SPCIAL3A.WAD

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Author: Jens Hykkelbjerg	([email protected])

This is a DOOM wad demonstrating all the special effects
described in the special effects WWW pages.
There is not much new since the last version, but this
time all the special effects work without flaws thanks
to ZenNode. The ZenNode configuration files used to build
the level is included.

This wad would not have been possible without the help of
a lot of different wad authors and special effect creators.

Thanks to everyone who has helped to make this possible.



Here is a walkthrough of the WAD:

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*                                                      *
*       Walkthrough of the special effects WAD         *
*                                                      *
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Since it's impossible to complete the level as there is no
exit switch then the walkthrough will focus on describing 
how to get to the individual special effects.

1. The Beginning
----------------

You start in the main courtyard. Many doors leads from 
this yard to the individual special effects, and many of
the doors are marked with the names of the special
effects behind the door. (I'm no graphics artist)

Right in front of you you see a well of fortune 
(as I call it). This well is not really a special effect,
but it's a small demonstration of what you can achieve
by using textures on the normal part of two-sided lines.

Try to shoot at the string with a projectile weapon
(the pistol is a good choice here at the beginning)
This should cause a megasphere to appear, which can be 
collected by running towards it. At the same time the 
water in the well will rise to fill it.
(The megasphere appears immediately because I've placed
 it so close to the edge of the well)
Another interesting application would be to place a 
monster instead of the megasphere. (surprise party :)

Now take a look further down the yard. Here you will see
a floating box with a monster trapped inside it. 
The walls of the box are set to be impassable, so the 
monster can't move out of it, but once you wake it it
can shoot at you, and because of the box you only have
a limited vision of the box. This is of course also not
a special effect, but simply an application of two-sided
textures.

At the far end wall you see a door and two windows (to sky).
If you're playing above the "I'm a whimp" difficulty 
levels, then you will see one enemy in each window. 
These sargeants can't be shot from far away, because the
upper part of the main courtyard sector blocks the way
this upper part is transparent, as all upper parts are
when the ceiling texture is a SKY texture. (See the sfx 
docs for details). This is hardly a special effect in 
itself. Some would call it a bug in DOOM, I will just 
call it interesting.

2. The Invisible Lift and Door
------------------------------

That's quite enough about the main courtyard. It's time
to take a look at the special effects. Find a door to the
north (use the map to figure out where north is) marked
INVISIBKE LIFT and DOOR, and enter this room.

Right in front of you when you enter this room is the
transparent lift. The edges of the lift is bounded by
a low texture, but this is not required by the special
effect. In fact it makes it a bit more complicated to 
construct. you can activate and use it just like any other
lift to gain access to the plasma gun. Equipped with 
this marvel it's time to turn east and take a look at
the transparent door. Hopefully there will be a monster
standing on the other side of the door looking at you.
As you can see the monster can't see through the door,
but you can. This gives you the advantage of knowing
what's on the other side before you open the door.
You can even fire a few shots at the door, the monster
won't hear you until you open the door.

3. The Invisible Stair
----------------------

Go out of the transparent lift and door room and right 
across the main courtyard. Here you should find a door 
marked INVISIBLE STAIR. Open the door and take a look at 
the trooper standing in thin air. Shoot him and walk 
forward. you should soon be lifted from the floor by the 
invisible stair, and be able to continue forward until
you reach the plateau with solid floor. Continue forward,
and drop down on the other side. Look back and make sure
that you can't jump high enough to reach the plateau
(This section assumes that you haven't applied any
 DeHacked Jet pack patces to your EXE)

So basically you're stuck here until you press the switch 
at the end of the room. Pressing the swich will cause
an invisible stair to rise just like any other rising 
stair. To make it visually obvious what's happening I've
applied a small texture to one of the steps, so you can 
see it rise.

Now you can walk back and enter the main courtyard.

4. The Anti gravity field
-------------------------

The invisible stairs and lifts can be used to create quite
large areas where the player will be floating around.
(You can even make entire levels guarantueed to make 
 the player feel "high")

The room with the anti gravity field is to the east of
the main courtyard. Here you can walk around in a large
area that works like one big invisible step from the 
invisible stair. This room was made to demonstrate that
the invisible stair special effect could also be applied
to non-convex sectors.

5. The Deep Water Effect
------------------------

Now it's time to take a look at the deep water effect.
The deep water effect is very similar to the invisible
stair special effect, only here the player can descend
from the normal viewing height to a view closer to the
surface of the water. This is demonstrated in the room 
to the west of the main courtyard behind the door marked
SWIMPOOL. Notice that the monster inside the pool doesn't
look too good. This is a major problem with this special
effect, but the best you can do is to make sure the 
monsters don't enter the pool!

6. SKY special effects (etc.)
----------------------

To view the special effects using the sky texture, go
through the door marked SKY door from the main courtyard.
Already the door looks a bit odd, but any wad designer 
that has tried to apply a sky texture to the ceiling of a
door knows this special effect, so I'll not comment on it 
any further. Behind the sky door there is a room with yet
another SKY door. I don't think you should go through
that second sky door just now. Try that for yourself
another time. Instead take the moment to look at the floor
here you should see the Sky at Floor special effect.
(In this wad combined with a Deep Water Effect, so the
 player drops a bit longer into the hole before he is
 stopped by the "plexiglass")

Turn right inside this room, and you will find yourself
facing a switch. Activate this switch, which will cause
the floor to descend into a stair. This is known as
the descending stair special effect. Notice that the
stair moves into position without any delay, which in
this case means that the switch disappears from view,
as the player immediately falls to the ground level of
the descended stair. Go through the door at the end of
the descended stair, and you are in the Secondary 
courtyard. This secondary courtyard doesn't contain any
special effects. It's just a small demonstration of what's
possible using the sky ceiling texture. 
Notice that the surrounding walls have been lowered just
like in the main courtyard, but more explicitly here.
The castle in this courtyard demonstrates how you can 
create realistic buildings inside a courtyard that you can
even enter. Go inside the building, and pick up all the
goodies. When you try to leave you will be teleported
to the room behind the second sky door.

This room (behind the second sky door) is an all sky
room. Inside the room I've also tried to build a deep hole
try to drop to the button of this hole. Here you will see
a switch that will make the floor rise so you can get out
of the hole. Notice that just like with the descending
stair this happens instantly. Now leave the room by 
finding the small graphics bug at the floor just outside 
the sky door. If you can't find your way out of the all
sky room take a look at your map and all will be revealed.

7. The Switches Special effects
-------------------------------

In the main courtyard find the door marked SWITCHES, and
enter the room. When you enter the room you will see a
switch on the opposite wall. Try to activate this switch.
You will find that you can't activate it. Now shoot it
with a projectile weapon like the pistol or the shotgun,
and the switch will appear to break, giving you access
to the working switch behind the original switch.
This is the breaking switch or breaking glass special 
effect. basically this effect can be used to display any
kind of gunfire damage on textures. The only problem is
that you need to sacrifice one of the original doom 
switches to apply your own breaking texture, and if you
also want a different sound (breaking glass etc) then
all switches will start to sound like this.

Now turn left there you will see another switch. This is
a multiple action switch. As you can see this switch can
be activated 4 times, but 4 is not a magic number here.
you can easily apply over 20 actions to a switch like this
if you want more than 20 actions on the same switch you
should consider overlaying the linedefs. Press the switch
four times, and be aware of which door opens each time you 
press the switch.

Now go through the fourth door that opened. This room 
looks quite dull, but by pressing the switch, you can 
turn on a bit of an animation. 
(That won't make the room beautiful, but if you can create
 a better animation then this could be very useful)

Go back to the multiple switch, and go through the third
door that opened. Here is another multiple action switch,
but unlike the other multiple action switch this switch
uses the original doom textures, which makes it easier to
implement, and you don't have to sacrifice switch textures
from the original doom to make it. If you press this 
switch twice, two doors will open. Enter the room and take
a look at the back wall, where the animation from before
is running on half of the wall. If you press the switch on
the back wall nothing happens, but if you look at the wall
on your right you will see another switch there. When you
activate this switch the door you came through might be
opened again (if it was closed), and the animation now
starts playing on the entire back wall. This room was made
to demonstrate how an animation could be turned on by 
remote control. The only problem is that the switch you
activated didn't move when you activated it, but I 
suppose you could live with that.


8 Did I forget anything?
------------------------

Now for the last room: Go back to the main courtyard, and find the
door to the south-east. Walk down the hallway on the 
other side of this door until you hear the sound of a door
opening. This indicates that you have activated the
vertical texture scroll effect and the diagonal texture
scroll effect. Notice the marble part of the hallway walls
these textures should now be scrolling vertically and
diagonally (respectively). This effect is actually a bit
unstable, and after 4 minutes (or so) both textures
will start to scroll in a different direction. Then after
another 4 minutes the walls will be replaced by HOM...

This HOM can be avoided by setting a minimum for the 
"doors" so that they will not continue to descend below
a ceiling height of 0. 

continue along the hallway until you reach a room with
a bit of acid here and there. This room is used to 
demonstrate how you can build doors on top of lifts,
to create a more three dimentional map.

Continue through this room and enter the hallway on the
other side. At the end of this hallway you will find a 
switch. When you activate this switch floor in the 
hallway will slowly descend into a stair. This is another
way of making the descending stair special effect, and 
as you can see this method gives much more freedom as to
how the final result should look. At the bottom of this
"double stair" you will find a tunnel with deep water
leading back to the "acid room".


This concludes this tour of the special effects.
If I had 25 hours a day to invest in this project the
wad might look better and feature more effects, but this
is not the case, so this is all you get. But I think
that this wad is still the most complete collection of
special effects available right now (march 96) and I'm
proud to be the author of this wad as well as of the
special effects texts and www pages.

If you know of any special effects not mentioned in the
special effects pages, please send me a mail.

				Jens Hykkelbjerg
				Email: [email protected]