3D floors in Eternity

[Blastfrog]

I want 3D floors in Eternity but don't have the skill required to implement them. I frankly don't have the patience to become proficient enough either, at least for the short term.

I'm willing to pay someone to do it for me. Who out there feels like they could do this, and for how much?

If this goes well, I've got other rendering stuff I'd like to get a contract for.

EDIT: Nevermind, general discussion of 3D floors instead.

[kb1]

I'd probably do it for you (and me) for free, but, here's the thing:

SoM implemented the original Legacy 3D floors, and (as far as I can tell), was not real pleased with them. My evidence for that is that, he also built the Eternity Engine's Cardboard renderer, with portals, and those portals reuse the same linetype ids as the Legacy 3D floors did (if I'm not mistaken).

That suggests to me that he doesn't want 3D floors in Eternity, and I can respect that.
But I could be mistaken.

[Blastfrog]

kb1 said:

I'd probably do it for you (and me) for free

I thought it would be a big enough task to warrant payment, but if you already have interest in doing it for yourself, I can only encourage you.

kb1 said:

SoM implemented the original Legacy 3D floors, and (as far as I can tell), was not real pleased with them.

I don't know his reasons, but I will say that 3D floors are better depending on the context. Imagine trying to do a room in many more layers than truly needed just to get small details in, as opposed to just defining a floating object. Portals are better for dividing larger areas, like different floors of a building.

kb1 said:

That suggests to me that he doesn't want 3D floors in Eternity, and I can respect that.

Doesn't have to be in the official thing, we're always free to maintain a fork.

[esselfortium]

I'd like to see this too. I know SoM isn't in favor of the idea, but like you said, there are definitely use cases for both portals and 3D floors, and having the two features coexist allows for far greater functionality than having one or the other. Also, I'm honestly not sure if SoM is even actively working on EE anymore.

[Doom_user]

Eternity's linked portals can be used to create 3D floors. While they can't do everything that the Legacy 3D floors can, they can also do many things that the Legacy 3D floors can't.

[Gez]

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1141691

I remember SoM posting some commentary about the issues with the 3D floors in Legacy (overdraw, sprite clipping glitches, etc.) but I can't find it back.

[Blastfrog]

Doom_user said:

Eternity's linked portals can be used to create 3D floors. While they can't do everything that the Legacy 3D floors can, they can also do many things that the Legacy 3D floors can't.

Just because it's technically possible doesn't mean it's a good way of doing things. Keep in mind that you can only draw sectors in 2D space, so if you wanted to do fine details like a bunch of shelves, you'd have to create a layer for every shelf, which would be hell for creating an open area, and would also eat up far more space on the usable map since there's one less dimension to keep these things in. 3D floors conserve 2D space, portals eat it up.

There's also the issue that it's a pain to keep track of the exact shape of two portals because there is no layered viewing in any editors that I know of. It'd be nice to have it, similar to how Eternity's own automap does it.

[printz]

You can use 3D mid textures in the meantime. But:

- they always block projectiles, but never block sight and hitscans. This causes an unfair imbalance and also limits the applicability. I wish development was made for them to be passable by projectiles.
- they look like wireframes.

Luckily they can be crossed by monsters, unlike the fake Boom tricks (and possibly Hexen-like old ZDoom bridge things), which they resemble visually. I think you can use the block-monsters flag too if you have trouble with monsters slipping off them.

[Archi]

Doom_user said:

Eternity's linked portals can be used to create 3D floors. While they can't do everything that the Legacy 3D floors can, they can also do many things that the Legacy 3D floors can't.

Can you make something like this?

[esselfortium]

No. While portals are more versatile and powerful for 3D room-over-room layouts, 3D floors are more versatile for smaller-scale 3D structures.

[Mordeth]

Actually you can, using anchored portals on raised floors with missing lower textures between the different steps. The same way you can create other seemingly 3D objects. Stuff like tables are harder, because the portal view (unless you're using linked portals) can't look back out into the same main room. So no viewing the legs under the table of the monster standing behind it.

Thing is, these things are a drag to set up and not all situations are suitable for it. With 3D floors, it's trifling easy. But when it comes to building architecture, the roles are reversed: stacking portals is ridiciously easy while you would struggle doing the same with 3D floors.

If a source port had both features, you would use portals for architecture and 3D floors for stuff like furniture, daises or stairs.

[Edit]: meant to write missing lower textures, not middle.

[printz]

Would it be possible for the engine to build portals internally while the map itself has 3D floor linedefs? That is: you place 3D floors just like in GZDoom, but when the map is run, the engine generates the equivalent linked portal structures in memory.

[Graf Zahl]

printz said:

Would it be possible for the engine to build portals internally while the map itself has 3D floor linedefs? That is: you place 3D floors just like in GZDoom, but when the map is run, the engine generates the equivalent linked portal structures in memory.

I really don't think that this is feasible. The internally required setups are nearly mutuslly exclusive.

[printz]

I think it can be done through some extra processing steps, but it may rather be the job of an editor, rather than Eternity. You draw a pre-wad that contains GZDoom-like 3D floors, and then an automatic tool finds those sectors and converts the map into a linked portal map, by placing separate areas of similar shape outside the map. The problems can be:

1. The areas need to be placed in such a way that the player doesn't start seeing bleeding walls looking at the portal when far away
2. Too many areas and the 16-bit limits may run out (until UDMF, that is, if no other performance limitations arise).