*** The "ask a miscellaneous editing question" thread ***

rdwpa said:

Let's say I want to do the following things:

1) Use the Afrit.

2) Reduce the Lost Soul's HP a bit and replace the sprite with the one used in Valiant.

What steps would I need to take (with a Boom-format map)? I poked around in Whacked but the process to make modifications like this doesn't seem intuitive.

1. The easiest way is to use the ready-made DEHACKED patch from Scythe 2, where the Afrit replaces Commander Keen.
2. Open Thing table, find Lost Soul in the list, and change its Health. Sprites can be replaced simply by reincluding them into your wad via SLADE3.

Actually my latest question may warrant a unique Thread.

**Moved**

Link: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/74599-multi-sloped-sectors-collapsing-ceilings/

This might be worth its own thread but...

Can a WolfensteinSS have as much dehacked wizardry done to it as Commander Keen and maybe even a Baron of Hell (I know the afrit was a commanderkeen in scythe 2 but do they all have equal potential)?

Can you dehack a marble pillar obstacle into an item that can be picked up but doesn't do anything except have its own pickup message?

Also maybe more details on doing dehacked on the deadlostsoul actor like can it turn into an explosion upon seeing the player for special effects?

I want to use a wolfensteinss as a slightly modified dehacked monster but still have room for one of those epic dehacked bosses (also all the other cool ideas I mentioned :P)

SuperCupcakeTactics said:

This might be worth its own thread but...

Can a WolfensteinSS have as much dehacked wizardry done to it as Commander Keen and maybe even a Baron of Hell (I know the afrit was a commanderkeen in scythe 2 but do they all have equal potential)?

Can you dehack a marble pillar obstacle into an item that can be picked up but doesn't do anything except have its own pickup message?

Also maybe more details on doing dehacked on the deadlostsoul actor like can it turn into an explosion upon seeing the player for special effects?

I want to use a wolfensteinss as a slightly modified dehacked monster but still have room for one of those epic dehacked bosses (also all the other cool ideas I mentioned :P)

-Indeed you can, even more so than the Commander Keen! The only snag is that whatever monster you turn the Wolfenstein SS into will still drop an ammo clip, but it isn't too much of a problem if you're turning it into a final boss that ends the level when it's killed.

-Unfortunately not, you can only alter the existing ones. The best thing to do would be to forfeit one of the keys and not use that particular type of door in levels with the item in question.

-Yes, you can! Just have an explosion as it's See state so it doesn't go off before the player sees it. It'd also be a good idea to have it's Look states use an empty sprite in case you come across the actor from an odd angle. I used this particular idea in one of my early wads called Operation Hydra if you're curious.

Thank you! I checked out your wad, it's actually pretty similar to want I want to do with a map with the having zdoom-isms but not actually being zdoom thing ^_^

(I was even going to use the same wolfenstein ss replacement, but more unique in stats than both this and the actual zdoom monster)

mrthejoshmon said:

3D floors in Boom are as interesting as they are confusing. Anybody have a guide on them or better yet do they work in PrBoom?

If you're talking about the type 242 fake floor/ceiling effect, then as good as any is probably http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Linedef_type#Property_transfer , in particular the ASCII-art diagram of which flat is drawn where.

I just wrote a WadC library to help with using this for deep water in WadC levels - https://github.com/jmtd/wadc/blob/master/include/water.h

Can you use dehacked to make a monster that doesn't attack but just wanders around or one that stands still? If not then I guess I can put in some blank projectile sprites, have it be zero damage, and replace the attacking animation with some sort of idle stare :P.

Also what linedef actions can a barrel trigger? I think I remember one being a slow lift, but I'm not sure if it can be repeatable if the barrels are gone and the player missed it....

Is there a purple combined with cyan palette around? A lavender combined with aegean palette? I guess I'd have to change textures to those colors somehow if I do use a custom palette. Though I'm worried about what those colors might replace for other things, or maybe I won't have to worry about that. I also want to create new sprites making sure I use the right colors.

edit: disregard the palette one :s

SuperCupcakeTactics said:

Can you use dehacked to make a monster that doesn't attack but just wanders around or one that stands still?

Yes, sure. To make him not attack, go to Things mode and set his Attack State to 0, and also Melee State to 0 if you want to prevent close range attack too. To make him stand still, set his Speed to 0 and/or replace his See State with a static frame that doesn't call Chase (the latter will prevent him from ever trying to attack at all, too).

SuperCupcakeTactics said:

Also what linedef actions can a barrel trigger? I think I remember one being a slow lift, but I'm not sure if it can be repeatable if the barrels are gone and the player missed it....

W1 and WR slow lifts, teleports of course, and that's all. If a barrel triggers a W1 action, the action will be "depleted" as normally, meaning that nobody/nothing else will be able to trigger it anymore.

Thanks very much :)

scifista42 said:

To make him not attack, go to Things mode and set his Attack S

This is interesting, can you prevent attacks from an Editor like GZDoom Builder? If so then how as I can't seem to find the option. Or is this via Slade / XWE?

This is via a DEHACKED patch that you need to create in a DEHACKED editor like WhackEd and then insert into your wad via SLADE3.

scifista42 said:

This is via a DEHACKED patch that you need to create in a DEHACKED editor like WhackEd and then insert into your wad via SLADE3.

Well this looks like something I ought to look into for what I want to achieve. Excellent stuff. One final question, can you temporary prevent range attacks on vanilla monsters through this method? Or at least for one level.

DEHACKED patches take effect in an entire wad, no less.

However, you can reuse frames to make 2 variants of a monster, one with ranged attack and one with none. Then in a map editor, place the 2nd (attack-less) variant monster if you don't want it to attack ever, and place the 1st (normal) variant otherwise.

DEHACKED editing is relatively complicated art, but not so much once you understand what's going on. Check out this set of tutorials by Enjay - they were written for DOS Dehacked editor, but modern WhackEd is based on the same principles.

The main advantage of gameplay modifications via DEHACKED patches is that they are potentially compatible with vanilla engine (well, they can be used to "hack" vanilla engine and change it) and also practically all source ports support them natively.

Hey guys, I'm working on an archvile boss fight for my wad and in order for it to work I need him to play an animation to alert the player that something's about to happen. I could also just play the archvile's alert sound but an animation would be preferable, the animation I want to use is the one that plays when they're about to set the player on fire. I don't want to have to use DECORATE or DEHACKED or whatever I'd need to use for this since I'm not experienced enough in Doom Wizardry. Any help would be much appreciated!

(also sorry for the bump in this month old thread but I think this thread should be used more often)

OK, so... What exactly is the special thing you want to achieve? Your description makes me think that you can simply put an Archvile into a room and be OK with his normal behavior. "Animation" is also an ambiguous expression: How big, where, when, for how long, and why does it have to appear? Should it be anyhow interactive? Should it be sprite-based or texture-based? And if sprite based, how do you imagine making it happen without involving DEHACKED or DECORATE?

Nevermind, I'll just make a sound play when the thing's about to happen. Thanks anyway.

SuperCupcakeTactics said:

Can a WolfensteinSS have as much dehacked wizardry done to it as Commander Keen and maybe even a Baron of Hell (I know the afrit was a commanderkeen in scythe 2 but do they all have equal potential)?

Basically the way DeHackEd works, there's a pool of potential that's shared by all actors. Any actor can have as much wizardry as any other, but there's a limit to the total amount of wizardry available so you can't have all the actors being wizards at the same time. Basically.

Also there's some stuff that's hardcoded. Only cybies and spideys get to be immune to splash damage; only arch-viles get to never be targeted by infighting, etc.

As for pickup items: it depends on the sprite. So you can change the shotgun pickup sprite to make sergeants drop plasma rifles, for example, and you can even create semi-random pickups that cycle through different states so what you pick up depends on what state it was when you picked it up, but you can't create entirely new pickup effects -- whatever new pickup you make will have to use one of the effects already existing, be it giving you a weapon, a powerup, some health, etc.

This one probably has an obvious answer, but...

What's the behaviour of teleporters (let's assume linedef type 97 here) when there are multiple 'target' sectors with the same tag, but only one of them has the teleport exit (thing 14) in it?

Two hypothetical situations where this might be used:

1) The sector with the teleport destination thing 14 in it is part of a multi-sector construct to which some other action is applied earlier or later in the level, for example several sectors that lower simultaneously (let's say linedef action 38). Since a sector cannot have multiple tags, the same tag is used for the lowering floor action and the teleport action, and multiple sectors are tagged with that action - however only one of those tagged sectors has a teleport destination thing 14 in it.

2) The classic setup with a monster 'waiting room,' inaccessible to the player, from which the monster teleports into the playing area after a certain point. There's one monster teleport linedef in the waiting room, but three destination sectors with the same tag as that linedef - however, the teleport destination thing 14 in each destination sector only appears on one difficulty setting (destination 1 only on ITTYD/HNTR, destination 2 on HMP, destination 3 on UV/N!).

The behaviour I would expect (and intend) in both cases is that a sector with the same tag as the teleport linedef, but lacking a teleport destination thing, will simply be ignored, however I'd be interested in knowing if this is not the case.

Sectors with no teleport destinations are ignored.
Yes, you can have different destinations on different skill levels.
Really, testing by yourself would probably take less time than writing all that. :)

What Memfis said is true, just one more thing to keep in mind: When something tries to teleport, the engine will check each of the tagged sectors for presence of a teleport destination (as soon as a destination is found, teleportation will happen). This checking is not instantaneous - each check needs a little time to be performed. As a result, if you tag very many sectors, the player may experience a lag each time something tries to teleport to a sector with this tag (frequently happens if it's tag 0).

Thanks Memfis and scifista42. :)

simple quasi-editing question - is there a texture pack out there which combines the Doom, Doom II and Final Doom textures and flats, and includes those from Heretic, Hexen and Strife which suit the palette? Yes, I am lazy and want all my prepatory work done for me =P if not I guess the TNT Eternal resource pack could be a starting point.

Use this GreyGhost's wad with D1 textures for D2. Open it in SLADE3 and open its TEXTURE1. Then open Plutonia.wad in another tab in the same instance of SLADE3, and open its TEXTURE1 too. Block-select Plutonia's non-Doom2 textures (they're all at the end of the list), copy them (Ctrl+C), then go to the other wad's TEXTURE1, and paste them (Ctrl+V). All respective patches will be added to the wad automatically. Repeat the process with TNT.wad. Then repeat it again with Heretic, Hexen and Strife (copy all of their textures you want to use). Then block-select all Heretic, Hexen and Strife patches after they got added to the wad, and use "Graphic -> Convert to" to convert them to Doom palette. Finally, copy their flats, that should be straightforward.

Anyone know why random impassable lines might appear in a level?

Here's an exercise of mine, tested in prBoom+:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/1eag65lwjvih67o/2Q.wad

(It was textured differently, of course :D -- I quickly made a version with misc stock textures in order to upload it, so no one would have to DL my resource wad.)

After you hit the switch and drop down off the platform, there seems to be an invisible something right about here:

The are no sector problems afaik. The map takes place in an open 5000-by-5000 square, but that usually isn't big enough for weird stuff to happen, and making it much smaller changes nothing. Shifting the structure a few mu over changes nothing too. Using "Make Sector" on the (formerly) rocky structure where the invisible barrier is changes nothing. Running map analysis will turn up a bunch of unused sidedefs, but that's a result of the quick retexturing and the problem existed in the original version too.

(-nomo recommended if you don't want to fight things.)

I've always thought that these are just random unexplainable nodebuilder quirks, similar to how monsters can mysteriously see through walls sometimes. For me resaving the map with DeepBSP nodebuilder fixed the problem. Cool texturing btw.

rdwpa said:

Anyone know why random impassable lines might appear in a level?

Yeah, I took a look at the level in GZDB with the node viewer and the nodes are really weirdly built. Hard to go into much more detail than that.

More specifically, looks like it's this subsector:



As you can see, it believes that it's a part of sector 3, which is part of the raised platform area. So it's acting as a solid wall even though nothing is visible.

Cool, I hadn't found a use for Nodes Viewer mode prior to now.

Deleting the zero-height sector at the edge of the level seemed to do the trick (or deleting it and then redrawing a slightly larger version of it), for whatever reason.

A couple of misc. voodoo doll questions:

1) What's an exhaustive list of ways a voodoo doll can impart damage to the player? Being hit by a player, a monster, or a barrel, yes. Crushing floors and ceilings, yes. Being on a damaging floor, no. Correct?

2) Player 2(-4) voodoo dolls can be used for cooperative-only triggers. Correct?

rdwpa said:

1) What's an exhaustive list of ways a voodoo doll can impart damage to the player? Being hit by a player, a monster, or a barrel, yes. Crushing floors and ceilings, yes. Being on a damaging floor, no. Correct?

Voodoo dolls can also telefrag the player or another voodoo doll...

Linguica said:

Voodoo dolls can also telefrag the player or another voodoo doll...

...on map 30 only. On other maps, they can only be telefragged (killing the player), and then only by a real player, not another voodoo doll.

rdwpa said:

2) Player 2(-4) voodoo dolls can be used for cooperative-only triggers. Correct?

Correct. They can also be used for regular voodoo-doll triggers that are expected to keep working after player 1 has left the game.