Another headshot zombie

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Thu May 31, 2007 12:35 am

actor HeadZombie : ZombieMan replaces ZombieMan
{
	health 60
	height 40
	radius 16
	states
	{
	spawn:
		POSS E 0
		POSS A 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", 6, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS A 4 A_Look
		POSS A 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", 6, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS A 4 A_Look
		POSS B 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", 6, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS B 4 A_Look
		POSS B 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", 6, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS B 4 A_Look
		loop
	missile:
		POSS E 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS E 4 A_FaceTarget
		POSS E 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS E 4 A_FaceTarget
		POSS E 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS E 4 A_FaceTarget
		POSS F 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS F 4 bright A_PosAttack
		POSS E 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS E 4
		POSS E 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS E 4
		goto see
	pain:
		POSS E 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS E 4 HealThing (999)
		POSS E 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS E 4 A_Pain
		goto see
	see:
		POSS A 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", 6, 0, 40, 2, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS A 4 A_Chase
		POSS B 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", 6, 0, 40, 2, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS B 4 A_Chase
		POSS C 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", 6, 0, 40, 2, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS C 4 A_Chase
		POSS D 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", 6, 0, 40, 2, 0, 0, 0, 16)
		POSS D 4 A_Chase
		loop
	}
}
actor ZombieHead
{
	+ismonster
	-countkill
	+shootable
	+nogravity
	+nodamagethrust
	+noradiusdmg
	health 10
	height 14
	radius 10
	states
	{
	spawn:
		TNT1 A 4
		stop
	death:
		TNT1 A 0 A_KillMaster
		TNT1 AAAAA 1 A_SpawnItemEx ("Blood", random(-2,2),random(-2,2),random(-4,6), random(-2,2),random(-2,2),random(2,6))
		stop
	}
}

XutaWoo · Post by **XutaWoo** » Thu May 31, 2007 12:43 am

Niiiice.

Post by **Nash** » Thu May 31, 2007 1:04 am

Nice. The Z coordinate has to be adjusted a bit, but still nice.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Thu May 31, 2007 1:12 am

I'm more concerned about the X myself... testing this out in freeze mode I notice a few situations where the target area is a little behind where the head is on the sprite... nothing a 6-8-unit shift forward shouldn't fix though.

Post by **Nash** » Thu May 31, 2007 1:14 am

How well would this work for much faster monsters?

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Thu May 31, 2007 1:25 am

I haven't tried, though it shouldn't be much more than creating a shorter-lived head actor and repeating the spawn more often. And possibly increasing the forward momentum given to the head in the see state...

Also, I've just edited the original to make it a little easier. Still not easy, but better than spraying with the chaingun hoping one will land...

Post by **TheDarkArchon** » Thu May 31, 2007 4:24 am

However, Caligari (I think) did headshots by a similar method ages ago. http://forum.zdoom.org/potato.php?t=6905&start=0

Post by **Nash** » Thu May 31, 2007 4:50 am

Caligari's method wasn't too fancy becaused it required TIDs.

Lilwhitemouse's, while much nicer, required using ACS and if I'm not mistaken, also TIDs.

Vaecrius' is nice but it does look a little tedious because of all the spawning in between.

Post by **Ryan Cordell** » Thu May 31, 2007 8:29 am

Although nice, I still plan on staying with ACS, since I'm a bit of a supporter for the 'clean and effective' style of coding, and looking at the way the actor is jumbled with A_SpawnItemEx -es for it, I'll go through the ACS routine, but it was a nice take on it.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Thu May 31, 2007 10:24 am

The vastly cleaner alternative I originally had in mind was to give TIDs to the zombies which spawn a single head with the same TID + 1000, then have the head repeatedly jump to the zombie's location.

This was just a lot easier to type up in ten minutes in the middle of the night.

Post by **Ryan Cordell** » Thu May 31, 2007 11:14 am

Wouldn't it be better (and cleaner) to just write it like this?

Code: Select all

   spawn:
      POSS A 0
      POSS AABB 4 A_Look
      POSS AABB 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", 6, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
      loop
   missile:
      POSS EEE 4 A_FaceTarget
      POSS EEE 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
      POSS F 4 bright A_PosAttack
      POSS F 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
      POSS EE 4 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
      goto see
   pain:
      POSS E 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
      POSS E 4 HealThing (999)
      POSS E 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", -2, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
      POSS E 4 A_Pain
      goto see
   see:
      POSS ABCD 4 A_Chase
      POSS ABCD 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", 6, 0, 40, 2, 0, 0, 0, 16)
      loop

masterofpsi · Post by **masterofpsi** » Thu May 31, 2007 11:14 am

This would be great for a survival kind of mod. Civilian weapons, really powerful zombies that only take damage to the head... It would be awesome.

Post by **Ryan Cordell** » Thu May 31, 2007 11:15 am

However easy this would be, this could bring up the amusing sight of gunning a Zombie to the crotch.

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Thu May 31, 2007 11:24 am

Blade Nightflame wrote:Wouldn't it be better (and cleaner) to just write it like this?
Code: Select all
   spawn:
      POSS A 0
      POSS AABB 4 A_Look
      POSS AABB 0 A_SpawnItemEx ("ZombieHead", 6, 0, 40, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16)
      loop

That's not how Decorate works.

The original version does this:

1: Spawn a head target.
2: Immediately display frame A for 4 tics, and look for a player to start chasing.
3: Repeat steps 1 & 2.
4: Spawn a head target.
5: Immediately display frame B for 4 tics, and look for a player to start chasing.
6: Repeat steps 4 and 5.
7: Loop.

Your version does this:

1: Display frame A for 4 tics, and look for a player to start chasing.
2: Repeat step 1.
3: Display frame B for 4 tics, and look for a player to start chasing.
4: Repeat step 3.
5: Spawn 4 head targets in the same tic.
6: Loop.

The original version has the effect that each frame is shown for 8 tics, however the enemy looks for a target to chase twice per frame (every 4 tics). Since the head target only lives for 4 tics, two head targets are also spawned per frame.

Your See state is even worse, since the enemy would chase after the player for 16 tics before spawning 4 heads at its location and repeating the process. As a result, the head target would lag well behind the moving enemy.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Thu May 31, 2007 12:10 pm

I just noticed that this method needs a slight overlap between each new head or you'd get a gap between frames where a headshot is impossible... so in the above example the head's first spawn frame should be 5 rather than 4.

What was Caligari's method anyway? According to his OP it only worked for one angle...