Things you wish a map error checker could do

[40oz]

Map editors that come with error checking were probably a godsend for new mappers many years ago, though with editors like doom builder 2, with visual mode, and extensive user friendliness, these things are slowly growing obsolete.

what are some features a map error checker could have that would render them more useful for todays map design?

personally id like one that could check for a direct passable route between the start and exit, that would also somehow not act up when it encountered a door, or an obstacle blocking the players path that is operated by a remote switch. It could also be used to locate inescapable pits and stuff too.

[Obsidian]

Maybe one that checks for midtextures made of more than one patch? Those are always a pain.

[kb1]

40oz said:

personally id like one that could check for a direct passable route between the start and exit, that would also somehow not act up when it encountered a door, or an obstacle blocking the players path that is operated by a remote switch. It could also be used to locate inescapable pits and stuff too.

Oblige has A* path finding, I believe. It must, simply to function properly. Added to a map editor, that could be used for a kinds of things: auto-placing monsters and items, VPO finding. Assisting in setting up nice line-of-sight fights. Lots of possibilities!

[Foxpup]

Personally, I'd like compossibility checks for all checks involving Things, ie, a Baron that only appears on hard cannot be "stuck" to a Hell Knight in the same location that doesn't appear on hard, nor is it erroneous to have multiple teleport destinations that appear on different skill levels. And keys that don't appear in all skill levels and game modes aren't much good at all.

40oz said:

personally id like one that could check for a direct passable route between the start and exit, that would also somehow not act up when it encountered a door, or an obstacle blocking the players path that is operated by a remote switch. It could also be used to locate inescapable pits and stuff too.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's NP-complete.

Obsidian said:

Maybe one that checks for midtextures made of more than one patch? Those are always a pain.

EdMap already checks for that. Tutti-frutti too.

[Tuxlar]

I want a checker that begs and pleads with you to stop adding more claustrophic dark nukage tunnels, SHAWN2 mazes, sparcely-populated giant rooms, or adding more fluff detail to rooms of maps with crappy layouts.

[scifista42]

Checking for inaccessible pickups and secret sectors and maybe monsters (and an exit, as mentioned by 40oz). Of course the algorithm has to be intelligent enough to take teleports into account, optimally also tagged lowering floors and doors etc.

[andrewj]

40oz said:

personally id like one that could check for a direct passable route between the start and exit, that would also somehow not act up when it encountered a door, or an obstacle blocking the players path that is operated by a remote switch. It could also be used to locate inescapable pits and stuff too.

I've written code that can "solve" some of the E1Mx maps of DOOM 1.

Doors are easy, what is difficult is detecting places the player can "jump" over to a nearby sector of similar height, especially if the jump requires a run-up. My code failed on MAP02 of DOOM 2 because of such a jump to the red key room.

The general way DOOM maps can change heights at any moment is also problematic, like a lowering floor that goes lower than expected due to the nearby floor being lowered earlier, and there is a section of neighboring floors that rise and fall in CLEIMOS20 (iirc) which would be almost impossible to handle with purely static map analysis.

About OBLIGE: it does not use A* pathing, though in cave rooms it uses a simple flood-fill to check that all the entrances and exits connect to each other.

Oh yeah, I think most editors know about skill flags and that two monsters overlapping with different skills will be OK -- Eureka certainly does.

[jmickle66666666]

40oz said:

personally id like one that could check for a direct passable route between the start and exit, that would also somehow not act up when it encountered a door, or an obstacle blocking the players path that is operated by a remote switch. It could also be used to locate inescapable pits and stuff too.

I was working on a speedrunning tool to find the quickest route to the exit, (which sounds similar to what andrewj has done), but paused because it would be more useful as a DB2 plugin. I just need to learn to write db2 plugins, haha (no tutorials i can find!)

Having every sector highlighted as red/green for whether the player can reach the exit from there would be pretty handy. Maybe more shades for whether you can reach them from the player start/ going past a key etc.

[GreyGhost]

Tuxlar said:

I want a checker that begs and pleads with you to stop adding more claustrophic dark nukage tunnels, SHAWN2 mazes, sparcely-populated giant rooms, or adding more fluff detail to rooms of maps with crappy layouts.

Or quietly replaces the map with one generated by SLIGE. ;)

[boris]

Foxpup said:

Personally, I'd like compossibility checks for all checks involving Things, ie, a Baron that only appears on hard cannot be "stuck" to a Hell Knight in the same location that doesn't appear on hard

I fixed that behavior in DB2 nearly 2 years ago.

[Foxpup]

boris said:

I fixed that behavior in DB2 nearly 2 years ago.

Huh. I could have sworn I upgraded sometime in the last 2 years. Guess not.

[boris]

Foxpup said:

Huh. I could have sworn I upgraded sometime in the last 2 years. Guess not.

I made those changes over several commits, the most notable is taking the thing flags into account. That was r1604, which was one of the last commits to the repository, and was after the last official release. So you'll only get it in the unofficial builds. But at least the code is in GZDB, too, so it should work there. Didn't check if the necessary changes to the config files were ported, though.

[Foxpup]

boris said:

That was r1604, which was one of the last commits to the repository, and was after the last official release. So you'll only get it in the unofficial builds.

Ah. So I'm not losing my mind, then.

[clamgor]

- Smart texture alignment
- Unpegging and Pegging of textures

But I think we're spoiling ourselves already.

[MaxED]

Crasger said:

- Smart texture alignment

If you mean "take scale and peg flags into account when aligning textures", then GZDoom Builder's auto align actions already do that (in UDMF map format).