only as a visual effect (so turning them off won't break the map, it would just default back to steps)... i.e no slopes > 24 units that you were expecting a player to get up (though you could stack a bunch together for a longer slope)


Limit a feature like this and you kill it.

would it be possible to preserve demo compatibility for this new doom-engine step-up (presumably if the ports used the same algorythm so that in some ports an imp fireball wont skim your head instead of smacking you in the face)


Short answer: no. Either you handle slopes for real - in which case demo compatibility is out - or you better skip them altogether.

BTW, slopes require a significant amount of changes throughout the game physics code - so unless you are extremely careful you can probably forget about demo compatibility between a slope-aware engine and one that doesn't support them unless you duplicate all the math.

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Csonicgo said:

graf, isn't it called the "tilt" method in zdoom?


Dunno what its officially called, I always say plane align, because thats both what a linedef is named to do it and serves as a decent general name forwhat the sloping does. IMO the way ZDoom does slopes can come off looking absolutely terrible, either its the fact dooms rendering code wasnt made for them in the first place, or the algorithm(s) used to create slopes suck.

Neways, I doubt PrBoom(+) will ever get more in the way of mapping features, as theres plenty enough features already, and plenty enough ports that do have more mapping features. And most other engines tend to keep to their own business in terms of features (i.e. they arent generally cross port) so a new standard of features is doubtful.

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I seem to recall a foolproof method of making slopes that DONT suck, but it took some sorta special thing.

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