2010-01-17, 08:48 PM
Here is some info on the secret walls/doors I've discovered while playing DD.
First off, I had thought that the way From' set these up they were virtually useless (after some experimentation) ...but I noticed the secret doors in DD were pretty good. So I came to the conclusion I was not thinking about them in the right way (that said secret doors/panels are at the very heart of any KF game and I think an effort to greatly expand the possibilities would be very important some day)
So what I noticed is the animation for secret doors is not just to open straight up. First the doors step back what is probably a few centimeters and then proceed upwards. In the map editor I always assumed because the doors are made to fit in a doorway this would cause depth buffer interference and be unpresentable for a shear wall (which is why I always positioned the doors on step pieces so they would be more discreet. I had not taken in account they would step back, and the step back is really only noticeable enough as to avoid said depth buffer artifacts. Which brings me to my next point... which is the way the secret door is facing is very important, and the DD doors are not always facing the correct direction. Because if facing the wrong way they step forward a couple centimeters and that looks arguably weirder to the discerning eye than anything else.
Also Todd points out that secret doorways don't have shadows along the lip of the secret door where it meets the floor. I thought this would've required special (mental) training to take into account, but ever since he told me that I can't seem to help but notice the missing shadows and it does kinda take the fun out of secret doors. Arguably secret doors in KF1 (the original) are more obvious from a distance, but if at all possible it might be helpful to think about how shadows could be added. Not saying it would be technically easy, but even if the door arches just had a matching big thick shadow under them all the way across it would probably be a win for secret doors (it might be politically better to duplicate the doorways/leave the originals intact/alter the duplicate pieces... see I kinda brought this back on topic)
PS: Of course another prob with secret doors is the lighting model for objects is different than for pieces. I will try to cook up a lighting calibration extension sometime (I also intend to very soon add a fix which should take all lightsources into account when lighting objects since there is no long a limit on the number of active lights for DX drivers... I think the reported limit is the highest 32bit number possible) ...some day I want to program an extension module that will replace Som's lighting completely with a unified model which can be tweaked per map in a new editor (that will also let you see your map in its entirety instead of just 3x3 pieces)
First off, I had thought that the way From' set these up they were virtually useless (after some experimentation) ...but I noticed the secret doors in DD were pretty good. So I came to the conclusion I was not thinking about them in the right way (that said secret doors/panels are at the very heart of any KF game and I think an effort to greatly expand the possibilities would be very important some day)
So what I noticed is the animation for secret doors is not just to open straight up. First the doors step back what is probably a few centimeters and then proceed upwards. In the map editor I always assumed because the doors are made to fit in a doorway this would cause depth buffer interference and be unpresentable for a shear wall (which is why I always positioned the doors on step pieces so they would be more discreet. I had not taken in account they would step back, and the step back is really only noticeable enough as to avoid said depth buffer artifacts. Which brings me to my next point... which is the way the secret door is facing is very important, and the DD doors are not always facing the correct direction. Because if facing the wrong way they step forward a couple centimeters and that looks arguably weirder to the discerning eye than anything else.
Also Todd points out that secret doorways don't have shadows along the lip of the secret door where it meets the floor. I thought this would've required special (mental) training to take into account, but ever since he told me that I can't seem to help but notice the missing shadows and it does kinda take the fun out of secret doors. Arguably secret doors in KF1 (the original) are more obvious from a distance, but if at all possible it might be helpful to think about how shadows could be added. Not saying it would be technically easy, but even if the door arches just had a matching big thick shadow under them all the way across it would probably be a win for secret doors (it might be politically better to duplicate the doorways/leave the originals intact/alter the duplicate pieces... see I kinda brought this back on topic)
PS: Of course another prob with secret doors is the lighting model for objects is different than for pieces. I will try to cook up a lighting calibration extension sometime (I also intend to very soon add a fix which should take all lightsources into account when lighting objects since there is no long a limit on the number of active lights for DX drivers... I think the reported limit is the highest 32bit number possible) ...some day I want to program an extension module that will replace Som's lighting completely with a unified model which can be tweaked per map in a new editor (that will also let you see your map in its entirety instead of just 3x3 pieces)