Make a Hatch in the Floor

[Moebius]

Any help would be appreciated. I've used polyobjects to make doors that open left/right, but they are infinitely tall. I want to make an opening in the floor of a room with a two-piece hatch door 8 units thick that slides open, left/right. I want the hatch to open and the floor rise up with monsters and goodies on it. I can create it visually with 3D floors, but can't make them move horizontally. I tried dropping the 3D floors super fast. It worked until I put the monsters and armor on the lower floor. The dropping 3D floors only lower until they hit them. I also want to use the hatch concept with an elevator. Doom 3 has some levels that use this. Can it be done? Have GZDOOM Builder and SLADE. I can write simple script with the script editor, but programming is beyond me right now.

[Enjay]

You could use your current 3d floor setup but make the floors non blocking and place an invisible custom bridge actor into the hole with its parameters set so that it blocks the hole. Then, when you drop the floors, your script could remove the bridge actor. The non-blocking floors should pass right through your monsters and once the bridge is gone, the hole would be open.

Another option might be to use a model in the hole. It would be reasonably easy to create a model that looks just like your current setup but you could probably get smoother animation from it.

[Gez]

For the 3D floor, instead of dropping it, you can instead raise it -- put it above the ceiling! If you use an instant movement it won't be visible that it shot up, and it won't collide with monsters this way. Unless you have some other blocking actor right above it, like some hanging lamp or something, but they can probably be moved aside more easily than the monsters.

Though another thing you can do if you lower the 3D floor is to not have the monsters in the way at first. They can be elsewhere. Then the same script that moves the 3D floor out of the way can silent-teleport the monsters as a second step.

[Enjay]

I've noticed that sometimes, if you're watching, you can actually spot 3D floors moving instantly. So a player might notice it (or at least get the impression of something not being quite right) if the 3D floor is raised - even instantly.

Teleporting the bad guys into the hole before raising it would certainly be another good way to do it though.

[Misery]

I've noticed that sometimes, if you're watching, you can actually spot 3D floors moving instantly.

Use SetLineSpecial, and remove the linedef action from the control sector and remove the 3D sector 'stead of moving it.

[Enjay]

Use SetLineSpecial, and remove the linedef action from the control sector and remove the 3D sector 'stead of moving it.

I don't think that works. Pretty sure 3D floors cannot be set/unset during gameplay.

[Misery]

A'ight. Never tried it with that action specifically, so I don't know for sure. An odd exception, but not useful, anyways.

[Guest]

Enjay's invisible bridges and non-solid 3D floor solutions works. Although when you walk over the hatch the monsters below notice you. That can be fixed. I guess I need to learn to make md3 models for the game.

[Enjay]

Although when you walk over the hatch the monsters below notice you. That can be fixed.

Indeed - either set them to be dormant and wake them when the floor rises or teleport them in as discussed earlier.

[Guest]

I saw a map that had a sliding hatch over a elevator that raised from under the floor. Basically the "hatch" was a large texture with half of it transparent. So he made the floor texture scroll to the side, making it look like it was opening. The hatch was non-solid in his example, but you could theoretically add a moving polyobject under the hatch for collision I think.

I'm trying to find it again, because I want to do the same effect for my map, BUT I don't know how he made the floor texture move and then stop.