T.U.C.Q. Progess Thread

[Boingo the Clown]

I've never been a huge fan of lattice-style elevators.

To be honest, neither have I.

After you posted I went back and used an old vanilla DooM trick to make the platform look solid.  The latice is still there and it is still a fake 3D sector, but it definitely looks like a solid platform now.

[Atariangamer]

I'd be interested in what other methods could be devised...to me the lattice is classic ZDooM, and not a problem, but if something equally useful can be made looking better, it'd be for the best.

[Boingo the Clown]

I used a semi invisible sector.  It works great in GZDooM and Zandronum.







It did not work well in ZDooM, so I came up with a comprimise. The platform now looks black in ZDooM, but that is better than it looked before

[75]

I'd be interested in what other methods could be devised...to me the lattice is classic ZDooM, and not a problem, but if something equally useful can be made looking better, it'd be for the best.

Boingo mentioned that he'd rather not use a separate switch to raise and lower it, since he's using Legacy format (AKA Doom in Boom format with extras).

Keep in mind that his maps can't execute scripts (at least in no way I know of, only actors and global ACS) from linedef actions in that format, only Hexen and UDMF maps can trigger scripts from linedefs.

I'm guessing he can't do things like make a walkover activated elevator because  there isn't an action for it, though I'm not sure if he's considered using Boom Generalized Actions which should in theory support any combination of floor, ceiling, and activation methods (even gunfire).

Also, even under the best of situations the "Elevator" action does NOT have an automatic return like the platform actions do, so that would need to be some sort of script; the alternative is to have another lindef on the elevator lower it, but that can be tricky...

I'm not sure if Legacy format supports Boom generalized actions. He might be able to make his Boom actions in another map and copy the random number it generates into another map, that should work...

[Atariangamer]

I'm pretty sure Legacy supports all Boom functions.

But that said, there really is very few ways to go about it... 

[75]

I'm pretty sure Legacy supports all Boom functions.

But that said, there really is very few ways to go about it... 

True... if it were me I would have used CJLIFT (custom texture) and used a plain old platform action and been done with it; it's really the only safe way to avoid online griefing since it bounces off of people's heads instead of getting stuck permanently if someone or something jams it.

I really wish there was a Elevator_Lower_Wait_Raise... I mean Doom has crushers (ceilings that sort of auto return) and platforms (floors that auto return), but no elevators (floors and ceilings that move together) that auto return. I guess they assume you would just use Sector_SetLink? (ACS)

[Boingo the Clown]

I have not had any time to work on anything since the last report.  It is unlikely that I will have another release ready in time for Christmas.

I do have some interesting new however.

Today I came across a number of pics of the various pickups from Chex Quest. I downloaded them many MANY years ago and completely forgot about them.

The pics are about 50% larger than the CQ sprites, but do not appear to be scaled up versions of the sprites.  They appear to have been *scaled down* from the same original drawings the CQ sprites were made from. They match the sprites very closely, but have more detail, and each has its own optimized 256 colour palette. Many little idiosyncrasies in the pics match up with those in the sprites (except more detailed), and each has an outline around it, something that was eliminated from most of the finished sprites.

I emailed Chuckker with copies of some of the pics to see if he could authenticate them, but he said he could not remember (It has been a looooong time after all.).  I am confident however that these pics are indeed based off of the originals. I am hoping that with a little clean up and some adjustment they will make some nice higher res sprites for the pickups.

What do you think?  Should I give it a shot?

[xbolt]

Go for it!

[TrueDude]

Man, you should upload the original versions too. I'd love to see those.

[Boingo the Clown]

I had never tried slopes. I always assumed they would not work in my maps, because they had originally been made for Legacy.

I finally got around to asking about it on the ZDooM editing forum, and it turns out they do work.

Right now I am experimenting by switching a large number of floors and ceiling in E1M5 to slopes.



I am not sure if I like it ...

... but that's what backups are for.

Wish me luck.

{{EDIT: Mastrius says that he likes it. I am still not so sure that I do. I guess I will just include it in the next release and get a more general opinion.}}

[75]

Be careful with the slopes on floors, it tends to cause slippery physics, if you put a lot of steep slopes it will be like you're on ice.

[ChexMaster2109]

I like it. But like 75 says, avoid steep slopes.

[Atariangamer]

It depends. Overuse would feel weird, but if you've ever seen rough cut steps, some are nice and flat, others tilt all over the place. if done right, it'd look nice.

[TrueDude]

At the very least it'd work well for the pseudo-slope you currently have in place on E1M1.

[Boingo the Clown]

Progress Report: January 7, 2014

I made some excellent progress yesterday on a few fronts, although I am not quite so sure anyone would notice.

First of all, 75 pointed out to me that DooM Builder has a find and replace function, which I was unaware of.  Ever since I made changes to several texture names (remember all the walls with "Change me!" written all over them?) I have been getting long lists of error messages at the start of every level listing every line number with old nonexistant textures on them (i.e. "Unknown texture BROWNHUG on upper of first side of line 248"). Manual attempts to find these were mostly fruitless, but the happy knowledge of a find and replace mode allowed me to finally hunt down all of these rogue textures, eliminating them. Now there are no more error messages at the beginning of the levels.

Second, since I switched the project over to GZDooM the textures on the built up crown areas at the tops of walls in the landing bays have been fouled up. (Take a look in Release 5 and you will see what I mean.) The problem was worst in landing bay 1 where I raised the heights of the walls to account for the height of the interior spaces and there are actually crowns overlapping. The reason for it is simply the difference in the way Legacy and GZDooM handle textures on 3D sectors. Legacy always top aligns the textures on 3D sectors with the y offset having no effect, while GZDooM applies the y offset to the 3D sectors. When the textures are applied based on Legacy, they are fouled up in GZDooM.

Fixing the textures in landing bays 3 and 4 were fairly simple, but fixing the textures in landing bay 1 was a royal pain. Where the crowns overlap the map is broken up into 15 sectors with 38 lines to keep track of, and each sector has multiple dummy sectors attached to it with multiple lindefs to track down.  It was a nightmare. Still I persevered, and landing bay 1 now looks great again.

Finally, I went back to more detailing In the blue area of E1M1. More crowns and baseboards added. The sloping floor is now a real slope and it now has sloping baseboard as well.