deep water thing + color for sector

dochist · Post by **dochist** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 1:34 am

it would be awesome if the deep water thing would have an option so one could add the sector color, like how one does it when doing the dummy sector w/ transfer heights for the underwater area by writing the number or watermap (if its water and not lava or blood, ect).

that way, having fully flooded rooms there is no need to create dummy sectors at all and just throw tons of deep water things instead, making it easier to have detailed underwater parts and no need for tons of tags either.

this would be very awesome. always wanted to do a big underwater level, but too lazy to create dummy sectors and have tons of tags. i don't mind having thousands of deep water things though, since it would be just copy and paste.

well, thats it.

Skippy · Post by **Skippy** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:14 am

You suggestion seems to make little sense. How is it that you would need 'tons of tags'? Assuming the water level is the same for all sectors (highly likely!) you would need one - yes, one - tag number. The only instance in which you'd need more is if you wish to combine deep water with other effects like coloured lighting or fog.

dochist wrote:this would be very awesome. always wanted to do a big underwater level, but too lazy to create dummy sectors and have tons of tags. i don't mind having thousands of deep water things though, since it would be just copy and paste.

Since the 'deep water thing' goes IN the dummy sector in the first place, this is mere nonsense.

dochist · Post by **dochist** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:32 am

Skippy wrote:Since the 'deep water thing' goes IN the dummy sector in the first place, this is mere nonsense.

you can place the deep water thing on the sector itself without having to create a dummy sector, but it creates a room with no gravity.

the problem is, using fog and colored lighting looks so damn ugly, it doesnt feel one is underwater at all, and the color & (the way it looks) you get with the traditional way of doing underwater areas is so much better.

the thing is that, i cant do what you say. if i create one dummy sector with one tag, it doesn't work because doors will become invisible and other things will happen too. like crates will have the wrong top texture. corridors that are lower in height will have the a transparent ceiling too.

on the level that i have in mind, probably 99% is underwater. so having crates and doors and all that stuff doesn't work with one tag.

so what i thought would rule was to have the deep water thing to give color to the sector is in, just like the transfer heights mama. since it already takes away the gravity, it would make things easier when doing detailed underwater areas.

hope this makes sense, I'm very sleepy

Skippy · Post by **Skippy** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 4:51 am

What you're trying to achieve makes perfect sense, yes, and your concerns are all valid ones. However:

The Wiki wrote:The flags parameter determines how the fake floor and ceiling are rendered and can have values such as:

0 = There will be situations when the sector's real ceiling and floor heights will be used instead of the fake heights (this is the way BOOM does it).
1 = The fake ceiling and floor heights will always be used.
2 = Only the fake floor will be drawn.
4 = The fake floor/ceiling is only visible if it is inside of the sector the player moves around in. The texture on the control sector's floor is also used for the top and bottom of the fake floor. The same applies to the fake ceiling.
8 = Make the target sector swimmable under the fake floor (no need for the WaterZone thing).
16 = Do not draw the fake floor or ceiling, however they can still be used on conjunction with the sector action things that correspond to them (useful for making the player fall down a deep hole or similar).
32 = Do not transfer the control sector's lighting to the affected sector(s).

These values can also be combined by adding them. For example a value of 6 would combine values 2 and 4, and a value of 29 would combine values 16, 8, 4 and 1.

Careful use of flags will solve your 'disapperaring crates etc' problem. As for doors, I'm assuming you mean switch-operated doors and the like, as standard door specials have no tag (the door specials operate on the sector on the back side of the activating line). In this case, yes, you will need a separate tag and control sector for the door, but how many would you reasonably expect to need?

As for the 'traditional' way of colouring water - I assume you mean WATERMAP? Because as far as I can tell, that simply renders a screen blend of #80004FA5. If you insist on using a thousand or so deep water things - bad practice, for sure - then you can easily fake the WATERMAP with a call to FadeTo. There's no need to make things more complex than they need to be.

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 9:59 am

I don't see why this isn't a good idea. If you're making a map where many of the actual sectors should be completely flooded, how is forcing an unneeded transfer heights special on them "good mapping practice", as opposed to simply using deep water actors? Further, to my knowledge there is no reason the actor's args couldn't be used for this, since assigning a special to one would be an exercise in pointlessness; they can never be activated or killed.

To me, it seems like a simple matter to make the args act as RGB values and tint the sector the actor is in. Whether or not it's a consistent enough implementation is up to the developers.

Skippy · Post by **Skippy** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 10:34 am

@HotWax: I see nothing wrong per se with the concept; it's more that it seems totally unnecessary for the implementation being discussed. From what dochist has said, his is a complex underwater environment, and having to stick a WaterZone thing in ever single sector would be problematic to keep track of (though no, I'm not purporting to be any bastion of immaculate mapping practices here

).

Yes, having to use Transfer_Heights may seem unnecessary in a totally flooded sector, but once set up it is easily tweaked and adjusted, and offers much more editing flexibility (the potential to drain the flooded areas later, for one - as you point out, WaterZone things can't be destroyed or deactivated). The idea of using a deep water thing for every single sector that needs to be swimmable could quickly get out of hand, and has the potential to be a nightmare if, say, the colour of the water needs changing at any point. The actual WaterZone thing itself is practically redundant due to the 'swimmable' flag bit available in the line special anyway, in my opinion (I certainly never use it when mapping, at least).

I agree that setting up swimmable sectors can frequently be more trouble than it should be, but in the case of Transfer_Heights it at least offers a degree of flexibility should the need arise. If this get's No'd, it would most likely be that it's an unneccesary addition to achieve something perfectly within the capabilities of the existing featureset. Still, as you say, it's up to the devs (all hail).

EDIT: not to hijack the original suggestion, but a better use of the args for a WaterZone thing might be in setting the warping speed of the fake floor and ceiling textures - it would allow for a better indication of a liquid's viscosity, rather than just having to pick between warp and warp 2 in ANIMDEFS. The WaterZone thing is initialized at map load, IIRC. Just an idea.

CaptainToenail · Post by **CaptainToenail** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 11:30 am

Anything that makes mapping easier sounds good to me, although it is kinda pointless.

dochist · Post by **dochist** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 12:37 pm

well, it seemed like a good idea. after all, it is feature suggestions

as for the #4 flag for transfer heights. well, in my defense, for some weird and unusual reason through out the radical eye of the universe, it never worked for me, so when skippy wrote about it and then i gave it a try on this heretic level, well, it still doesn't work with doors or lower ceiling height corridors, which is what i want.

Project Shadowcat · Post by **Project Shadowcat** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 4:01 pm

It'd certainly make things a lot easier. I have a few nearly all underwater levels planned in my project.

Skippy · Post by **Skippy** » Sun Sep 16, 2007 5:32 pm

@PDF: unless I've missed the point entirely, this feature suggestion would be even more redundant in a totally-submerged level. Let's remember that we're talking about one deep water thing for every sector that is underwater. That, or a couple of control sectors - it could be as few as one. I know which one sounds easier to me.

@dochist: hopefully this demo WAD will make it clearer. Run it with doom2.wad.

dochist · Post by **dochist** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:31 am

*plays skippy test wad

this is how i was doing it. in shame, i shall disappear and go into hidding on the vienna woods. and whenever i get the maps finished, skippy shall get massive thanks for my blindness. thanks man. hehe, never felt as dumb as now

still though... you know.... ...er... ejkernt,rtkwhrtjwkth

Skippy · Post by **Skippy** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 4:25 am

No problem my friend, glad I could be of help. Even that tiny demo map has 10 sectors or so underwater. Dropping a waterzone thing into each of those would have been annoying enough, let alone doing it for an entire level.

I'd still be interested to hear what the devs say though...

Post by **Nash** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 4:54 am

Yeah, Skippy's WAD really opened my eyes. Need to learn how to use those flags properly.

Post by **Enjay** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:31 am

The transfer heights line is a very commonly used one yet it seems that its additional/newer flags are not well understood by the majority of mappers (my self included) or even known about by many of them. I wonder why?

Skippy · Post by **Skippy** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:12 am

@Enjay: I have no idea. It was the first line special I really became familiar with when I came to ZDoom, largely due to the fake floor stuff (ie swimmable liquids). I also use it a lot for situations where the player 'drops' through the floor to a lower level, by setting the flags to 16 and using a sector action Thing (just like the Wiki quote I gave suggests).

I was going to suggest a rewrite to the Wiki instructions, including an example WAD (I'd be happy to do one). However I see that there already is an example WAD on the Wiki. I can't test it here as I'm at work - anyone else tried it? Is it up to date or could it be improved or replaced?