[SOLVED] Problems getting "Deep Water" effect to work.

[Stabbey]

I've been beating my head against this for a couple of hours, and I cannot figure out why my "deep water" effect isn't working. As far as I can tell, I've eliminated all the lower textures which could be giving me a problem, and I was able to get the effect to work on my test map (MMM-Texture_preview4.wad), but for whatever reason, it is not working in the actual map (WaterBloodFire-A.wad). What am I not seeing?  Problem location is approximately -6000, -5150.

 

The MMM_tex.wad pack from this thread is required (although I've exceeded my time and won't be submitting this map for that project). Target port is GZDoom, so issues which would work in GZDoom but cause problems for other ports are irrelevant.

 

Included are my test map (MMM-Texture_preview4.wad), and the actual work in progress (WaterBloodFire-A.wad). I'll keep looking at it from my end, but I thought I might as well ask and see if anyone else can spot what I've done wrong.

 

FWB-WIP.zip

Edited March 21, 2022 by Stabbey
Added "Solved" note to title

[ViolentBeetle]

Works on my machine (tm). Not sure where the problem is.

 

If you are using Boom, there's a "create fake floor/ceiling" effect that would let you draw deep water more elegantly, by making line with this effect face the slightly higher, bloody floor.

[Stabbey]

Thanks for looking at it. The word "face" you used reminded me to check the direction the missing-lower linedefs were facing, since in my test map, all of them faced into the sector. I changed them all to do the same in my real map, and that didn't fix it.

 

However after I lowered the barriers out of the middle room, suddenly the effect worked. It seems like the barriers were the culprit. If that's the case, then I can certainly fix this by making the barrier a lowering ceiling, although I will obviously need to rework the mechanism.

[ViolentBeetle]

4 minutes ago, Stabbey said:

Thanks for looking at it. The word "face" you used reminded me to check the direction the missing-lower linedefs were facing, since in my test map, all of them faced into the sector. I changed them all to do the same in my real map, and that didn't fix it.

 

However after I lowered the barriers out of the middle room, suddenly the effect worked. It seems like the barriers were the culprit. If that's the case, then I can certainly fix this by making the barrier a lowering ceiling, although I will obviously need to rework the mechanism.

What I meant is that "create fake floor/ceiling" effect will draw tagged sectors with floor and ceiling that is in front of the line. If your point of view dip below/raise above that sample sector it would be drawn as if you were underwater of a sort.

What you seem to be doing is trying to make floor bleed through untextured walls, which usually works, but won't, if the floor that is supposed to be the sample is not on screen.

[Stabbey]

I'm using GZDoom format, not Boom, so standard linedef actions plus whatever else was added. I have been dipping my toes into UDMF, but this map had been intended for the project and I didn't have time to learn on the fly, so I stuck with what I was experienced at.

 

The sample floor needs to be on-screen? Ah, that could be another cause. In order to stop players from walking on top of the edge, I had put the edge sector with the ceiling flush with the floor. On my test map I had verified that a small sample with the ceiling flush to the floor of the edge didn't break the effect, but that was only a small part and the rest of the edge was still at full height.

 

Let me just check that quick... Adding one unit of air gap between floor and ceiling didn't fix that, so it looks like a re-design might be in order.

 

EDIT: Yep, removing all the floors which lower gets the effect to work. So that's the cause worked out, which leads to a different solution.

 

A raising ceiling should work just as well for blocking/opening purposes. The redesign of the lock-in will also be good in that it avoids repeating the same sort of escape mechanism twice in a row. It is at least good at making progress towards solving it.

 

EDIT 2:  Success, switching to blockers which were ceiling-based fixed my deep water problem. Now I just need to work out the little glitch with the improper light level of the first part once the lights come back on, but that should be doable.

 

EDIT 3: Lighting solved as well, the lights was inheriting a maximum from a neighboring sector which wasn't part of the chain. Adding a buffer fixed that as well.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Stabbey
more problems solved