Things about Doom you just found out

[Pegleg]

17 hours ago, ketmar said:

looks like LOS checks are purely 2D in vanilla (i.e. height difference doesn't matter). at least this is what vavoom source code says. which raises interesting question: should 3d floors be ignored too?

 

I think the LOS checks are 2D because, in vanilla, actors are infinitely tall. That's why, in vanilla, you can be prevented from jumping off a ledge by an enemy standing at the bottom of the ledge directly under your position.

 

So a vanilla 3D anything would probably still ignore height differences. For the ZDoom family, where 3D things are more common, I think infinitely tall actors can be turned off, so, in that context height differences probably would be taken into account. But someone with far more knowledge about that code should comment on that.

[kb1]

23 hours ago, ketmar said:

looks like LOS checks are purely 2D in vanilla (i.e. height difference doesn't matter). at least this is what vavoom source code says. which raises interesting question: should 3d floors be ignored too?

Vanilla did not have 3D floors, so you are free to decide how to build them, though I'd strongly suggest considering the Z-axis for 3D floors. You want monsters on a 3D floor above the player to realize that they cannot hit the player below them, and vice-versa. Imagine a chaingunner standing still, firing downward at the 3D floor below him, trying to hit the player.

[ketmar]

14 minutes ago, kb1 said:

Imagine a chaingunner standing still, firing downward at the 3D floor below him, trying to hit the player.

but that is exactly what they're doing in vanilla, when they're on a platform high above you. they don't know about height difference in this case, so i wonder if they should know about any height difference at all.

 

6 hours ago, Pegleg said:

I think the LOS checks are 2D because, in vanilla, actors are infinitely tall.

i bet it was done for speed reasons. and to make a game somewhat more... "actiony" ;-) hitscan attacks and projectile attacks are 3d, and chaingunner can happily shoot into the floor when he is standing high above player. actually, it is even more fun that that: monsters cannot really aim their hitscan attacks vertically, they only have autoaim (slightly worse than player's autoaim, tho). so if chaingunner is standing high above, and he tries to shoot a player, he may end up shooting some other monster standing before him. i bet that this effect was used to create turrets in some maps, so there is no question if one has to "fix" it: it should stay like that.

 

but another question still stands: if monsters are ignoring "base" floor and ceiling, should they also ignore other 3d things? in GZDoom, they aren't (and 3d floors has special flag "no block sight", which is off by default). for me, it looks illogical, tho.

[Gez]

I remember making 3D-floor aware a few functions in ZDoom. The Heretic powered skullstaff rain, for example, so that it'd rain from the nearest ceiling (including lower plane of 3D floor, if any) instead of always the sector's own ceiling, because it could make the weapon utterly useless in a tunnel or below a bridge. I think there was another Heretic thing, too, but I can't remember which. And perhaps the arch-vile resurrection, too. I'm not sure about that.

[ketmar]

@Gez oh, thanks! i should check k8vavoom code for those things. vavoom had 3d floors for a long time, but some code still not aware. ;-)

[kb1]

2 hours ago, ketmar said:

but that is exactly what they're doing in vanilla, when they're on a platform high above you. they don't know about height difference in this case, so i wonder if they should know about any height difference at all.

It's true that in vanilla, the 2D LOS calcs can get goofy on steep platform differences. But usually, the 2D LOS works pretty good in infinitely-tall, non 3D floor vanilla. In the case you describe, the chaingunner still must have a line-of-sight to the player (ignoring Z, of course). But with a large 3D floor, it starts to look very silly, when it's obvious that there's no way that chaingunner can see you, yet he keeps firing away.

 

Put it this way: It just felt very wrong to me. I always liked how the monsters had to look around the corner, and see me, before they started firing. In vanilla Doom, this is usually how it works, except for a few steep ledge cases. But, as soon as I started to get stacked things, non-infinitely-tall things, and 3D floors working, it felt wrong quite often when 3D floors were involved. I didn't want to change the occasional "steep-ledge shooting" as you described above. I just wanted to avoid the chaingunner shooting constantly at the 3D floor, when it was totally obvious that he shouldn't be able to see me. Instead, I wanted him to pursue me, not stand in one spot shooting like a dummy :)

 

It is a bit slower to do 3D checks (especially stacked things on platforms), but it's not too bad if you've already got stacked things and non-infinitely-tall things working. You almost need those things for 3D floor support anyway. You just have to detect 3D floors when a trace intercepts a 3D floor sector, and bound-check the Z coordinate. I guess it's a matter of personal taste.

[ketmar]

actually, i had to specifically skip base floor and ceiling checks in k8vavoom LOS tracing, because internally there is no difference between "base" sector flats and 3d floor flats. that's how i noticed the thing in the first place. ;-)

 

anyway, this ship was sailed: we have to do what [g]zdoom does, or get broken maps.

[kb1]

1 hour ago, ketmar said:

actually, i had to specifically skip base floor and ceiling checks in k8vavoom LOS tracing, because internally there is no difference between "base" sector flats and 3d floor flats. that's how i noticed the thing in the first place. ;-)

Ah, interesting. Among other things, I guess that gives you uniform lighting for all types of flats, huh? Well, I just found out something new about k8vavoom!

[CyberDreams]

12 hours ago, Pegleg said:

 

I think the LOS checks are 2D because, in vanilla, actors are infinitely tall. That's why, in vanilla, you can be prevented from jumping off a ledge by an enemy standing at the bottom of the ledge directly under your position.

 

Haha, yeah. I've been experiencing this a lot lately as i've been playing older PWAD's in GZDoom with the Doom (Strict) compatibility on.

 

One thing that i've recently learned (or remembered) was that Doomguy runs faster in Playstation Doom...i didn't realize that until i recently played it via GZDoom [GEC] Master Edition. I guess i never played Doom on Playstation enough to realize it.

[Maximum Matt]

That the Red Hot Chili Peppers are massive Doom fans, judging by the cover of their 1999 album Californication. 

[Dark Pulse]

57 minutes ago, Maximum Matt said:

That the Red Hot Chili Peppers are massive Doom fans, judging by the cover of their 1999 album Californication. 

Why do you say that? I'm not seeing any obvious Doom influence, unless you mean the yellow clouds in the pool, but that doesn't look like it was taken from Doom.

[Graf Zahl]

On 4/22/2019 at 1:31 AM, ketmar said:

looks like LOS checks are purely 2D in vanilla (i.e. height difference doesn't matter). at least this is what vavoom source code says. which raises interesting question: should 3d floors be ignored too?

 

The check is not plain 2D but actually does take sector heights into account but for obvious reasons has several shortcuts coded in that can make the function glitch on occasion, but as long as the geometry is well-defined does properly restrict the view pitch range (what Doom's source calls 'bottomslope' and 'topslope'. If the range between these two values becomes empty the target is being considered invisible.
 

With Doom's original feature set this is sufficient, as long as the map does not contain any open sector hacks.

 

[ketmar]

@Graf Zahl looks like i had to check the original source then. thanks for pointing it out. it seems that Janis took a shortcut here.

 

or... k8vavoom is so far from vanilla now, that i can just leave it as it is now. ;-)

[Maser]

I've never considered Doom to be a scary game other than a few jump scare enemy closets, but there is something that had creeped me out and actually sent shivers up my spine.  It's the alert sound a Baron of Hell makes when you got a really good and loud sound system! 

[Dark Pulse]

15 hours ago, Maser said:

I've never considered Doom to be a scary game other than a few jump scare enemy closets, but there is something that had creeped me out and actually sent shivers up my spine.  It's the alert sound a Baron of Hell makes when you got a really good and loud sound system! 

PSX/N64 is even better for that.

 

And I dunno about you, but I was scared at some chunks of maps (that maze in E2M6 comes to mind), and anyone who wasn't fucking flattened by the Cyberdemon the very first time they ever saw/faced it on E2M8 is a goddamn liar.

[Rathori]

That's the first time ever I hear about Cyberdemon in E2M8 being scary. There were only two things I was afraid of in DOOM when I was a kid: the dark room in E1M5, and the starting room of the map that introduces the Revenant for the first time in DOOM II.

[kristus]

The death face of the HUD in Eternal Doom freaked me out a bit when I played that. Eternal Doom freaked me out in general though. It introduced me to a new type of Doom. With things being done that I had no idea how they worked or that was even possible.

[Lila Feuer]

I also love Eternal Doom's darkened, yellow eyed Imp.

[xdarkmasterx]

On 4/20/2019 at 12:00 PM, Vermil said:

HeXen 2 retconned things even more, turning D'sparil into the serpent he rode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tQ69bgxcmw

 

who's to say he wasn't a smaller chaos serpent under robe?

 

and that humanoid skeleton that appears after his death was just his dinner. yeah something like that XD

[Pegleg]

3 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

and anyone who wasn't fucking flattened by the Cyberdemon the very first time they ever saw/faced it on E2M8 is a goddamn liar.

 

I remember the first time I played E2M8. It was rather well set up with the starting point facing a disemboweled Baron of Hell that had its throat ripped out. That was enough to make me think "What could do that?" I thought there was a lot of tension in the level, especially with the music and hearing the sound of the something mechanical moving around.

[ketmar]

my first meeting with Cyberdemon was scary as hell. not that it really lasted long, tho: "what the fuck it that thi... ah, nevermind, i'm already dead anyway." tbh, i wasn't very good player (neither i am now), but back then i almost never used strafing, so the whole show didn't lasted too long. and those damned flaming skulls didn't helped too.

[nrofl]

Most who dont know about the cyberdemon generally are scared for the encounter. I literally jumped the first time I played it. At one point it doesn't phase you, which kinda makes me sad.

[peach freak]

9 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

PSX/N64 is even better for that.

 

And I dunno about you, but I was scared at some chunks of maps (that maze in E2M6 comes to mind), and anyone who wasn't fucking flattened by the Cyberdemon the very first time they ever saw/faced it on E2M8 is a goddamn liar.

 

I played Doom 64 before I played E2M8 for the first time, and I was completely terrified by the Doom 64 Cyberdemon. The PSX Doom sounds for the Cyberdemon are a lot more scarier than the PC. In Watch Your Step I would just shoot it through the bars since I didn't want to go out in the open area to fight him.

 

The Cyberdemon actually surprised me in E2M8 since I wasn't expecting it, largely based on the fact that it wasn't mentioned in the PC Doom manual. :P

[Dark Pulse]

1 minute ago, peach freak said:

The Cyberdemon actually surprised me in E2M8 since I wasn't expecting it, largely based on the fact that it wasn't mentioned in the PC Doom manual. :P

The good old days, when a secret could actually be kept from people in a massively anticipated game. Nowadays you'll have people datamining it the second it comes out... :/

[BigBoy91]

I can't lie.. I've been spending a good portion of my evenings just reading this thread.

[Maximum Matt]

On ‎4‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 2:43 AM, Dark Pulse said:

On ‎4‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 1:42 AM, Maximum Matt said:

That the Red Hot Chili Peppers are massive Doom fans, judging by the cover of their 1999 album Californication. 

Why do you say that? I'm not seeing any obvious Doom influence, unless you mean the yellow clouds in the pool, but that doesn't look like it was taken from Doom.

Sky-exit, dude.  Totally E4M4-style.  That level actually HAS something of value.  

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

I don't think it was inspired by DOOM.  The cover is just an image of a swimming pool with the sky and water switched around.

[Dark Pulse]

19 minutes ago, Maximum Matt said:

Sky-exit, dude.  Totally E4M4-style.  That level actually HAS something of value.  

But how do you know it has to do with Doom, though? I mean, you haven't established beyond a reasonable doubt that it was inspired by Doom and there's no other way or meaning behind the cover, which I find hard to believe.

[Megalyth]

Heh, it's an album cover from the 90's, there's a good chance that it means precisely jack shit.

[Lila Feuer]

12 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

Sky-exit, dude.  Totally E4M4-style.  That level actually HAS something of value.  

Ultra kek.