Ladders

Post by **Enjay** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 4:59 am

No offense taken (damn that cutman, he's so offensive

). I have two problems with the thrust method as compared to LWMs method:

You can't climb down the ladder. Not really important in Doom - unless your mod enables falling damage - but having to drop down a 300' ladder when you are trying to make a ladder "realistic" is counter productive.

I've noticed that quite often with such ladders you step on, rise a couple of rungs and then drop off.

Also, I noticed that (possibly due to some kind of error with the map build/geometry/whatever it is sometimes possible to be thrusted up as you walk the "other way" over a ladder. Eg try the community map. Go to Grafs, sewer section, climb the ladder, turn round and walk off the ladder making sure to brush against the post to your left. All the lines are set up correctly and the post does not have a thrust special but you can end up being thrust.

Hang on - that's 3 problems.

[edit]Of course, I should have acknowledged that LWM's method does require the ladder to be surrounded and have a roof above it, which may not always be suitable.

I think consideration should also be given to trying to use the same ladder method throughout a map/ project. The ladders are all fairly easy to use, but do feel slightly different in how you use them as a player. An inconsistent approach feels slightly confusing and unprofesional to me.
[/edit]

Talonos · Post by **Talonos** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 5:11 am

You know what, Betasword? I feel really dumb, because I downloaded it last Wednesday and it worked for me. The link must have died really recently...

I wish LWM would come back. Her web page isn't even doom based anymore. She hasn't posted in a long time either.

Risen · Post by **Risen** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 7:16 am

With the water method, couldn't you make the waterzone sector so small that it is impossible to drown in it by making it less than half the width of the player? The effect would only be flawless if the ladder went all the way the the ceiling and you never went over the top of it, but you could still have side-exits.

Post by **Enjay** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 7:48 am

Surely if you were in the water sector enough to have the lo-grav effect, you'd also get the drowning effect.

It's been asked for a few times, but I'd like to have a water zone thing that doesn't have the drown effect.

Risen · Post by **Risen** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 9:18 am

You wouldn't "hang" outside of the water sector?
I've never experimented with it.

Biff · Post by **Biff** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 9:28 am

cutmanmike wrote:No offence or anything but I dislike that method. There's always gotta be a ceiling at the top.....

Something at the top should stop the player from rising above the ladder, but it doesn't have to be an actual ceiling. LWM uses an invisible bridge object in Hellspawn to limit the player's climb. She could have used sky above the ladder and it'd work fine.
There is that bobbing issue, but I never really noticed it in play considering that I was moving up and down the ladder.

Cutmanmike · Post by **Cutmanmike** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 10:31 am

But get ontop of that bridge thing and.....

Enjay: The falling off the rungs problem can be fixed if you have more air control, which I like anyway. Going down the ladder I don't mind either, but I guess it's up to whoever makes the wad really, unless someone can come up with a better method

BetaSword · Post by **BetaSword** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 1:11 pm

Hmm... I wonder... Anyone think some sort of ladder linedef could be added to future versions of Zdoom? This would make ladders a lot easier to make, and I don't think it would be too hard, either... I think the Risen 3D port has some sort of ladder linedef... But then again, this isn't Risen 3D. This is Zdoom. Which automatically makes it better.

Cutmanmike · Post by **Cutmanmike** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 1:16 pm

In the hidden SKINDEF which isn't implanted yet, it says that there is a "climbing" animation which can be put into it. Slong with crouching, jumping, falling, swimming etc

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 1:34 pm

A ladder special would be very cool. It would provide a standardized method that requires not sloppy hacks to do properly. All you'd do is slap the special on the line, and ZDoom would handle the rest:

Code: Select all

Line_Climbable(int Where, int Holster, int JumpAction);

Where - Controls where on this line the player can climb.  Flags are:

1 - Front side
2 - Back side
4 - Lower
8 - Upper
16 - Middle

e.g. If this value was 13, the line would be climable on the upper and lower portion of the front side of the line.  It wouldn't be climable from the backside or middle portion of the front side.

Holster - If 1, the player's weapon is put away while they are attached to the ladder and they are unable to attack

JumpAction - Controls what happens when the player presses the jump key while attached to the ladder

0 - Nothing (stay stuck to the ladder and ignore the keypress)
1 - Fall straight down
2 - Jump away from the wall

As for the behavior, when the player pushes against an appropriate area and side of the line, ZDoom would "attach" them to it. Pressing forward would move you up until you can't climb anymore, and then detach you when that happens. Pressing back would move you down until you can't climb down anymore, and then detach you. Turning too far to either side would detach you and you'd fall. (Or, alternately, it would restrict you from turning too far -- you'd have to press jump with JumpAction set to 1 or 2 to get off the ladder in the middle of it)

Anything else I should add?

Ixnatifual · Post by **Ixnatifual** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 2:06 pm

It's unrealistic that your body so rigid that you couldn't turn almost all the way around on a ladder, but I guess it'd look pretty stupid in-game

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 2:24 pm

@HotWax: The idea is good but I'd use 2 flags args, one for the front and one for the backside. That way you could make somewhat more complex stuff which might come in handy on occasion.

BetaSword · Post by **BetaSword** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 9:14 pm

Another interesting (yet somewhat unrelated) idea would be to have a linedef kinda like the ladder one, except that you couldn't actually climb up it, but you could stick to it and slide down the wall, kinda like one of those fireman pole thingies. It could have the same setup as the ladder special HotWax proposed, too, although I do suspect that there might be some difficulties with the entire sliding down part... Though it could lead to some very interesting mapping options. For example... Add that line special to every wall, and then you could climb up walls by jumping between them... Kinda like in the Megaman X games. Could lead to some very interesting possibilities...

David Ferstat · Post by **David Ferstat** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 12:21 pm

I'd suggest another argument: int TurnOptions.

This would control how far the player can look from side to side, and what the consequences are.

Values are:

0 Player can't look from side to side.
1 - 180 Indicates how far player's view can swivel, in either direction, from front. Looking beyond this forces player to let go of ladder.
181 - 360 Subtract 180 from number to limit how far player's view can swivel, in either direction, from front. Looking beyond this is simply blocked.
361 View is automatically set to Chasecam mode, and player can only climb up or down, or jump off. See "I'm Going In" series.

JumpAction - I'd enhance this so that the player, if facing 90 degrees away from ladder, can jump forward in the direction faced, so that it would be possible to jump from the ladder to an adjacent floor/platform.

Risen · Post by **Risen** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 2:06 pm

Did some testing; the waterzone will only support swimming if your center is inside it.