Prepare For Descent!

Creating Custom Doors

There's a tutorial, Building a Cutom Door for Descent 3∞ on GameEdit.net∞ that you should read. It is, however, a bit out of date on a few points. And there are a few important notes that should be included.


Doors have the potential to permanently break your level. Recently I made a new door and had to do some tweaking to get it to work right... but then it started 'dinging' the level... (meaning, after the level loads, 'Prepare For Descent' appears, you hear a ding, but you do not enter the level, all you can do is escape to desktop) I tried adjusting the door to no avail, and finally deleted the door entirely, and still, all I got when attempting to test fly was a 'ding'. Then I noticed I could not see the player0 start. Somehow it had moved to a terrain cell! I am glad I had been working in a test level, otherwise I might have lost hours of work.

• I had not thought of it at the time, but the object bar does have an option move an object to a marked room... I don't know if that would apply to the player0 start, I'll have to try in a test level sometime.

Today I had another incident with a door. Somehow I had accidentally deleted the door object, without deleting the door shell. When test flying the level, there was a 'hall of mirrors' effect where the door object should have been. So, back to the editor, I could not delete the door through the door bar, as the door object was not there. In the room properties tool bar, I unchecked the door flag. Then I deleted the door shell as I would any other room, and placed a new door in it's place.

Ok... back to the tut...
From the first paragraph:"...halfway between the front and back of the shell, because D3 seems to "fix" doors that aren't at the halfway point." True, but you can adjust for this in OOFEdit. This is one area where tweaking might be necessary, even if your door appears perfectly positioned in OOFEdit, it may not be quite right in-game. D3Edit is more likely to display the door as it will appear in-game, but the only way to know for sure is to test fly. First of all, when you make the door in D3Edit, make sure the room center is located at the '0' point of origin! Group the door parts according to how you want them to move... that is, if your door consist of, say, four vertical bars that are connected by two horizontal bars, and all these parts need to move in unison, drag all the sub-parts (in the list) into one main part. But not the shell or front face! If there are parts that move with the main door object, but have also their own separate movement(s), drag these to the main door model also. To adjust the position of the door elements, turn on the radius sphere, by pressing the 'Radius' button, while the main model is selected. You should see a large wireframe sphere, encompassing the whole door model. Now, select the door object you want to move. If it appears in the right place in OOFEdit (which it should, if it was in D3Edit) click 'Radius to turn on the sphere and click 'Affect Pivot Only'. What you need to do is align the spheres. Adjust the numbers in the boxes under 'Affect Pivot Only'. A bit of trial and error is in order here. If you move the shell, make sure you move the front face the exact same amount.

"The current version of D3Edit will not let you add new doors, but you can replace existing doors." Update: You can add new doors to D3. You don't need to name your door to match an existing door, name it whatever your want.

"The easiest way to get the door into D3Edit..." Use Quick Test to include the .oof and .gam files in your .mn3. Do not include the .orf.

You might also be interested in reading Setting Up D3 Edit and QuickTest.

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Categories

Descent3LevelEditing