[vulture]

Hi there everyone, my brother and I will start making our own indie game with game plot set in our small hometown which we plan to recreate in its entirety as a map (or set of maps). Before we start, i was wondering what's max map size meter wise? I've come across this reference which indicates the following:

- at default GRID level (3), one BLOCK (BLK) unit is equal to 256 x,yBLD units
- it is stated that 1024 x,yBLD is equal to 80px (in 2D mode), therefore 256 x,yBLD (1BLK) units are equal to 20px
- it is later stated that 1px is equal to 1.5" from which we come to 256x,y BLD units => 20px => 30" => 0.762 meters

So if i go to mapster32 and draw a straight line from far left edge to far right edge of map i get 262144 x,yBLD units, from which i can calculate length in meters:

262144 x,yBLD / 256 x,yBLD = 1024 BLK * 20px = 20480px * 1.5" = 30720" = 780.288 meters

So max map size should be 780.288 m², are my calculations correct?

[Daedolon]

You can expand the grid size in the Mapster32 configuration file, the only true limits are the sector, wall and sprite limits.

[vulture]

Cool! Thanks, i'll look into it.

[Micky C]

I trust you have some mapping experience under your belt? Trying to recreate real-life cities in a 2.5D engine take a lot of know-how. Although if you code door teleporters for the insides of buildings it should help a lot.

[vulture]

Actually I have, back in 1999 i made a bunch of DN3D maps and messed with .CON files so i'm more or less on familiar territory. The reason why I ask about max map size is because i want to ensure SOME degree of free-roaming type of gameplay (something i really liked in realMyst for example) - i say "SOME" because i think 10 square kilometers of map would be pretty much overkill and tough to follow (and make any kind of consistent game plot really hard).

General plan is to split town into 6-8 maps and limit players movement with obstacles (like huge craters in silent hill, stuff like that) and for that I need to know some general mapping limitations.

[Micky C]

I don't think plan area will be the problem. Like others have said, the limiting factor will most likely be the wall limit. The limits have been extended from the original game, so while in the past the number of sectors was the limiting factor, the max for that has been quadrupled, while the wall limit has only been doubled.

[Razzy]

I have a question regarding swinging doors. I've returned to level building after 7 years, but I don't remember encountering this before.

I'm playing around with TROR, made an internal room with 3D stairs and catwalk with 2 TROR connections, outside area has one TROR connection. Now, on the upper floor there's a door that's above a wider door down below. The wider door is outside, while the upper, narrower door is outside, with a hole in the buildng's wall leading to it. My problem is that when standing on the sprite catwalk outside or in the hole in the wall, I can't activate the door. If I try from the inside, it works.

If I try to activate it from the right (inside the sector the door sector is in), it works. If I try to hit it from the left (outside said sector), it doesn't. I remember that when I move it a bit away from the sector line, it worked too.

cya
Raziel-chan

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[Daedolon]

Doors that are on a sector that have sector tags (ie. one time sounds), cannot be opened except from the sector they are in.

I can't see it in your picture, but make sure that the sector the door is in is not tagged.

EDIT: It also looks like the player might not have enough space to clear the sliding door, causing him to keep triggering it instead of what's in front of him.

[Mark]

That explains why one of my doors would open from one side but not the other. But after opening from the working side, then it would start opening from both sides.

[Forge]

the door will work normally once the one-time sound is triggered. The player doesn't have to be in the tagged sector to open the door; they can enter the area, trigger the sound, leave, go around and open the door from the outside - if that's what they want to do.

generally you can use the effect as a door lock without the need for touchplates and extra SEs

[Daedolon]

Yeah you can probably use the null sound (forgot the #) to create a custom touchplate style lock with even less of trouble. I'm hoping to see someone use that in a map cleverly.

EDIT: Can you one-time-sound -tag sloped sectors? Since you can't do that with touchplates, this would open up a completely new possibility in mapping.

[Micky C]

What can't you do with touchplates?

[Forge]

it's nothing new, i think i used it in one of my maps awhile back. though i might have put a lock & switch on the door just in case an eduke update broke the effect

the one-time sound tagged sector has to be the parent sector of the swinging door sector, and it could just be my memory, but i don't recall seeing swinging doors on a sloped sector

iirc touchplates should be placed at the bottom of sloped sector so the sector doesn't flatten/level

[Micky C]

I don't see how you can have swinging doors in a sloped sector and have it look natural.

The trick to touchplates on sloped sectors is to press F7 on the sector in 2D mode and get the z-coordinate, then to press F8 on the sprite and give it the same z-coordinate. As long as those values match up, the sector shouldn't move.

[brullov]

Hey guys, I would like somebody make a video tutorial about TROR with comments. That would be great!

[1337DirtAlliance]

How do you start with no weapon??? I looked at E1L3 and there is just a bolt. I tried Using one and still nothing.

[Fox]

Damaging floor texture.

[1337DirtAlliance]

Thank you!!

[oasiz]

You can also create a tiny sector that instantly one-way teleports the player silently, as long as the sector you start in is damaging it will get rid of things for you.
Shade this tiny box completely black optionally.

This way you can start the level without the player even knowing that there was a damaging sector.
Normally you'd just keep losing health if you don't move.

Also with F8 placement, when using negative values, you input the minus AFTER the value has been input, not before as you might assume.
F8 placement was super handy when I was making that train ride for slum2 as the "fake sloping" relies a lot on calculations and in-ground placement of stuff.

I wonder if anything could be done in mapster to make this easier, is there any other way to place things inside the ground than F8 (not counting manual pushing inside the ground with pgup/dn) Having this manual Z insertion with select + inputting value in THREEDEE mode would be awesome!

[1337DirtAlliance]

I tried to make a invisible dmg tile underneath so I don't have to make the start area look different just for dukes starting spot. But that didn't work. so I think i'll give the tele a shot later.
I want the next level to be where you're captured and unarmed.

Kinda tacky having just one tube have a different bottom layer

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[1337DirtAlliance]

Sweet that one way tele worked!!!





I know you can do this on doom with flipping what direction the wall was facing. But how would you make a one time directional spawn for monsters so they spawn when you're coming back?

[Mark]

I would have thought that the entire green floor was a damage tile and should have started the player weaponless.

[oasiz]

One way spawns are possible in some ways but they are never that easy to do. I'd just suggest going with timers and assuming that they player would go at a certain pace.
One trick cage showed about a year ago was to respawn a masterswitch sprite inside a wallcrack by using a trigger, naturally this would have a tag 0 and would only be usable once.

I can't think of any other way, maybe sliding a tiny tiny sector from the wall sides so that it covers the whole hallway but is only 1 unit thick could work as a trigger sector that gets slided in to player area on demand. Haven't tried this yet but it might work.

[Daedolon]

The player can't step on sectors that are only few units. The player generally needs at least a sector of RETRIEVEDISTANCE when running, smaller when walking or moving about slowly (tapping).

[1337DirtAlliance]

Thats surprising to hear there isn't a solid solution whereas doom is so simple and old and has some pretty nifty effects.

[Daedolon]

Doom's way of spawning in monsters is as hacky.

[Daedolon]

Some sprites have their spritenoshade value set to true, so not all sprites take the palette or shade of the floor or ceiling.

[Jblade]

With 2-way trains, I've got a simple truck shape set up but the inside of the truck's trailer doesn't move with the rest of the construction. The whole thing is surrounded by a bounding box that doesn't touch any of the sides of the truck. I've tried connecting the lower floor part to the outside of the trailer, but nothing works - it just stays put at the original position whilst the rest of the truck moves away. It's definitely been given the proper tagging.

[Micky C]

You can't have nested sectors with 2-way trains. All wall points must be inside the bounding sector. Even then, the nested sectors won't cause sprites inside them to move with the train. Don't forget, ALL sectors must share the lotag.

[Daedolon]

Just cut away a "canal" the thickness of 1 build unit from the outside to the inside so it all connects.