Possible to make a fligth simulator out of the doom engine(iD tech 1)?

[Der Gillster]

Okay, so I wish to know if it is possible to make a flight simulator type game with DOOM. I understanding it would be complicated, but if anyone can show me an example of it being done before, I would like to see. I would love to make a doom wad where it incorporates runing and gunning, driving and flying. Kinda like GTA basically. If it is not possible, then please explain why.

[SyntherAugustus]

You would need control of the player to do a 6 dof roll similar to descent. The closest thing is Zdoom's new roll functions.

The closest you'll get something similar to Radix.

[Der Gillster]

What do you mean by " control of the player to do a 6 dof roll similar to descent."

What is a 6 dof roll, and how can I do this in ZDoom?

[Du Mhan Yhu]

Der Gillster said:

What do you mean by " control of the player to do a 6 dof roll similar to descent."

What is a 6 dof roll, and how can I do this in ZDoom?

I believe it's six degrees of freedom..

[scifista42]

ZDoom: For a start, make a custom player class with +FLOAT flag set. Open your wad in SLADE3 and create 2 empty lumps called "DECORATE" and "MAPINFO". Open them in Text mode and put these following scripts into them:

DECORATE:

actor MyPlayer : DoomPlayer
{
  +FLOAT
}

MAPINFO:

GameInfo
{
   PlayerClasses = "MyPlayer"
}

Test your wad in a ZDoom-compatible source port, and the player should be able to fly. However, soon you'll find out that there's a problem with up/down rotation in 3D, since there's a maximum up/down pitch. In GZDoom, the player can look directly up or down, but he still cannot rotate over his back. That's a huge engine-specific problem that you might not be able to overcome at all, definitely not easily.

[printz]

The gameplay described by scifista42 can already be experienced in Hexen if you're using a hardware 3D port like GZDoom and JHexen (Doomsday). The wings of wrath last for the remainder of the hub, so once you use them, the gameplay changes radically from a basic shooter into a flight simulator.

Why is it a difficult technical challenge to allow the player to rotate over his head in 3D ports like GZDoom?

[Arctangent]

printz said:

Why is it a difficult technical challenge to allow the player to rotate over his head in 3D ports like GZDoom?

This feature was added very recently, actually.

Though it doesn't alter the player's control at all so unless you completely remove the standard controls and script your own, turning to the left will always turn left relative to the floor no matter if you're rolling 0 degrees, 90 degrees, 180 degrees, or 52 degrees. The reason for this is that obviously ZDoom can't render roll at all, and it'd be the port to actually put in the gameplay changes with roll at the engine level. So the roll in GZDoom is purely for looks.

[Avoozl]

I don't think there would be really any point in making a flight simulator with ID Tech 1, it just wasn't made for that in mind.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Avoozl said:

I don't think there would be really any point in making a flight simulator with ID Tech 1, it just wasn't made for that in mind.

That's all the more reason to do it.

[printz]

What about the 3D levels? You'll need a totally different kind of editor if you want to have all degrees of freedom needed for 3D levels that sprawl everywhere.

[LogicDeLuxe]

I don't think it would work with the original software renderer. No rolling, no true looking up and down. A flight simulator just wouldn't work without it.
With a modern renderer, it should be possible, but is it still true id tech 1, then? And I guess, you would have to code the physics completely in scripts, since the Doom/Hexen etc. physics are of no use in a flight simulator.
Another problem is the 2D bsp tree, which is totally useless, in a bird's perspective, as almost no sectors would be occluded.
An engine like in the GTA games is definitely much better suited for that kind of stuff.

I don't think the level editors would be the problem here. Just because all degrees of freedom during a flight doesn't mean that the landscape has to be build that way.