2 simple editing questions for Vanilla Doom.

[Kyka]

Basic questions.

1) Side scrolling walls (action 48 if I remember rightly) only seem to work on the middle texture of a given linedef, and not on any upper and lower textures. I was wondering if anyone else has encountered this. Is this a Vanilla Doom thing is or is it peculiar to certain ports. I use Zdoom for the majority of my dooming. And while we are at it, is there an easy way to make textures scroll right to left rather than the Vanilla default of left to right. Can it be done in Vanilla Doom without something like DeHacked?

2)In regards to the "blocks sound" tag, it never seems to work for me. Lines with that tag don't seem to block the monsters from hearing anything (I simply make them deaf as opposed to using linedefs anyway), and it doesn't seem to prevent me hearing anything around me either. What gives there? is there some basic thing that I am missing with this tag?

Ok Ok, there were more than 2 questions there. But there were only two categories of questions, which will have to do.

Thanks people.

[Graf Zahl]

1) See the green armor in E1M1 for a scrolling lower texture.
2) You need 2 of these linedefs to block the sound.

[Cutman]

Graf Zahl said:

2) You need 2 of these linedefs to block the sound.

.... I never ever knew that.

[Death-Destiny]

Answer to question #1: Scrolling linedefs only work if the line is facing outward to where the player will look at it from, which is a requirement for middle textures bordering the null space. My guess is that you draw your sectors clockwise so that the linedefs are facing inwards. Simply flip these linedefs and they will magically start scrolling. (Yay!) Linedef action 48 scrolls one way and I believe linedef action 85 makes textures scroll the opposite way.

Answer to question #2: Sound blocking linedefs are sector-based. This means you will need to flag the linedefs around the sector you want to block sound. In the mapshot below, the linedefs left and right of the middle sector block sound, so a shot fired in the right sector will not be heard in the left sector, but can be heard in the middle sector.

[esselfortium]

The reason that it takes two sound block lines to actually block sound is because otherwise you'd be able to shoot right next to a monster on the other side of the line and they wouldn't know it. Requiring two of the lines gives you a buffer zone, so to speak, between the two.

[Kyka]

Ok. That explains everything really nicely. As ever, thanks guys.. :)

Death-Destiny said:

My guess is that you draw your sectors clockwise so that the linedefs are facing inwards.

Yeah, thats exactly what I do, I must admit. Just do it like that automatically, unless I stop and go, "Hey I want these linedefs facing outwards."

[myk]

Kyka said:
And while we are at it, is there an easy way to make textures scroll right to left rather than the Vanilla default of left to right. Can it be done in Vanilla Doom without something like DeHacked?

There is a way, but it uses up various scrolling lindefs (Doom can normally have only 64, thus you need "something like DeHackEd" to extend that limit), and it does not work in the engine you said you're using. See this thread for additional information.

[Creaphis]

The trick that Myk linked to is really too complex for normal use (especially in the fledgling stage of your mapping career). You're better off considering right-to-left scrolling as off-limits to vanilla. If you want more variety to your texture-scrolling, map for Boom or higher. Boom's more advanced scrolling actions already provide more options than you could find uses for.

Monster deafening is a surprisingly complicated business. Some clarification:

Sound is not blocked until it hits the second line with the block-sound flag, and passes through the first one with no problem. However, you need to keep in mind that if sound is heard in one part of one sector, it's heard everywhere in that sector - even if the other half of that sector is on the other side of the map. So for this reason, you need to be careful when joining and splitting similar sectors. A mistake I make from time to time is to leave the two spaces on opposite sides of a door as a single sector, which allows sound to pass through that door unhindered.

Death-Destiny is right, in that you should think of sound as traveling from sector to sector, but what he's told you is not completely accurate. In his above pictorial example, the top and bottom lines of that middle sector do not need the "block sound" flag. One-sided lines can be considered to block sound by default. Also, if that middle sector was split into two new sectors vertically, it would still stop sound in the leftmost sector from reaching the rightmost sector, even though now no sector would have more than one sound-blocking line on its perimeter. Sectors do not have to be completely enclosed by sound-blocking lines for those lines to work, as long as they're properly placed.

As for the "deaf" flag, it does not render monsters completely deaf. When a deaf monster hears a shot, it enters a stationary but hyper-alert state where it can see in all directions. If you fire a shot, and a deaf monster out of sight "hears" that shot, then as soon as a clear line-of-sight exists between you and the monster it will "wake up" and chase after you - even if it was facing away from you when you walked into view. (This is another thing that has caused confusion in my mapping.)

[Kyka]

I've just spent some time reading through the various threads posted here regarding scrolling, spechits etc and damn, did I learn a lot. Holy crap you guys understand Doom's technical aspects on a level that is... in depth to say the least.

Yeah the trick with splitting up a linedef so that it scrolls right to left is cool, but it is probably too much work for the limited return it would give. I figure the casual Doomer wouldn't even register that a wall was scrolling the wrong way.

Creaphis, I had often wondered why monsters, even when they had their back to me, would spontaneously turn and attack me, and now I know. Deafness is a funny thing.

Thanks heaps guys, this stuff explains a lot