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flubbernugget

Using Slopes in Zdoom

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Recently I have been experimenting with Zdoom and using its many new features. The one feature that I have seen the most in popular Zdoom wads is the slope. However, I can never seem to be able to use the slope well to enhance my maps. How do you feel about using slopes in Zdoom? Are they very necessary to have in a map?

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Necessary? No. Of course not. The only thing necessary to use in a map are vertices, linedefs, sidedefs, sectors, and a player start.

Here's a partial tutorial for slopes.
http://zdoom.org/wiki/Using_slopes

It's partial because, well, it's just one type of slopes and there are others.

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flubbernugget said:

However, I can never seem to be able to use the slope well to enhance my maps.


I don't think anyone can.

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40oz said:

I don't think anyone can.

Just because you don't like them. :P

An example of an excellent WAD with slopes forming a natural part of the architecture.
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=15409
And if most of the slopes in this WAD were replaced with flat sectors they would, IMO, look much worse than the slopey goodness that they currently have.

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Meanwhile, in an alternate universe...

Wodjin said:

30ml said:

nubberflugget said:
Recently I have been experimenting with Ydoom and using its many new features. The one feature that I have seen the most in popular Ydoom wads is light variation. However, I can never seem to be able to use light variation well to enhance my maps.


I don't think anyone can.

Ditto.

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Ugh, you guys and your angled walls. Back in my day we didn't have angled walls *or* height variation, and we liked it! Next thing you'll be expecting to put textures on the ceiling or something similarly ridiculous.

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EarthQuake said:

image


Why would you want to fight monsters on terrain like that?

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40oz said:

Why would you want to fight monsters on terrain like that?


It would be a nice change, I think its fun to fight enemies in unusual levels.

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40oz said:

Why would you want to fight monsters on terrain like that?

And Nuxius said:

Stuff.


This.

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Why wouldn't you want to fight monsters on terrain like that?

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EarthQuake said:


Is this the reason you stopped appearing on online chat rooms?

Eitherway, now you have to make a map where you ski, like SkiFree!

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GhostlyDeath said:

Eitherway, now you have to make a map where you ski, like SkiFree!

Doom Marine should.

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Gez said:

Why wouldn't you want to fight monsters on terrain like that?

Because that snow flat is way too repetitive. (The terrain itself is excellent, though. Can't say I'd want to fight monsters on it, unless there's a base or something at the bottom.)

I've got nothing against slopes, provided they're used well and the end result still feels like Doom.

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Some of you already guessed what the map is about, and for those who didn't, here's a hint: there are no monsters.

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EarthQuake said:

Some of you already guessed what the map is about, and for those who didn't, here's a hint: there are no monsters.

Ah, so it's a DeathMatch map.

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Gez said:

Why wouldn't you want to fight monsters on terrain like that?


Well for starters there doesn't appear to be any walls or anything anywhere, so it's pretty much impossible to place monsters anywhere on the map without them seeing you immediately. Granted that's not at fault of the slopes, however if you created completely flat ground with random ridges and stuff dotted around, the gameplay would be exactly the same. The slopes serve no purpose other than to stretch the floor texture and make the ground uneven.

But since the map is apparently not for monsters anyway, it would either have to be a deathmatch map like printz said, or something that manipulates doom's original behavior to create some kind of new gamemode.

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40oz said:

Well for starters there doesn't appear to be any walls or anything anywhere, so it's pretty much impossible to place monsters anywhere on the map without them seeing you immediately. Granted that's not at fault of the slopes, however if you created completely flat ground with random ridges and stuff dotted around, the gameplay would be exactly the same. The slopes serve no purpose other than to stretch the floor texture and make the ground uneven.

But since the map is apparently not for monsters anyway, it would either have to be a deathmatch map like printz said, or something that manipulates doom's original behavior to create some kind of new gamemode.

Do consider that slopes have a vertical component, which can hide some monsters.

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Make an ocean of slopes.

As in, slopes that raise and lower in waves. Then put a boat in there and have a deathmatch on it. Then if you fall off the boat you quickly drown in the water and can barely swim in it. Until you sink to the bottom and fish start eating your corpse.

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GhostlyDeath said:

As in, slopes that raise and lower in waves.

Nice idea, does anyone know how to make it work? My last attempt at animating sloped structures was an abysmal failure.

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ZDoom initializes all slopes during map setup, so the planes cannot be resloped during game. All you can do is raise and lower sloped sectors, not change the angle of the slopes.

The main reason real-time slopes aren't supported, though, is physics. ZDoom is one of the rare ports to have implemented slope physics (Vavoom being the other one; while EDGE and Eternity have slopes that behave like flat sectors for collisions), and Randy did not want to try to figure out the changes needed in the physics code to accommodate for inclines changing in real time. Practically all source port developers dislike messing with the physics code.

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