[ck3D]

IIRC (keyword: IIRC) for the longest time there was this annoying limit in the original Build where no more than 1024 sprites (including monsters, items, projectiles etc.) could be displayed on screen without causing this, at one point I think that limit was raised (probably around the JonoF days) but it's still a thing, and one of the drawbacks of making wide open maps with lots of sprites. Hiding certain groups of sprites behind red walls won't do anything either, it seems like the whole sector(s) containing them has to be blocked out of view by white walls for them not to try and render which is obviously not going to work here with the landscape you're going for (that hill looks so cool!). Like Mark said, the renderer seems to make a difference. I don't know what to say, besides that the existence of this problem is something to keep in mind while designing open maps, they should still retain a certain amount of nooks and crannies that prevent the player from seeing the complete scenery at once (instead focusing on a curated selection of views and angles).

In certain conditions, one of my old maps has this problem to the point where even monsters start randomly clipping in and out of existence, which is the last thing you want in the middle of a double/triple miniboss battle.

[Dukebot]

Thanks for the answers provided. So the problem it's in the quantity of sprites in screen at the same time? If this is the case maybe I can move sprites from there to other areas, so when I look there there aren't so many sprites and they can be displayer properly. You said that red walls won't splove the problem, but I could create a red wall and give it some height so it's in front of that sprites. It was not a part of the map but maybe a small terrain elevation there to hide those... I will have to experiment a bit and see what can I do about this. Thans for the answers and feedback provided.

ck3D, on 10 April 2020 - 09:02 AM, said:

that hill looks so cool!

Thanks for your kinds words, that's actually the top part of the volcano showing up. Maybe you never saw the screenshoot, but in the first post of this map some years ago, there was a screen that showed a volcano in the map. Won't be a playable area but will be part of landscape =).

[ck3D]

Dukebot, on 10 April 2020 - 03:19 PM, said:

You said that red walls won't splove the problem, but I could create a red wall and give it some height so it's in front of that sprites. It was not a part of the map but maybe a small terrain elevation there to hide those...

No see, that's what I meant by saying red walls won't work, elevation tricks or ledges don't seem to do anything (I've tried - although, last time was in 2005 mind you...), the way it seems to function (or seemed to function at the time) is that if a sector containing sprites is rendered, no matter how visible all the sprites actually are from whichever angle, they will still count towards that limitation until the sector is completely blocked out of view by white walls again (even red walls raised all the way up to the ceiling don't work, as though the game still draws memory past such 'obstacles'). So you have to have a certain amount of simultaneously visible sectors containing the right division of sprites instead, it's a funny logic.

I don't want to spread misinformation though - I'm not a programmer so there's probably many things incorrect with what I'm saying, I'm only basing this on personal experience with a similar problem but that was 15+ years ago, using a different port and all, maybe even before the sector/wall/sprite limits were raised. Your map might still look fine under the right settings for all I know, but in general it's wise to optimize resources.

[Dukebot]

ck3D, on 10 April 2020 - 03:51 PM, said:

No see, that's what I meant by saying red walls won't work, elevation tricks or ledges don't seem to do anything (I've tried - although, last time was in 2005 mind you...), the way it seems to function (or seemed to function at the time) is that if a sector containing sprites is rendered, no matter how visible all the sprites actually are from whichever angle, they will still count towards that limitation until the sector is completely blocked out of view by white walls again (even red walls raised all the way up to the ceiling don't work, as though the game still draws memory past such 'obstacles'). So you have to have a certain amount of simultaneously visible sectors containing the right division of sprites instead, it's a funny logic.

I don't want to spread misinformation though - I'm not a programmer so there's probably many things incorrect with what I'm saying, I'm only basing this on personal experience with a similar problem but that was 15+ years ago, using a different port and all, maybe even before the sector/wall/sprite limits were raised. Your map might still look fine under the right settings for all I know, but in general it's wise to optimize resources.

Thanks for your answer. Then I will try to charge less detail in some areas and spread the sprites more, this way probably the problem sloves. I will do some testing, hope I have luck and can fix this because I think it ruins the experiencie. Also I want this to be a coop map and in come get some there will be a lot of enemies. So there will be even more sprites. There's a lot of testing still to do. In the worst of the cases I can do a signle player version with less enemies and detailed scenarios, and other version for coop, with ton of monster and less detail. Still need to do some tests and figure it out, but thanks for the feedback, it's really appreciated.

EDIT: Any way to delete all sprites of the same type from the map?

[ck3D]

Dukebot, on 10 April 2020 - 04:05 PM, said:

EDIT: Any way to delete all sprites of the same type from the map?

If there is one then I have no idea. I know you can replace all the same sprites in one map by another type of sprite with Alt + C, although I never use that feature myself, it's not going to help you much there maybe you can use it to make the sprites you want to remove bigger/easier to spot in 3D mode and easier to jettison. My best advice would be to look up all the possible combination keys in the Infosuite and see if you can find something interesting that would give you practical ideas for the situation.

Random but whilst working with narrow sprite constructions with a lot of them placed close together (which can make things look a bit confusing in 2D mode), a habit I've developed lately to quickly identify which sprite is which from one mode to another is to just press B or H on said sprite in 3D mode to change its color in 2D mode so that you have that reference to go by (don't forget to undo that if you don't end up deleting the sprite), takes less effort than studying every sprite's individual info when doing this type of stuff on the fly and saves a lot of dumb headaches.

EDIT - from the Infosuite

2D mode combination keys

Quote

Apostrophe ( ' ) + F

Accesses a 'Special Functions' menu which contains the following useful functions:
"Replace invalid tiles"
"Delete all spr of tile #"
"Set map sky shade"
"Set map sky height"
"Global Z coord shift"
"Resize selection"
"Global shade divide"
"Global visibility divide"

[Dukebot]

ck3D, on 11 April 2020 - 01:31 AM, said:

Apostrophe ( ' ) + F

Accesses a 'Special Functions' menu which contains the following useful functions:
"Replace invalid tiles"
"Delete all spr of tile #"
"Set map sky shade"
"Set map sky height"
"Global Z coord shift"
"Resize selection"
"Global shade divide"
"Global visibility divide"

Yeah that's it! Thank you very much, I managed to delete 1000 sprites instantly, this has saved me a lot of time =). Also the visual gliches disappeared since now there are less sprites in the area. I will try to finish the map and at the end, will try to add this details, trying to put as much as I can without visual gliches appearing. Thanks for your help .

[ck3D]

Semi random question regarding something I have yet to find how to fine-tune in a map, but has anyone ever figured out a way to make running into moving subway sectors kill the player regardless of said sector's floor/ceiling height? It doesn't matter much if not and I have to find a workaround myself including modifying those heights in the map if it really only comes down to that although I'd prefer not to touch it, but after conducting a few experiments here's a few things I've noted:

- tried making the engine sector 'invisible' in front of the (visible) train and giving it teleporter tags to out-of-bounds area to squish the player; doesn't work, the player just seems to bypass the tags in the sector entirely and still gets gently shoved over the actual train, changing nothing to the original issue and just wasting resources. On the other hand, when the train does come to a stop, the teleporter in the engine sector starts working, in this case effectively squishing the player in front of a static train - the complete opposite to what I was trying to get, but maybe the idea could be used to make timed teleporters at specific locations or what do I know;

- tried doing the same thing by replacing the ceiling texture of the engine sector by a non-paletted BIGORBIT - doesn't work either, making for the only instance I've seen where a player can make it alive through BIGORBIT space. Might or might not give ideas to some as well.

In both cases that seemed to be independent from the size of the engine sector (to a reasonable extent - I've tried with both narrow and train-sized engine sectors).

I'll probably just end up modifying by dumb ceiling, but I conducted that experiment months ago and it just came to me maybe I should share that.

[Mister Sinister]

Is there a way to squish a mini Battlelord?

[ck3D]

Completely random but you could always trigger it getting hit by shrink rays somehow (can automatic shooters even shrink mini BL's or does it have to be the gun?) then teleporting under the player's feet if they are in a narrow/enclosed location with restricted movement. In terms of visuals there's a big chance that this dumb solution doesn't work with what you're trying to do, but out of context it's a funny idea I thought I should write down before I forget about it.

I actually had quite some years to imagine many, many boss death-by-squishing sequences to potentially implement in levels before I even realized that all the bosses are by default coded not to ever get squished, so I empathize with your struggle.

[Mister Sinister]

As it turns out bosses can be killed by two-way trains and subways, though conditions for that to happen are under investigation.

[ck3D]

Good luck with that - the bosses' behaviors can be so unpredictable at times when you want them to conform to certain rules. I remember trying to set up a 'choreographed' boss fight once where the boss would ideally just keep going through a network of teleporters, to make the fight faster-paced and more erratic - eventually the motherfucker would always fuck something up in the sequence, i.e.. the teleporting seemed very hit or miss or sometimes they would just cross the sector's boundaries and go off in the wild even if I'd enclose everything in purple walls, to the point where I had to scrap that idea too. For some reason there seems to be more variables at play in their behavior (or maybe it's the other way around and their code is just lacking, I have no idea) than in other enemies', so they definitely warrant such investigations.

[ViDi]

Mister Sinister, on 14 April 2020 - 11:33 AM, said:

As it turns out bosses can be killed by two-way trains and subways, though conditions for that to happen are under investigation.

Maybe this map can help. It has both a boss and a train to kill it.

Attached File(s)

•  DARKCITY.rar (3.94K)
  Number of downloads: 229

[Morpheus Kitami]

So I'm reading the posts about the sprite limit, and I'm curious, how bad does it get if you have a really big open area without sprites. Like, I'm planning on doing something involving Lovecraft's Dreamcycle, or at least the section of it that involves really tall towers and vast green hills. Basically something that would be like LSD: Dream Emulator, but really big.

[ck3D]

Morpheus Kitami, on 16 April 2020 - 01:40 PM, said:

So I'm reading the posts about the sprite limit, and I'm curious, how bad does it get if you have a really big open area without sprites. Like, I'm planning on doing something involving Lovecraft's Dreamcycle, or at least the section of it that involves really tall towers and vast green hills. Basically something that would be like LSD: Dream Emulator, but really big.

I'm not too sure of what you mean. Obviously in the case of areas without sprites, you're not going to encounter any problem with the sprite limit?

[Dukebot]

Morpheus Kitami, on 16 April 2020 - 01:40 PM, said:

So I'm reading the posts about the sprite limit, and I'm curious, how bad does it get if you have a really big open area without sprites. Like, I'm planning on doing something involving Lovecraft's Dreamcycle, or at least the section of it that involves really tall towers and vast green hills. Basically something that would be like LSD: Dream Emulator, but really big.

Well actually if there no sprites then it should not be a problem. But be carefulI, I got a problem with big sectors. When this problem happens, some sectors won't be displayed from different angles and this is worse that some sprites disappearing at some point. But if you divide the big sector into smaller ones, you should not have issues (I think).

[Morpheus Kitami]

ck3D, on 16 April 2020 - 01:53 PM, said:

I'm not too sure of what you mean. Obviously in the case of areas without sprites, you're not going to encounter any problem with the sprite limit?

Big sectors, as Dukebot surmised. Really big sectors. I guess I'm explaining it poorly, but I'll try to explain it better. There's this ancient city that consists of very tall towers. Without trying it out, I'd say they'd be around 8000 units wide, actual width pending investigation. The big city would be surrounded by a wide area of greenery. Hills, valleys, rivers. The area surrounding it would be big enough that the towers would seem like a small area when the player starts going towards it. Basically, a really big and pointless area made for the sake of being big and pointless. See, I'm trying to, slowly, find an engine for that to happen without it melting the user's computer. I don't really know why I'm asking since this kind of scale probably hasn't been tested before...

Dukebot, on 16 April 2020 - 02:24 PM, said:

Well actually if there no sprites then it should not be a problem. But be carefulI, I got a problem with big sectors. When this problem happens, some sectors won't be displayed from different angles and this is worse that some sprites disappearing at some point. But if you divide the big sector into smaller ones, you should not have issues (I think).

So, as long as each sector isn't all that big, I should be good-ish?

[Micky C]

Even if you divide a big sector into smaller ones (having already made the big one), some problems might remain.

I suggest building your big area by creating a lot of smaller sectors. For example, squares where the walls don’t turn blue. Blue walls suggest they are too long.

[Mark]

Years ago Nerdzilla made a couple of really large but mostly empty test maps. Big hills and valleys. Things seemed OK.

[ck3D]

Morpheus Kitami, on 16 April 2020 - 03:15 PM, said:

Big sectors, as Dukebot surmised. Really big sectors. I guess I'm explaining it poorly, but I'll try to explain it better. There's this ancient city that consists of very tall towers. Without trying it out, I'd say they'd be around 8000 units wide, actual width pending investigation. The big city would be surrounded by a wide area of greenery. Hills, valleys, rivers. The area surrounding it would be big enough that the towers would seem like a small area when the player starts going towards it. Basically, a really big and pointless area made for the sake of being big and pointless. See, I'm trying to, slowly, find an engine for that to happen without it melting the user's computer. I don't really know why I'm asking since this kind of scale probably hasn't been tested before...So, as long as each sector isn't all that big, I should be good-ish?

Ah, I get it. Sprites and sectors are different features entirely, hence my original confusion but if you're thinking of just limitations in general then yes, what Dukebot and Micky C said. You might have to split some of the longest walls even if the editor doesn't mark them as blue to avoid more minor problems, e.g.. textures stretching to the max, and extremely huge sectors can be problematic but as long as you keep those split into smaller sectors of reasonable proportions (the split can be just a red wall and not be visible in-game) you should be alright. Just experiment, follow those guys' advice, don't build stuff that wraps around other existing stuff, save often so that you can easily go back to a good version of the map if the current one gets corrupted, remember you can always join neighboring sectors with the J key if you'd ever like to get rid of a split later. Very large maps on a big scale in Mapster32 are very much possible, you'll just have to get familiar with a few basic quirks/ways of operating, and keep an eye on the wall limit (16000+ is pretty comfortable, though). 8000 units for the width of a tower is nothing out of the extraordinary, either - that actually sounds reasonable, maps with way larger constructions have been done so in comparison, yours sounds very doable once you figure out the right reflexes and order to do things. Good luck if you end up giving it a try!

[Morpheus Kitami]

Excellent, this is all very encouraging. Out of curiosity, is there a page on the wiki with all the Mapster commands? Or something I just missed somewhere? The help files weren't included with [at least] my Linux version.

[ck3D]

Morpheus Kitami, on 16 April 2020 - 07:53 PM, said:

Excellent, this is all very encouraging. Out of curiosity, is there a page on the wiki with all the Mapster commands? Or something I just missed somewhere? The help files weren't included with [at least] my Linux version.

https://infosuite.duke4.net then go to the References subsection, but really you should take a look at that whole page and maybe take the time to go through the whole The Basics section at first (and then you'll use Advanced FX as a reference when you're ready to tackle the good stuff - honestly, shouldn't take long before you get to that stage, but not skipping the formative stage will make you a better mapper in the long run).

Alternate link, Mapster32 keyboard commands on the Wiki: https://wiki.eduke32...yboard_Commands

[Dukebot]

Is there any way to select/highlight/locate all the sprites that have the same lo-tag value? I've a lot of RESPAWNING sprites assotiated to different TOUCHPLATES but they are spread around the map and the map it's big, so then it's hard for me to find them.

[ck3D]

Dukebot, on 18 April 2020 - 06:01 PM, said:

Is there any way to select/highlight/locate all the sprites that have the same lo-tag value? I've a lot of RESPAWNING sprites assotiated to different TOUCHPLATES but they are spread around the map and the map it's big, so then it's hard for me to find them.

Forge once saved the release of Poison Heart by giving me this tip:

Forge, on 26 February 2019 - 01:36 PM, said:

2D mode
aim cursor at any sprite
(L) Alt + F8
arrow down to lo tag (or hi tag - whichever it is)
enter
type the [desired] tag number
enter
esc
use ] or [ to pan through all the sprites with that tag number

In general you might want to use and abuse the F7/F8 command variations in 2D mode, I never really did that till I had my problem and Forge offered that fix, but now I find myself doing it all the time, especially to adjust sector or sprite height with as much subtlety as possible. It's a great timesaver and a positive habit to get used to. Good luck!

[Dukebot]

ck3D, on 19 April 2020 - 02:03 AM, said:

Forge once saved the release of Poison Heart by giving me this tip:

In general you might want to use and abuse the F7/F8 command variations in 2D mode, I never really did that till I had my problem and Forge offered that fix, but now I find myself doing it all the time, especially to adjust sector or sprite height with as much subtlety as possible. It's a great timesaver and a positive habit to get used to. Good luck!

Thank you so much, I've tried this and it works perfect! This way I can found the lost sprites around the map a lot easier! Very nice and usefull trick

[Ottopartz460]

Question.

So, I want to have the player walk over a touchplate that activates a car moving down the street and once it stops, I want it to spawn 6 pigcops. I got the car to move and stop. I got the pigcops to respawn, but they just spawn the instant the player hits the touchplate. I set the masterswitch at 128 first, 256 next and 1000 and no difference. I want it to look like the cop car pulls up and 6 cops come piling out of it.

Any suggestions?

The car that moves is at the bottom and the cursor is where it stops and the respawns are at. I tried with the masterswitch in the room on the touchplate and on the street. Both, to no effect.

[ck3D]

You can have the pigcops spawn in a sector outside the map boundaries with a conveyor belt effect that would slowly drag and drop them into another adjacent sector with a silent one-way teleporter that would in turn warp them to wherever you want in the map - adjust conveyor belt speed and length to whatever timing works. You can't directly delay respawns but there are plenty of workarounds like this you can come up with.

Also, map corruption isn't looking too good, do you know what's causing it?

[quakis]

Delaying Respawns
Requires a little setup using some helper sectors, this was the method I used previously.

• Create a small off map room, split into two halves.
  
• Tag one as a ceiling door, lower its ceiling to the floor and place the following into this sector:
  
• Place an Activator your touchplate will trigger (preferably one that triggers the vehicle moving)
  
• Place another Activator to trigger the respawns.
  
• When this door closes after being opened, it will trigger the second Activator
  
• Place a Sector Effect using Door Close Delay (Lotag 10)
  
• Now for the timing purposes, the SE10's hitag and the ceiling height of the second Sector (no tags) will both determine the full length of time before the second activator is triggered. Use both to fine tune as required.

Example Map Download

Example image:

[Ottopartz460]

quakis, on 26 April 2020 - 02:11 AM, said:

Delaying Respawns
Requires a little setup using some helper sectors, this was the method I used previously.

• Create a small off map room, split into two halves.
  
• Tag one as a ceiling door, lower its ceiling to the floor and place the following into this sector:
  
• Place an Activator your touchplate will trigger (preferably one that triggers the vehicle moving)
  
• Place another Activator to trigger the respawns.
  
• When this door closes after being opened, it will trigger the second Activator
  
• Place a Sector Effect using Door Close Delay (Lotag 10)
  
• Now for the timing purposes, the SE10's hitag and the ceiling height of the second Sector (no tags) will both determine the full length of time before the second activator is triggered. Use both to fine tune as required.

Example Map Download

Example image:

Ill give that a shot.

[Ottopartz460]

Ottopartz460, on 26 April 2020 - 09:55 PM, said:

Ill give that a shot.

that works perfectly. If I wanted musicandsfx for the respawn, should I put is in the remote sector, too?

[quakis]

Ottopartz460, on 26 April 2020 - 09:59 PM, said:

that works perfectly. If I wanted musicandsfx for the respawn, should I put is in the remote sector, too?

Yes, you could do that. For example your musicandsfx lotag (door open sound) could be a siren, and your musicandsfx hitag (door close sound) could be car doors opening.

However the sound effects themselves will be localised around the current door's position wherever your remote sectors are located, so you may want to move the remote sector closer to the car's stopping point if necessary - even if that means overlapping the street if required.

Example image of me overlapping my own remote sector in the exact area I wanted the sound effect to play (the triangular sector):

Spoiler