[Vanilla Level Editing] Lesson 7: Activating Sectors

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A DOOR SHORTCUT

Once you have manually made a working door, you can try out a GZDB tool to speed up the process. After creating the sector that will become the door, you can simply highlight it and pres Shift-D to bring up the "Make Door" window. This will allow you to choose the textures you want the door to have, and then edit all the properties necessary to make the sector act like a normal bog-standard door.

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DOORS THAT STAY OPEN

Line-type 31 provides a door that works in the same way as a standard door but which, once activated, remains open. Such doors are useful, of course, for committing the player to dealing with whatever lies beyond them. Because the door will not close, whatever monsters the area beyond contains may now be awakened and will pursue the player.

Note that only players can open these doors.

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DOORS THAT NEED KEYS

Next are the line-types that implement doors that require the player to have found and collected the appropriate key cards.

Note that there is no difference between the standard and the skull keys — there are only three key types, not six as it might appear from playing the game. Once the proper key is in the player’s possession, these doors operate in exactly the same way as standard doors, except that monsters cannot activate them.

It is usual to provide some indication that a door requires a key before it will open, rather than simply relying on DOOM’s text messages. The normal method is to apply an appropriate texture to the reveals at either side of the recess into which such doors are usually set.

The following illustrates how such doors may appear during the game. Note, though, that it is not the presence of the warning lights at the side of the door that cause the door to require a key, but rather the use of the appropriate special line-type as the face of the door sector.

[Linguica]

TURBO DOORS

DOOM v1.4 introduced a new type of door, not used in id Software’s WADs until DOOM II: the turbo (or blazing) door. These doors work in the same way as the standard doors, except that they open and close much faster (and with a different sound).

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SECRET DOORS

Secret doors do not require any special implementation in DOOM. They are simply disguised or hidden from the player by wearing standard wall textures as camouflage. Their presence may also be kept from the player by setting their Secret on Map flag.

Secret locations are the subject of Lesson 11, “Let’s Get the Hell Out of Here!”

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WAD SORTIE 15: ADDING KEYED AND SECRET DOORS

In the previous Sortie, you added a basic spacebar-operated door to separate the platform room from the stairway leading out of it. In this Sortie, you will add some other kinds of doors. First, a keyed door, leading into a new area of the WAD, south out of the original southeast passageway. This door will require the blue key to be found before it will open. It will give admission to another outdoor area of the WAD — this time with covered overhangs along its sides.

The second new door to be added to the WAD will be a secret door. It will be placed in the original outdoor courtyard, in the far southwestern corner, beyond the pond.

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ADDING A KEYED DOOR

Start your addition of the keyed door by creating a recess in the south wall of the southeast passageway 16 units deep by 256 units wide. Use DOORBLU on the short walls of this sector to act as an indicator of the fact that the blue key is needed before it will open. Create another sector of the same size, bordering this one to the south — this will be the door itself. Make sure that its lines face the correct way, highlighting the line and pressing F if it is not the case. Place DOORTRAK on the short wall sections of this sector, setting each line’s lower unpegged flag. Then draw the lines making up the sectors on the other side of the door, as shown in the figure. Use STARTAN3 as the default drawing texture for all of the lines beyond the door.



There are three major sectors beyond the door. Together they form a long curving outdoor space. The central sector is open to the sky, while the two sectors bordering it form covered areas. The table gives the settings for all of the new sectors.



Use BIGDOOR2 on both door faces, setting their special attributes to 26, i.e., DR Door (Blue) Open Wait Close. (This value will be found in the pop-up list of specials in the Door category.) STONE2 should be used on the upper (unpegged) texture over the inner recess and STARTAN3 on all essential textures in the large outer areas.

Don’t concern yourself with the alignment of the textures in the outer area — there are some extensions to be carried out here later. You can tidy up then.

Finally, don’t forget that if you want to be able to open and pass through this new door, you will either have to place a blue key somewhere in the WAD (right by the door would be a sensible place, for now) or play the WAD with the IDKFA cheat code.

Try this WAD out now. Is it okay?

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ADDING A SECRET DOOR

Once you are happy with the keyed door, move on and add a secret door to the original courtyard.

For this area, you will need new sectors at the southwest corner of the original courtyard as shown in the figure.



In order, from the courtyard itself, these new sectors will form the following:

• An outer recess: A door will look off opening into the sky. This recess provides a more realistic setting. You may think it makes the presence of the door too obvious, though.
  
• The door itself: The door will be hidden by the application of a standard wall texture to match the rest of the western wall of the courtyard. Once opened, it will stay open. Again, make sure this sector’s lines face the correct way.
  
• The inner room: The development of the room to which access is gained by opening the door will be carried out later. Don’t worry too much about its appearance for now. Its ceiling is low, though, so a further recess on this side of the door is unnecessary.
  

The table has the settings for the new sectors.



Put BROWN1 on all of the new walls — including the uppers of the door sector itself and the upper essential over the outer recess — except the one that extends the southern wall of the courtyard into the outer recess (use BROWN96 here to match its neighboring wall section) and the sides of the new door sector (use DOORTRAK, lower unpegged, as usual).

Apply a Y-offset of 24 to the two walls in the alcove to realign these textures to the rest of the courtyard. Then apply a Y-offset of 24 to the face of the door for better alignment and also set this line’s Secret on Map flag.

Complete the construction of the door by setting the special attribute of the line marking its outer face to D1 Door Open Stay. You don’t need to worry about a trigger on the inner face of this door, because the player cannot reach it while the door is closed and, once opened, it will stay open.

Finally, don’t forget to reduce the height of the window ledge in the north wall of the courtyard to 0 temporarily to allow access — or move the player 1 start position into the courtyard just to try out the new secret door. Save the WAD as D2WAD15.WAD and try out your latest additions.

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EXIT: MOPPING UP AND MOVING ON

This lesson introduced you to the active sector. In it, you learned how to add bite to your WADs and you were shown the ins and outs of building locally activated (or manual) doors. You learned how to make doors function correctly and how to ensure that they look right while they are doing it. Your own WAD should be coming along nicely by now.

The exploration of DOOM’s doors continues in the next lesson which contains an introduction to the remotely-operated doors and other effects. It will show you how to use the various types of switches available in DOOM — the kinds the player can see, as well as the ones that are hidden.