[The Mechanic]

After wasting an evening on the escalator sector type and feeling dispondent after creating a number of effects that only 80% worked, I gave up and turned to doors.

You see, I'm almost embarrassed to say this, I didn't realise you could even kick certain doors to open them, yet alone make some that the ONLY way to open them was to kick them. So I had a play, results attached in case anyone is interested.

The sample door is marked with a footprint as a hint to the player and also spawns debris and shakes the room which together I think work quite well. I also stumbled across something I guess you guys already know but new to me, spawning footprints can actually be controlled, which could be useful such as the example room for an invisible approaching enemy, or simply giving the player a hint when revisiting an area. Whatever.

Anyhow, I'm stumped on one thing. My two test doors show "mighty foot engaged" when I kick the door, but the main room '1' shows the "unlocked" message which I don't want. What have I done wrong ? Something stupid no doubt.

TTFN,
Jon

Attached File(s)

•  kickdoor6.zip (8.65K)
  Number of downloads: 287

[Mark]

I can see a perfect use for the footprint spawning in a haunted house map.

[TerminX]

The Mechanic, on 24 June 2015 - 12:22 PM, said:

You see, I'm almost embarrassed to say this, I didn't realise you could even kick certain doors to open them, yet alone make some that the ONLY way to open them was to kick them.

Don't be embarrassed, even the people at 3D Realms forgot you could do that by the time the game was done--you can completely bypass the yellow card lock in E1L3 by kicking the door.

[Steve 64]

TerminX, on 24 June 2015 - 02:26 PM, said:

Don't be embarrassed, even the people at 3D Realms forgot you could do that by the time the game was done--you can completely bypass the yellow card lock in E1L3 by kicking the door.

even the level after movie set, Transmit think that the name of it can't really remember, the door is by tripwires you can just kick the door open.

[zykov eddy]

Your build engine discoveries are awesome, The Mechanic! Looking forward to more cool stuff from you

[Hendricks266]

zykov eddy, on 03 July 2015 - 10:18 AM, said:

Your build engine discoveries are awesome, The Mechanic!

Technically speaking, these aren't Build Engine discoveries, they're Duke 3D game discoveries. </pedantry>

[oasiz]

You should post some of this stuff in the build porn thread that we made, I really liked your idea with the door kick.
I did something similar but it mainly just triggered a regular door instead of using it like that.
Theoretically you could even apply some sketchy animation if you slide more sectors and using O to make sure that the alignment never gets off.

While it's me mostly who has been posting on that thread, I openly welcome any contributions as it would be really cool to have everything in one place..
http://forums.duke4....e3d-build-porn/ <- Main thread
http://forums.duke4....orn-discussion/ <- Discussion (so that main thread can be kept as a clean index)


Also one advice with positional sounds that you seem to use, you can place them over the actual area that it happens in.
In this case I would place all the small sectors where the footprints happen, as long as you don't link them in the same "space", you will simply have precisely 1:1 mapped sound sources, even do weird positional tricks, not to mention overlapping 2way trains that emit sound. More of that on that buildporn thread

Cool to see another build-sadist who likes to do every "taken for granted modern thing" the hard way !

EDIT: Also with activatorlocked,
Activator: Link this with a trigger to operate the sector, in this case it's a door texture that does it, along with a wall tag. (Old Duke3D leftover). You usually want to assign 1 as a hitag to make it single use.
Activatorlocked: This simply exists to prevent the player from normally operating it by using it, assign it a lotag that you will never use (999 if you want to). This way it never unlocks normal "use" for the door and you won't get that message either. Think of it as "Locked, can only be activator'ed" When you unlock this, you can normally use it.

[The Mechanic]

oasiz, on 17 July 2015 - 12:03 PM, said:

You should post some of this stuff in the build porn thread that we made,...

D'Oh! I don't know how I missed that thread - it's exactly the sort of thing I was looking for !

I'm wondering whether to also post failures; I did experiment with the escalator; problems tended to boild down to the speed the sector moves which allows the player to pass through what should be blocking walls, but maybe someone else can fix it or not waste their time getting to the same point that I did ?

oasiz, on 17 July 2015 - 12:03 PM, said:

I really liked your idea with the door kick.
I did something similar but it mainly just triggered a regular door instead of using it like that.
Theoretically you could even apply some sketchy animation if you slide more sectors and using O to make sure that the alignment never gets off.

I have to admit, I didn't feel that the kicked door effect was complete until I could get the door to slide along the ground just a little. Currently pondering using a rotating sector on each vertex of the dorr-on-the-floor - using a large(ish) rotate sector and rotating through a small angle should make the resulting movement reasonably linear. Or, rotating the door sector(s) themselves, using a very large radius but rotating through a small angle.

As for the footprint on the door being low down, the solution is to use a sloped floor sector (the ultra thin one used to remove the footptint sprite after door kicked) and have the first wall higher up (but hidden withing the wall at the side). That'll raise the footprint to where the player is liable to actually notice it !

oasiz, on 17 July 2015 - 12:03 PM, said:

Also one advice with positional sounds that you seem to use, you can place them over the actual area that it happens in.
In this case I would place all the small sectors where the footprints happen, as long as you don't link them in the same "space", you will simply have precisely 1:1 mapped sound sources, even do weird positional tricks, not to mention overlapping 2way trains that emit sound. More of that on that buildporn thread

I admit I was being lazy. With a proper map I usually move help sectors to the correct position as one of the last jobs as I get easilly confuddled by sectors over/within sectors.

oasiz, on 17 July 2015 - 12:03 PM, said:

Activatorlocked: This simply exists to prevent the player from normally operating it by using it, assign it a lotag that you will never use (999 if you want to). This way it never unlocks normal "use" for the door and you won't get that message either. Think of it as "Locked, can only be activator'ed" When you unlock this, you can normally use it.

Why didn't this occur to me !?

I shall be updating the original map at some stage and will put the result in the thread you mentioned. Far more sensible place to put it.

TTFN,
Jon

[oasiz]

Failed experiments might suit the "misc. knowledge" thread a bit better, especially if using cut effects. I documented some of the cut lameduke vs. retail stuff there as well.
An effect doesn't have to be perfect, most important is to find weird and new ways to use existing things.
Like in this case the door kicking is very simple in terms of effects, clever pairing makes it work well.

You should be able to use SE3x floor rise/fall to work with flat sprites. I remember that even floating sprites should go down along with it. One switch in my slum noir map does that. Easier than resorting to slopes.

[Fox]

The Mechanic, on 24 June 2015 - 12:22 PM, said:

Anyhow, I'm stumped on one thing. My two test doors show "mighty foot engaged" when I kick the door, but the main room '1' shows the "unlocked" message which I don't want. What have I done wrong ? Something stupid no doubt.

Not really, some effects have that annoying message which is not useful when you are trying to do something new.