Spontaneously raising Zombie corpses from the dead..

[Kyka]

Sorry for the noob question.

Was wondering the simplest way to trigger a bunch of zombiemen corpses to raise themselves from the dead when the player trigger a W1 linedef.

The map that this event takes place is intended for ZDoom (Though if there is a way to do this and make it Boom Compatible, that would be cool too.)

Am happy to use ACS or DECORATE, though I am very new to scrpiting.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

[edit] Incidentally, these corpses are actual former humans that have been blown up by barrels, not the zombiemen corpse sprites that can be placed around a map.

[EarthQuake]

Well, it's a bit complicated and somewhat limited, but you could probably use an archvile stuck inside a wall, with the corpses really close to the wall. The distance between them would have to be pretty short. Activate the archvile to resurrect the zombies.

Also, you could probably use DeHackEd to make the zombies' idle state appear to rise from the dead when they see the player. Downside to this is if they kill the player or ever need to go back to their idle state, they would mysteriously snap back to being "dead".

I'm not sure how you could use ZDoom's features to resurrect a monster though...

[Kyka]

EarthQuake said:

Well, it's a bit complicated and somewhat limited, but you could probably use an archvile stuck inside a wall, with the corpses really close to the wall. The distance between them would have to be pretty short. Activate the archvile to resurrect the zombies.

This is exactly what I did originally. (lengthy explanation to follow) And I had that working perfectly. A room full of zombiemen that would spontaneously rise from the dead when the player fired a shot.

That was perfect.

But now (Now that I have finished the map), most of the archviles refuse to raise the zombies which are right next to them (with a thin wall between them, when they always used to on earlier versions. To be precise, the archviles along either 2 or 3 of the four walls in the room (depending on which version of the map you use.) do not raise their zombiemen. I spent days trying to figure out what was the problem. I hadn't moved, changed or modified anything in that room. No archviles moved, no linedefs altered, nothing changed whatsoever.

So now the archies don't raise the zombies whereas they formerly always did. So in the end I PM'd the map (early and latest versions) to Creaphis, who was good enough to have a look at the problem.

And his conclusion was that it is some obscure Zdoom bug, and there is nothing wrong with the actual map.

So if it is some remote engine bug, then I have to find another way to do the same thing.

Thanks for the reply though. :)

The DeHacked ieda sounds good, though I wouldn't even know where to start with that.

[Catoptromancy]

Normal zdoom monster spawn, using reverse death frames at start.

[Kyka]

Catoptromancy said:

Normal zdoom monster spawn, using reverse death frames at start.

Though this will mean the monster will spawn on sighting the player, and not wait until the player fires a shot?

[GreyGhost]

A thought or two from another DECORATE novice. Thing_Raise would appear to be the obvious choice though the zombies will probably have to be killed before they can be raised - I recall that being discussed in another thread. If you want them to start out as giblets a custom monster might be the way to go - have it go through a resurrect frame sequence when the player walks over a Thing_Activate linedef.

[Raziel Anarki]

if the zombies arent in the starting room with the player you could Thing_Damage them beforehand to kill them

[Graf Zahl]

Currently the Thing_Damage/Thing_Raise combination is the only working method and there's really no decent method to make them start as corpses because all available bits of data are already taken

With the UDMF map format this should become easier because adding a new flag won't be so hard.

[Kyka]

OK... I had already solved the problem with the killing the Zombies. What I did in the map was use a linedef to trigger a crushing ceiling, which would crush a barrel, which (in Zdoom, this does not work in PRBoom or anything) blasts the gibbed zombie corpse across a teleport line to the desired location.

Now continuing on with my uninterrupted streak of noobishness, what do I do with 'thing raise'?


In truth, I don't even really know where to start. Having spent the last hour reading on wiki about actors and lumps and scripting grammar and logic (Heh, I understand the basics like if/else switches etc, but have no real idea how to apply any of this stuff. Mostly the wiki Zdoom pages seem to assume (and fair enough) at least some knowledge of programming/scripting. Which I just don't have. So consequently, what to do with 'thing raise' is out of my league. And I can't find anything like it as a linedef tag/switch in "Doom in hexen" format or Zdoom format in Doom Builder.

It sure sounds like the right solution tho.

*[edit] Thanks for the replies.

[Ichor]

Kyka said:

Though this will mean the monster will spawn on sighting the player, and not wait until the player fires a shot?

A_Look2

[Graf Zahl]

Kyka said:

OK... I had already solved the problem with the killing the Zombies. What I did in the map was use a linedef to trigger a crushing ceiling, which would crush a barrel, which (in Zdoom, this does not work in PRBoom or anything) blasts the gibbed zombie corpse across a teleport line to the desired location.

Now continuing on with my uninterrupted streak of noobishness, what do I do with 'thing raise'?

Thing_Raise is an action special that can be used both in a script and directly as a linedef action. As a linedef action it is type 17 and the parameter is the tid of the monsters you want to revive. You don't need a script.

You are using ZDoom (Doom with Hexen map format), aren't you, because otherwise you have a problem.

[Kyka]

...Well actually, the map is just in Doom2 format... everything else on the level (monsters, switches, linedef tags etc) is pure vanilla. Except for this one thing.

But if I understand correctly, this should convert easily to any of the more advanced formats. IF I understand rightly, the advanced formats keep all of Doom2's tags the same, but add more advanced functions over the top?

[Creaphis]

Make sure that "copy effects and tags when pasting" or whatever the option is is checked. Then copy your entire map and paste it into a new "ZDoom (Doom in Hexen format)" map. Unfortunately, you can't just open your map as the new format, because they are structurally quite different.

To clarify the "obscure engine bug" that I found, Kyka's map works perfectly in the most recent ZDoom and GZDoom revisions, but not in the latest ZDoom official release. Aside from that, I couldn't figure out what the problem was. Some archviles can't see the corpses, apparently, but an all-zeroes REJECT table didn't fix it, so I'm blaming the engine.

[Graf Zahl]

Where can I find the map to investigate the bug?

[Creaphis]

Well, I'll let Kyka post a link if he's willing. I don't want to presumptuously spread the links around myself.

[printz]

If you're mapping for vanilla Doom, then you can also define a new thing with Dehacked, that uses Archvile walking frames. Make the thing invisible, then adjust its speed. Then place it on whatever map locations you want monsters to use for resurrection. With immobile-invisible archvile things you can create true "life pools".

[Vermil]

Problem with that idea is that the code for the Arch Viles resurrecting also makes the thing doing the resurrection, enter a hardcoded set of states.

[Kyka]

Yeah... No worries Graf. I'm more than happy to post the maps, both the working version, and the newer, non working version.

My internet is capped at the moment, so it'll takes ages for me to upload anything, but I will post both links in this thread within the next day, so you or anyone else can have a look at the problem...

*mumble mumble lousy flatmates who use up all my bandwidth watching crappy second rate anime.

printz said:

If you're mapping for vanilla Doom, then you can also define a new thing with Dehacked, that uses Archvile walking frames. Make the thing invisible, then adjust its speed. Then place it on whatever map locations you want monsters to use for resurrection. With immobile-invisible archvile things you can create true "life pools".

I like this idea a lot, though I've never even used Dehacked. Might be time I tried it, I think. Thanks for the thought.

[Kyka]

Ok.

If anyone wants to download the maps to have a look at the problem in question, here they are. I have moved the P1 start point to the relevant room to save stuffing about for anyone who wants to take a look. (The original P1 start is in the lower right hand corner of sector 0 if for any reason people want to play through from the true start point; they are not really playable from where the player starts in these versions)

This trap only works in Zdoom, it is not Boom compatible.

Instructions:

a)when the map loads, simply walk forwards. You will cross a linedef which triggers crushing ceilings to crush barrels which blast zombie corpses into the room. All around the 4 walls of the room will teleport in gibbed zombieman corpses.
b)fire a shot, and the archviles behind the walls will do the rest.

Kyka1.1.wad

In this version (the oldest version) everything works as it should. The gibbed zombiemen lined against all four walls are raised up and attack the player.

Kyka1.2.wad

In this newer version, the archies only resurrect the zombiemen next to them along 2 of the four walls in the room. The walls to the right (North) and immediately behind the player (East) work fine, but the walls directly in front (West) and to the left (South) do not. The archviles do not raise their zombiemen at all along these walls.

Nothing has been changed or moved in this room between these versions, though changes have been made in other areas of the level. (This version actually has 3k fewer sidedefs, as a lot of unnecessary details were stripped out.)

Kyka1.3.wad

This is the most recent version, and is the most heavily modified from the working version. Included for thoroughness. Does exactly the same thing as v1.2

[GreyGhost]

I'll take a look at them tomorrow.

I'm having mixed results with a Decorate monster I call a "Lazarian". When activated - currently by switch - they'll rise from a pile of gibs and behave like normal zombiemen BUT only in GzDoom! When activated in ZDoom/Skulltag they disappear - most annoying! If someone want's to play around with the script - here it is in a test wad.

[Kyka]

Thanks GreyGhost. Appreciate that. :)

I'd offer to have a play with your monster (appropriate name btw) but I doubt I'll be able to make any useful suggestions.