Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
nicolas monti

DOOR3 at the beginning of levels? what's your choice?

Recommended Posts

I think what started as some kind of rule since the begining of the develpment of doom, as it can be seen in the alpha versions, has become sort of convention among mappers, I could describe myself as a door3 policeman, putting it on every map I make and looking for it at the beginning of every map I play. I know there are several ways to set a starting room, another kind of door, teleport, a hole in the ceiling, a narrow pasage, a window like the one in E2M1 (is that meant to signify the way into the level?) or even nothing, a bare room.
Here are dome statistics of the elements marking the entrance of levels of UD and Doom2:

E1M1: 1 door3
E1M2: 1 door3
E1M3: 1 door3
E1M4: 1 door3
E1M5: 1 door3
E1M6: 1 door3
E1M7: 1 door3
E1M8: -
E1M9: 1 door3

E2M1: window or nothing?
E2M2: 2 door3
E2M3: 1 exitdoor
E2M4: 1 door3
E2M5: -
E2M6: 1 door3
E2M7: 1 door3
E2M8: -
e2M9: -

E3M1: pit or nothing?
E3M2: stairs
E3M3: 4 door3
E3M4: 1 door3
E3M5: 1 door3
E3M6: -
E3M7: -
E3M8: -
E3M9: pit or nothing?

E4M1: -
E4M2: -
E3M3: -
E4M4: wood door
E4M5: 1 door3
E4M6: -
E4M7: 1 door3
E4M8: -
E4M9: -

---------------------

map01: -
map02: -
map03: door3
map04: door3
map05: -
map06: door3
map07: -
map08: -
map09: -
map10: door3
map11: -
map12: -
map13: door3 (a bit hidden, 64 units tall and 56 wide!)
map14: -
map15: door3
map16: -
map17: door3
map18: -
map19: door3
map20: -
map21: -
map22: door3 (64 units tall!)
map23: -
map24: -
map25: -
map26: -
map27: -
map28: -
map29: door3
map30: -
map31: -
map32: -

For E1 door3 is a rule regardless E1M8, for E2 there is a mix, E3 has only 3 levels starting with door3 and only 2 in E4.
For Doom2 there are only 10 levels starting with door3, exactly a third of the normal or non-secret levels, the percentage decreased noticeably compared with UD

Now, tell us what element do you choose to put in the starting room of your levels, let's start a discussion about this XD!

Share this post


Link to post

It's kind of meaningless for me, though the idea used in Plutonia was really nice: a start and exit are clearly marked and there is no restriction in where to put the player at the start (if you need a DOOR3, you need a wall behind the player and this already IS a restriction).

I always viewed DOOR3's as Wolfenstein-like.

Share this post


Link to post

Funny topic, I never really thought about this before but now that I look at my maps, I can see that most of them start with a teleporter (64x64 or 128x128) but I've used DOOR3 a few times too.

I think my favorite type is when next level begins at the end of the previous one, like in Reverie or Phobos: Relive the Nightmare. Even if often it doesn't make sense (impossible geometry), it still adds something to the maps.

By the way, to be fair, Plutonia teleporter also has some restrictions, although less significant. I'm actually currently working on a Plutonia-style wad and I have my own type of start/exit teleporter (after I saw the one in Dark Plutonia, I knew I also should come up with a new one). So last night, while lying in bed, I was thinking what the next map should look like and I came up with an area where you start in a 64-tall tunnel. Then I realized that the player on a teleporter wouldn't fit there. :) Not a big problem of course - I can just rise the ceiling a bit - but it's still there, hehe.

Share this post


Link to post

The thing is that you should compare door3 at the start of a level with the end of the previous level. If they use a teleport exit, then the absence of a door3 is explained automatically, while its presence implies you teleported outside the building and then entered it during a non-played part.

The text screens in Doom II also imply some non-played travel. Some of them are hard to reconcile with the start of the next level. For example, the intro to Dead Simple says you see a small fortress ahead, and when you start you are definitely not in a place you could have reached from the outside.

Anyway: E2M1: you got teleported there by the pentagram at the end of E1M8. E3M1: you made a small crater in the soft, spongious flesh when you jumped at the end of your rope as you were rappelling down from Deimos. E4M1: who knows, the E3 end screen implied the portal set you down on Earth's green fields, and there's no obvious path from outside to where you start in there. Of course the whole of E4 is shoehorned and tacked in with little regard to story consistency, so who cares.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Unregistered account

I remember happily mashing the "use" key to open the start door, to get through it. I was about 4, then.

8 years later, I'm 12 and nothing's changed. :)

Share this post


Link to post

I love the Plutonia-style structures, as they're iconic and recognisable enough without the EXIT signs (which I also add, to distinguish one from the other). The doors, I'm on the fence about. Some days I think they're stupid and look openable, other days I'm down with it because continuity.

Share this post


Link to post
Memfis said:

I came up with an area where you start in a 64-tall tunnel. Then I realized that the player on a teleporter wouldn't fit there. :) Not a big problem of course - I can just rise the ceiling a bit - but it's still there, hehe.

Actually the player can fit in sectors 56-tall as some monsters as well, and walk through 48-wide corridors too, nevertheless 64-wide is the minimum advisable for corridors unless you don't care about demons getting stuck.

Joe667 said:

I remember happily mashing the "use" key to open the start door, to get through it. I was about 4, then.

8 years later, I'm 12 and nothing's changed. :)

I think everybody did that at least once, some pwads has secrets behind them btw, I never did that in my maps, in that case, I'd put another door3 in the secret room XD.

Share this post


Link to post
nicolas monti said:

I think everybody did that at least once, some pwads has secrets behind them btw


IWADs too. TNT MAP17 has a blur sphere in its start door, and I'm fairly sure there's another occurrence in TNT, though I can't remember which map it was.

Share this post


Link to post
nicolas monti said:

Actually the player can fit in sectors 56-tall as some monsters as well, and walk through 48-wide corridors too,

The player's collision box is 32-wide by 56-tall, so you could theoretically get away with a 32-wide corridor. In practice, since Doom doesn't allow you to move perfectly aligned to the axes, a 32-wide gap is too small and you snag on the walls (unless performing a glide), but a 33-wide corridor is perfectly possible. (As long as it's orthogonal to the grid.)

Share this post


Link to post
Gez said:

The player's collision box is 32-wide by 56-tall, so you could theoretically get away with a 32-wide corridor. In practice, since Doom doesn't allow you to move perfectly aligned to the axes, a 32-wide gap is too small and you snag on the walls (unless performing a glide), but a 33-wide corridor is perfectly possible. (As long as it's orthogonal to the grid.)


you're right, I remember passing through 40-wide spaces when testing my maps.

Share this post


Link to post

I'd say the majority (maybe even all) of mine start with it, and that I've never used it as a standard door (so I'm stricter about its use than the IWAD levels). I fully admit that it makes no sense in hell levels, yet I tend to use it anyway, and I really thought that more of the IWAD maps did too.

Share this post


Link to post
Eris Falling said:

there's another occurrence in TNT, though I can't remember which map it was.


That's map08. There's a chainsaw behind the start door, but you push the sides near the door.

Share this post


Link to post

Hmm, I didn't know about that one.
And now I do, thank you! *evil cackle*

Perhaps I was thinking of TNT22, with the invisible wall soulsphere right behind the start

Share this post


Link to post
vdgg said:

...It's kind of meaningless for me...


Sure, DOOR3 at the start has not function at all, that makes it more interesting for me because many of us keep putting them in our levels and I guess everyone has a different reason for doing so.

Dragonsbrethren said:

...I've never used it as a standard door (so I'm stricter about its use than the IWAD levels). I fully admit that it makes no sense in hell levels, yet I tend to use it anyway...


Same here, I even use 2 or 4 DOOR3 sometimes, and put attention to what kind of texture i'm going to use for its frames as well as their width.

Share this post


Link to post

i hate hate hate when DOOR3 in the starting room is a secret to a dead-end room. way to ruin the immersion!

Share this post


Link to post

The DOOR3 at the beginning should be an exit door to the previous level.

The one at the beginning of the first level should lead to a "Game Over - You Were A Coward" screen.

Share this post


Link to post

Yeah but it makes little sense. Why does it have to look different to the exit door? In Wolfenstein 3D it looked the same.

Share this post


Link to post
printz said:

Yeah but it makes little sense. Why does it have to look different to the exit door? In Wolfenstein 3D it looked the same.

Wolf3D is not the game you turn to for design inspiration.

Gez said:

So that it's clear which is which?

Share this post


Link to post
Gez said:

The DOOR3 at the beginning should be an exit door to the previous level.

The one at the beginning of the first level should lead to a "Game Over - You Were A Coward" screen.


At least E2M3 begins with an exit door, and in the alphas you had two exit doors, one before the exit room, and the other representing the actual way out which "pretends" to be openable via the exit switch. There was an attempt to mimic reality in that kind of device.

40oz said:

i hate hate hate when DOOR3 in the starting room is a secret to a dead-end room. way to ruin the immersion!


That kinda ruins the "essence" of the DOOR3, A cheap way to make secrets if you ask me, but not totally against that actually, if that dead-end room had another DOOR3, or another device like a way-in teleport it would be more tolerable :p.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Unregistered account
Gez said:

The one at the beginning of the first level should lead to a "Game Over - You Were A Coward" screen.


Unfortunately Doom 64 holds a secret behind the first level's start door - a Berserk pack. So... yeah. Get it, you coward?

Share this post


Link to post

It doesn't have just a berserk pack, it also has the secret exit to the Hectic level. Opens up briefly when the last barrel is exploded, so you have to keep a barrel in the starting room intact until the end, explode all others, then teleport back to the starting position, shoot the barrel, and rush to the secret room to jump in the teleport pad before it closes back off.

Share this post


Link to post

It has been the closest thing to consistency seen on Doom levels, and it is actually detrimental.

I have to agree, that if it is generally recognized by players as the door the player just came through, it should NEVER be a secret.

I have avoided using it because of that question, .. should it open.
I prefer to put the player at some kind of logical entrance location at the edge of the map.

One alternative that too many levels (even 3 or 4 are too many for me) that dump the player into the middle of the action, as a surprise.
I will always want a chance, however short, to get the controls pointed in the right direction at least, before having to fight.

My latest levels will have the player enter at some external connection, with some logical reason they cannot go back.
Door3 may be visible, but cannot be accessed, and will not open.
There will be no monsters in sight at the level start.
One map has the player start at the bottom of some broken stairs, ... they had to jump down.

Idea: Start the player in the corridor behind Door3, their path back blocked by whatever you may imagine. Let them open Door3, behind which you can place any messy situation you want.
Even if it has been used before, I think it should be used more often ...

Share this post


Link to post

Thinking about it, I used to love doing this:



Murderous Intent, MAP02.

Let there be no confusion about whether or not you can use this door.

Share this post


Link to post

I do this in my project: .It lets me do any number of fake painted-on doors I want, since they're all indicated as such clearly (these can never be opened directly). There's also white indicators which mean level exit.

Speaking of player's size, I found that it is pretty much impossible to fit into a 32-wide tunnel, at least in zdoom and chocolate doom (possibly in prboom too), but I remember slipping through in Jdoom. Led me to be trapped in map24 of D2INO. Didn't even bother adressing or fixing that because that's just wrong behavior in my book. Besides, jdoom ruined a visual trick in that map, I think... so yeah, screw it.

Share this post


Link to post
Jayextee said:

Let there be no confusion about whether or not you can use this door.


I gotta admit, that is a pretty creative idea in that image.

Share this post


Link to post

IDEA: Start player on conveyor belt. Belt moves away from entrance and with a few drops to discourage trying to backtrack.

IDEA: Start player in stream bouncing down a mountain side. The stream can be implemented with deep water and conveyor belts.

IDEA: Start player in river with a strong pusher moving them down stream. The river banks are occupied of course so they must decide where to go ashore.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Unregistered account

I like using LITE4, it really seems aethstetically pleasing to me. I also like to use it in my DOOR3 bits.

I also came up with a clever solution for Doom II, since that doesn't include it.

I use the lights on the EXITDOOR texture and align them. Done!

Share this post


Link to post
Joe667 said:

I like using LITE4, it really seems aethstetically pleasing to me. I also like to use it in my DOOR3 bits.

I also came up with a clever solution for Doom II, since that doesn't include it.

I use the lights on the EXITDOOR texture and align them. Done!

I agree, lite4 is one of the best light textures in doom and it combines very well with door3, about that technique for doom2 maps, it is used in some maps of d2twid, like exit doors in map16 and map19 for example even though you had the idea on your own too, and I'm glad that lite4 patch survived in doom2. Unfortunately liteblu3 and liteblu4 weren't so lucky.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×