Sonic's White Glove Diaries -
Updated and maintained by Johnny 'Sonikku' Wallbank and A.J Freda
16th December 1999
TUTORIAL - Making an SRB Level: Part 2.
UPDATE 6/1/2000: It appears that WADAuthor doesn't like the doom2.wad given in SRB2:HT, therefore, you will need to also download the real doom2.wad (from 'DooM II') to use the level editor. Get it here... we now return you to normal White Glove Diarying (?!?)
Welcome back! That short break should have given you time to get Part one done! If you've jumped in at Part 2, and I might as well include this a general note - I'm assuming that you're now fairly confident with the basic stuff, so we're going to dive back into the deep end again, so, unless you've had experience with DooM editing before, and want to learn the SRB2 specials, then go back and read Part 1 - you NEED to read it, on the same line, if I say: "Create a sector, with a ceiling height of 512, a floor height of 0, and then create a platform in the middle of that, with a floor height of 128, and check all the below textures around the platforms." and you thought "Dear God... what drugs is Sonikku taking?!" then you'd better look back over Part 1 too.
STUFF YOU'LL NEED:
Firstly - you'll need to download SRB2:HT from here, and WADAuthor from here. The last thing you'll need a special srb2.wcf file that's included in this .zip, if it didn't make it, grab it here. WADAuthor is the level editor I'll be using to cover this, but if you prefer DCK, we'll add a .zip of that in the near future - the techniques used are still similar in most cases.
STEP 5: Let's go swimming! For this step, you'll need that srb2.wcf file I mentioned earlier, if you've not got it, scroll up a bit and click on the link to get it.
Things are slightly more complex here, firstly, if you've deleted your creation for some reason, go back to Part 1, and get 'Step 4' again, which has the most up-to-date version of our level so far, alternatively, if you feel you made such a tragic mess out of your level that you cannot live with yourself or something, go back and download it. =)
Create a new sector - we'll try something different and create a different room, fiddle with the vertexes a bit to create a cave-style (semi-random lines) room. Keep it fairly small, but enough to get a nice little jump or two around the area. Now, attach another sector to the end of that cavern - this will now be reffered to as the 'middle' sector, where we'll stick our water, make it a little stream or a pond - size doesn't matter... within reason! We want an area big enough so Sonic will actually fit into the hole in the ground and get drenched, alternatively, we don't want a massive lake 16,000 units long or so which will take a good 10 minutes to wade through.
Once you're happy, create a dry land sector after that. The finished result DOES NOT have to look like this, I just did this as a small demonstration. Keep the floor heights for the two dry land sectors at 192, and we'll make the water sector a little deeper at 142. We'll also increase the ceiling height to 512. Don't forget to fix the textures!
If you look in the screenshot, I've got a little sector outside all of our 'cavern' sectors. Was that a fit of insanity I had? Nope. This little sector will be the 'water-setter' which we'll use to set our water height, whether Sonic stands in a puddle or a deep abyss. We'll aim for neck height. Set this outside sector any bunch of textures and ceiling height - the floor height is important though. This is how high our water will be. For neck height, we're looking at around 180. If you don't like it, you can change it later.
Here's where that .wcf file I mentioned earlier comes in - this will teach you about 'tagging' lines. SRB2 supports all the standard DooM 2 features, which we use now and then in the levels, (mostly crushers and lifts) however, we've put a few features of our own into the engine for us to use. Here's how you can use them!
In this new sector, select any linedef and double click on it to bring up the properties. We've not even so much as given the top-left section a glance, so now it's time to do that. In the 'Class' section, go down to 'Special' and select 'n: Water' - now in the Sector Tag switch in the bottom right, set it to '1'.
Ready for the next bit? Double click on the water sector we talked about earlier (the one with a floor height of 142) and set the Sector Tag to '1'. Are we noticing a pattern here? You guessed it. That linedef in the water-setter does what it says on the tin. That sector tag combines the linedef to the sector. Still confused? Try going back to the very first room with the two platforms, and set all three of those sectors to have a sector tag of 1... behold as Sonic starts underwater!
(Interesting Note: After doing this, I inadvertently discovered an SRB2:HT bug (don't worry... it won't affect the final version unless we use fog any of the levels)... after dipping into the water, go back to the start (make sure it's dry) - why do you get green fog in this sector when you go below the water height?)
STEP 6: We'll go onto the next most common feature, to give you a better idea of how linedefs work. Create a corridor going straight on after the water section. Again, put a middle sector in, and a continuing one after that. Keep the floor height at 192, but make the ceiling heights for this group of sectors 342 except for the middle sector, which should be 341. Use 'Bug Fix' to sort out the textures for the middle sector. (Which I why I said to keep it at 341, not 342!) Done that? Go way back to the start of your level. You see that linedef which leads into the tunnel at the start...? Here's a pic. to show you what I'm talking about. MS Paint - as I said, was still in a very bad mood.
Yuck. Your version will obviously look at lot more colourful, but that's MS Pants... uh, Paint for you!
Now, this line will set off the crusher. You must have a linedef set off a crusher, sadly, they don't magically come into action on their own 'since the start of the level'. This is the next best thing though, as no-one will notice, unless they've got x-ray vision. Which they haven't... I hope.
Goto properites and 'Class' - then go down to crushing ceiling. You've got several choices you can have here, for now, we'll just look at the 'W1L' range - I'll talk about what the 'W1L' bit means later. You can select a few choices of crushers, and depending on how nasty you are, you can pick the one you'd like to use to kill that evil, evil player! (Umm...)
'start fast crush' - This is a quick crusher, these will go up and down fairly quickly, meaning you don't get as long to stand around underneath them!
'start slow crush' - These a slower crushers, but still kill you in one go if you happen to be underneath them.
'start slow crush (silent)' - If you listen carefully, before you get to the crusher, you can hear a sound, if you want to be really evil, you can use this to set crushers off without any noticing the noise, adding to the element of surprise, but, when you can see the crusher, it's pretty useless.
Pick one of the above, and set the sector tag to 2 this time. ('1' has already been used by the water, remember?) Go to the crusher sector, and set the sector tag to 2. Now run the level and behold as you have added your first trap into the level!
STEP 7: For the final part of the 'linedef' tagging tutorials, we're going to create one more feature, falling floors - from this, you should have learnt enough to work out how any of the other features - except for doors, which are easily replaced by moving floors, etc. for a game like SRB2. If you want to add them, mail me and I'll think about putting an extra bit onto the tutorial.
Let's create a slight extension to our level, and make a diagonal corner, going into a larger room - for more variation. This time create two middle sectors, and an 'end' sector - this is roughly what it should look like -
The first middle sector (highlighted in the pic) should be a platform, (so higher than the previous sector, maybe just a step or a jump, it's up to you!) and the second one will be the falling floor. Make the ceiling for this sector taller than the previous sectors, but make sure Sonic won't hit his head on the ceiling! ;-D (you'll notice I'm giving you more freedom here, as the next step after this tutorial is to make your own levels!) - Finally, for the falling platform, make sure it's floor height is one fracunit away from the ceiling (e.g, Ceiling - 480, Floor 479. Ceiling - 350, Floor 349.) and that the sector beyond that is EQUAL or HIGHER than the floor height of the platform.
Now,the tricky-to-understand-what-I'm-talking-about part. Create a linedef that the player MUST walk across (no possible walkarounds) - for this example, I'd use the one linedef that the player has to jump on to continue... still don't get what I mean?
If I put a box in the room, with all four linedefs triggering the floor to fall, it might work, but the player could still walk around the box, and jump up your platform...
...to hit a wall. Oh. Whoops. Wrong turn, better go back and so where I went wrong - in fact, they haven't made a wrong turn - they just missed the linedef. Remember, while you know where the trigger is, people playing your levels won't (initially). If the player starts in a said box, and has to walk out to start the level or something (see SRB2:HT Ring-platform trigger) then this is OK... but even then, it has it's flaws. Occasionally, if you jump diagonally, and very quickly, you can bypass the trigger entirely. No remedy has been found to sort this - though it might be finished by the final version.
The next thing to check with triggers is that the linedef is facing the direction the player will hit it. OK, now I'm just confusing you all, so I'd better use a quick diagram to explain what the hell I'm talking about!
- is the direction a sidedef is pointing (inwards, outwards)
| is a straight-forward, bog-standard linedef.
|
|
-|
|
|
Assuming Sonic goes from the left of the screen to the right, because Sonic is passing with the linedef pointing at him ( -| ), then the trigger should activate (unless the engine plays up - see above.). HOWEVER, if we get the opposite scenario...
|
|
|-
|
|
Now, if Sonic crosses over the trigger line from left to right, nothing will happen, unless he turns around and walks back over the line, facing him ( |- )... do you get it now? If not... well... you'll see soon enough!
Anyway, after you've a 'Must-cross-over-linedef-which-has-a-sidedef-pointing-to-Sonic' then you create the falling floor. Bring up the trigger linedef's properties and in 'Class' go down to 'Floor' then goto to one of the following:
'W1 - Down to lowest floor' - Will bring the floor all the way down to the lowest floor it can go to - it will bypass your platforms... if you use this, make sure you set the appropriate textures, or you'll have some more screwy LSD results!
'W1 - Down to highest floor' - Will bring the floor down to the next highest floor it comes to - probably your platform or the bit after the falling floor. It's advised to go for this one!
... and give the line a sector tag of 3. I guess you're wondering what the 'W1' bit means - time to explain that too!
In the .wcf file, we have to set a number of flags to linedef... is it a switch (DooM only)? Do you have to walk over it? Does it work once or continously...? Therefore, here's Johnny Wallbank's Poorly Done Flag Definition Sheet, v 0.042b... and such.
W - Must walk over linedef to trigger event. (What we've been using so far.)
S - Turns linedef into a switch / Must pull switch to trigger event. (DooM only. You can still theoretically use this for SRB2, but as we don't really have a 'Use' button anymore, it doesn't really work.)
X1 - Where X is one of the above, the '1' means that you can only activate this event once. This is the one that's most used in SRB2, though we rarely use Xr... explained below.
Xr - Where X is one of the above, the 'r' means you can continually activate this event if you walk over the line or hit the switch. Occasionally used in some levels.
Those are the one's you'll see most often. Give your falling floor sector a tag of 3 and run the level! Easy!
Hopefully, you should now understand how linedefs and triggers work... that was a bit disjointed, but it was late when I wrote this, and it's not the easiest thing to cover, that's about the hardest you'll do for a while, and once you master how it works, you'll be creating special features in your levels in seconds!
STEP 8: The level right now is a bit empty without enemies or rings! Time to create some... this will be a nice easy break from creating those specials!
Press 't' to go into 'Things' mode. Right click anywhere inside the level to start creating things. Firstly, we'll start with some Rings. Go down to 'Create new Thing'. You'll be presented with a list of items to choose from. You had a quick look at this when you created your Start positions, so now it's time to go in a bit deeper. In the 'Class' go down to 'Healing' - then select 'Ring (1)'. To save yourself doing this everytime to create a ring, just select the thing and press Ctrl + C to copy it, and Ctrl + V to paste it - it's also best to use 'Snap to Grid' to manipulate the rings easily.
For starters, let's place two rings - one on each of the platforms we made at the very start of the level. Try and put them in the center to make them look nice. Though it doesn't really matter, for a simple tutorial. For the next challenge, form a ring formation at the bottom - I made a simple 5-ring formation... experiment for yourself! Make a diamond or a square of rings! In the end, you should have some that looks like this:
Nice, huh? Now it's time to make an enemy. This is a bit trickier. Create a new thing as you did before, and goto the 'Enemy' Class... now, the enemy hasn't been named 'Ghost'... sorry! It's under 'Cacodemon' (you'll see when you get a sprite of the classic DooM 2 monster popping up in the white box... also use this to get a sneak peak at the enemies you can see in the final game (don't you feel so priviliged to have that honour? ;-D)
One last thing to check - make sure the 'Level' boxes are all ticked, for now. This is the difficulty setting box, showing which levels to add / exclude. For later reference, here's how the Skill Level system works:
1 - 'Sub Sonic.'
2 - 'Sonic.'
3 - 'Super Sonic.'
4 - 'Hyper Sonic!'
5 - 'WARP SONIC!!'
Create this somewhere down the first tunnel you made, and prefferably, make it look southwards (at the player, when he jumps in). The rest is up to you... create more rings or enemies... when you're ready, we'll go into the final stage... using 'bar' textures.
STEP 9: Create a box sector after that, going off in a straight line (for now) Then add two futher box sectors on either side. Now - this is the tricky part. Set the main... yes the MAIN texture of the two lines running down the side (shown in the picture below) to GFZGRASS.
Right! Ready for the complicated bit? Right click and goto the properties for these two linedefs. See that last bit of the linedefs box we've not touched yet? Time to fiddle with this! Set the Attributes to be ticked:
'Impassible'
'Two Sided' (on by default)
'Lower Unpegged'
Now run the level - it should work properly. If you get a garbled mess or if it's non-existant, check the attributes (and that you've given it a texture.) - while we're here, we might as well talk about the Attributes, and how you can use them:
'Impassible' - No-one can walk through this, you'll just run against the wall. Useful for two-sided textures where you want to block someone off entirely (e.g, a falling pit trap, where they're meant to fall for the trap, etc.) or use a forcefield / bars, etc.
'Block Enemies' - Same as above, but only applies to enemies.
'Two-Sided' - Does what it says on the tin - don't try and set this on a solid wall, or you'll get some really freaky results... unless you want to create a phantom wall with a secret area behind it.
'Upper/Lower Unpegged' - Used for doors / bars... no-one really understands these. They just... work! ^_^
'Secret' - Semi-hidden on the automap.
'Block Sounds' - Not really needed for SRB2 - was used in DooM 2 to block off weapon noises.
'Never Map' - Never appears on the automap. At all. Even if you jump up and down in front of it purple and naked. It'll still not appear on the automap.
'Always Map' - The exact opposite - this linedef(s) will appear from the moment you start the level.
After this... we'll go onto the last development step!
STEP 10: This is easy enough - a level exit! Make a small room after the 'bar' room. Create another thing... this time goto the 'Scenery' class and go down to 'End of Level Marker' - which is nicely labelled. ^_^
Then you can either create a box around the level marker or a single linedef that you have to cross. Either way, assign this linedef to an 'Exit' in the class section and 'nW1: Exit level, go to next'. - test it in your level and walk over it... the end of the level! Congratulations! Now it's up to you to create your own, more imaginative levels!
SUGGESTIONS AND TIPS FOR MAKING YOUR LEVELS:
1) It's very tempting to stick Sonic in a room with 900 ghosts in a single room to see if the player can survive, when you're a 'newbie' - but that's no fun. For one, the player will only last for a few seconds, get bored trying or just ignore the enemies and make a beeline for the exit, thus making it pointless.
2) Try to give your level a theme - fair enough, this level didn't really have a theme, it was just a simple test. But when you make a proper level, you'll probably make a graveyard (a la SRB2:HT's level) - or maybe a more rocky / mountain based level. Think about the architecture for each. Rocky / Mountain will probably be more random, while graveyard will be more 'organized'.
3) Fed up of those 'MAP 02 not found!' bugs at the end of SRB2:HT? Replace it with your own creation as an add-on! To do this, right click anywhere outside the level, then go down to 'Map Name' and set the Mission value to '2'. Save the changes and after the 'proper' level, you'll be finding yourself in your own creation!
4) This tutorial only covered the basics - if there is enough demand, I shall add more tutorials on other things like teleporters, but first, ask yourself if you really need them!
5) For the forthcoming SRB2:XMAS, there's a few new features and textures, so fiddle around with that!