Portal example gallery

[Nash]

Can someone/has anyone made a simple, clear cut example WAD on how to use the various new portal features in ZDoom? I'm still a little confused TBH... would be cool if someone put together simple map examples because IMO the fastest way to learn is from actual example files...

[Graf Zahl]

Not really. All the portal demos I have seen so far went for the gimmick aspect rather than making sensible use of portals.

[Gez]

A portal demo is supposed to demonstrate, not illustrate.

I thought about updating the portal test map to make it work with the actual implementation but it's far too much work.

[arookas]

I've been using portals as a way to get around overlapping rooms without spamming 3D floors. Combined with interactive sector portals, you can even travel between them vertically, making for very interesting layouts. I made a quick test map to show what I mean (it doesn't use any 3D floors).

[Kappes Buur]

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f= ... 53#p905753

[Rachael]

Not really. All the portal demos I have seen so far went for the gimmick aspect rather than making sensible use of portals.

That will change when the feature matures a bit and people get over their "ooh-aah" phase about it. It still feels really new and exciting so people just want to get into them more than they really want to "make sensible use" of them at this point.

It's also an experimental phase where mappers start seeing what does and doesn't work with portals - both in a technical sense, and also in a more "feel" (gameplay) sense.

[Jaxxoon R]

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f= ... 53#p905753

Two weeks and still no reply!

[Nash]

I've been using portals as a way to get around overlapping rooms without spamming 3D floors. Combined with interactive sector portals, you can even travel between them vertically, making for very interesting layouts. I made a quick test map to show what I mean (it doesn't use any 3D floors).

This is the perfect, clear-cut example I was seeking. Thanks!

Although playing around in this map has revealed a shortcoming of the portals, and that is sound. Its seems really weird that explosions and monster sounds can't be heard in the other "room" that's right in front of your eyes, because technically they're not really adjacent, physically. :( Will this eventually be solved?

[Trusty McLegit]

Here are a couple wads I made testing out different ways of using them

[Graf Zahl]

Although playing around in this map has revealed a shortcoming of the portals, and that is sound. Its seems really weird that explosions and monster sounds can't be heard in the other "room" that's right in front of your eyes, because technically they're not really adjacent, physically. Will this eventually be solved?

Use static portals. For the other types this is not really solvable but I said that right from the beginning.

[Trusty McLegit]

Could you give a full explaination as to what the different portal types do? The explanations on the wiki don't really say much

[Graf Zahl]

Visual: self-explaining
Teleport: Actors can cross the portal but anything that gets spawned by another actor with an offset (like an angled projectile) will ignore it
Interactive: Actors can cross the portal and anything that gets spawned by another actor with an offset will be offset by it.
Static: There may be no angle or height change. Also, for any two sections in the map any path through different portals that connects both areas must have the same offset. Due to these limitations it is possible to store a global offset for any two areas which can then be used for sound positioning or monster targeting calculations.
For the other portal types this is not possible because there is no well-defined displacement information. It'd have to be calculated manually each time by tracing through all available portals. Obviously this is prohibitive in terms of processing cost.

[Trusty McLegit]

Awesome, thanks. But could you clarify what you mean here?

Also, for any two sections in the map any path through different portals that connects both areas must have the same offset.

[Graf Zahl]

Say, you have 4 portals (sector or static line portals) in your map, containing 4 sections:

Portal 1 from section 1 to section 2 has an offset of 500, 600
Portal 2 from section 2 to section 3 has an offset of 500, 400
Portal 3 from section 1 to section 4 has an offset of -500, -500
So if you connect section 4 with section 3 you'll need an offset of 1500, 1500, so that across both paths the offset from section 1 to section 3 is 1000, 1000.
This is a vital property of static portals, without it they cannot work properly.

[Trusty McLegit]

I don't know what you mean by section. Like a sector? And are those the offsets of vertices? Could you make a wad with static portals set up like in your post so I can actually see what you mean? Sorry if I'm just being incompetent