[legacy] What is this stuff?

[Patrick]

So, I've recently seen references to 'legacy-type blocks' and 'vavoom type blocks' on the Doomworld/ZDoom forums I have no idea what this is, and the legacy/vavoom wikis don't really have any articles that seem to pertain to this. Does anyone know exactly what these are and how to use them? (particularly in GZDoom)

[Graf Zahl]

Patrick said:

So, I've recently seen references to 'legacy-type blocks' and 'vavoom type blocks' on the Doomworld/ZDoom forums I have no idea what this is, and the legacy/vavoom wikis don't really have any articles that seem to pertain to this. Does anyone know exactly what these are and how to use them? (particularly in GZDoom)

I think this was about 3D floors. Vavoom and Legacy use different methods to define them and GZDoom supports both.

[DooMAD]

Patrick said:

blocks

You mean 3D Floors (this article could do with a bit of a facelift)? I can't think what else a 'block' could be. GZDoom introduced some new linetypes for 3D floors, but I never bothered finding out what they are, since it still supports the Legacy linetypes and that way my maps work in both ports.

//Edit: Beaten to it, heh.

[Patrick]

So how would I use Vavoom or Legacy styled floors in GZDoom, and is there any benefit over using line tag 160?

[Graf Zahl]

Vavoom style floors also use type 160. The main difference is that they invert floor and ceiling plane (floor has to be higher than the ceiling in the control sector.)

This means that these sectors are technically invalid and can't be moved by floor and ceiling actions. Support is only there to play Vavoom maps. As an editing feature the regular (Legacy-based) types are better.

[Patrick]

Graf Zahl said:

Support is only there to play Vavoom maps.

I kinda guessed, and I like my Legacy Styled 3d floors better anyways.

This brings me to my next question. I've often seen portals used in ZDoom, and from what I can tell, they work just fine in GZDoom. What are the limitations of these portals? I often see HOMs in ZDoom's portals, what causes that and can it be avoided? Does GZDoom's GL renderer offer any significant difference when making portals?

[Graf Zahl]

The GL renderer is far less sensitive to portal construction issues. Much of what causes problems in ZDoom is working. The one big issue is one-sided linedefs. If a one sided linedef gets into the portal view (meaning between the camera origin used to render the portal and the actual portal) there will be rendering problems - but this is really the only genuine issue. But you should be aware of performance issues. The GL renderer needs to do some expensive setup to render a portal so having too many in view may cause slowdowns.