Portals (UDMF) use-cases?

[DiavoJinx]

Have many people used "portals" in the UDMF format? And for anything interesting?

I'd love to see some good use-cases; I bet smart map designers have used them to good effect beyond my brainstorming.

 

For reference I'm talking about the Line_SetPortal linedef feature: https://zdoom.org/wiki/Line_SetPortal

 

I haven't played many new WADs in the past say 5 years, so I haven't seen them used.  I did play myhouse.wad last year (of course) and at first I thought the lower level was done via portal lines and my reaction was "Wow that's clever!" and then I learned that's actually not how "room over room" was done there.

A map I finished this week uses the portal line at the top of a flight of stairs in a spooky house to get to the upper level of the house, allowing me to create those rooms without having to plan around the already-existing rooms on the main level. It worked out great! (I guess I'll make it available soon-ish, after I play test all 3 difficulty tiers to confirm ammo & health supplies are sufficient.)

[Darkcrafter07]

There's a lot in my WAD. They're infinitely tall unlike in Eternity and some of zdoom forum members even told they can be fixed at least visually though.

 

You can find one since MAP05, and entrance to the cave in MAP06 is exactly that kind of portal. Well, stacked sectors are also used later, for example, MAP09 has like 3 of them to get you underground.

Edited May 10 by Darkcrafter07

[jaeden]

I generally use portals whenever I need to have multiple independent floors.

[Rifleman]

Besides floors above other floors, I use it for actual portals and non-Euclidian spaces. Like entering a small box that is massive inside. Made a short portal video a few years back when I was first trying this out. In one map I also used it for a small mirror maze, combining it with mirrored walls.

 

EDIT: found a video of the maze from when I worked on it. The map itself is part of this WAD, MAP32 I think.

Edited May 11 by Rifleman

[DiavoJinx]

Good stuff, thanks!  In my research of old posts here and online in general I hadn't found much at all except tutorials on how to make them.

 

I submit my latest map for anther couple of examples.

It uses a portal line at the top of the stairs in the house to create an upper level of the house the feels "room over room" that Doom's engine cannot normally do. And at the very end I have a set of spiral stairs going down that feel that way too, plus the final corridor from them feels under them all.

 

 

[No-Man Baugh]

On 5/6/2024 at 11:53 AM, DiavoJinx said:

I did play myhouse.wad last year (of course) and at first I thought the lower level was done via portal lines and my reaction was "Wow that's clever!" and then I learned that's actually not how "room over room" was done there.

 

Doesn't it? at the very least myhouse used two different methods to achieve a room-over-room illusion: the first being a Boom-format silent teleporter for the first iteration of the house, and then a more proper "set line portal" for the house after you pick up the soulsphere

Also congrats on the map release! will give it a try later on in the day

[DiavoJinx]

Oh yes, I was only referring to that first one; to the lower level. =)

 

Thanks!

[boris]

IMO to this day Infraworld - Coma Moonlight has some of the most impressive portal usage.

 

 

[DiavoJinx]

On 5/11/2024 at 2:24 PM, boris said:

IMO to this day Infraworld - Coma Moonlight has some of the most impressive portal usage.

 

 

Oh sweet, will check it out when I can, thanks!

[Gez]

On lundi 6 mai 2024 at 6:53 PM, DiavoJinx said:

Have many people used "portals" in the UDMF format? And for anything interesting?

I'd love to see some good use-cases; I bet smart map designers have used them to good effect beyond my brainstorming.

 

For reference I'm talking about the Line_SetPortal linedef feature: https://zdoom.org/wiki/Line_SetPortal

 

I haven't played many new WADs in the past say 5 years, so I haven't seen them used.  I did play myhouse.wad last year (of course) and at first I thought the lower level was done via portal lines and my reaction was "Wow that's clever!" and then I learned that's actually not how "room over room" was done there.

 

The line portals connect two different walls together; so they're great for impossible geometry but not all that handy for room-over-room -- you'd need to have setups like a stairway connecting both rooms, with a line portal in the staircase maybe. For having directly a floor above another floor, what you use is a floor-to-ceiling portal, with https://zdoom.org/wiki/Sector_SetPortal instead.

[smeghammer]

I'll throw mine in...

 

 

Uses line and sector portals to do - well - Escher-y shit ...