[Closed] Hmmm... Fixed sprites? (Don't know the real term :(

[Mago KH]

- Hey Janis, been a while. Something I always wanted to test in Scattered Evil is the "fixed sprites", the kind of sprite that work s like a 3d element and DOESN'T turn around its center axis to be always facing the player. I remember Build games having this, it is also used on modern games to emulate vegatation in a nice way, using the method used on the pic below:



By defining it's z height and orientation, you can have a bunch of them actively working as a convincing tree top or bush.

- Another request would be for sprites that can be attached independently on the walls, like it's often seen in Witchaven (wall decorations). Those are not like the torches in hexen, they are also fixed to their orientation and could be used to add for example vegeation and vines to a certain wall patch.

- Another request would be for sprites that can be sloped to other direction aside from vertical only (90

[Firebrand]

I think that stuff like the one you posted in the image can be done by using lines with transparent wall textures (like if you were doing a cage), you can adjust the texture's height via a map editor (like Doom Builder), I personally think it's a difficult way to implement them, but it's already possible using this method, you could create a column with lines going out of it to make something like the mushrooms displayed in the screenshot, I also think it would be a cool thing if they could be implemented with objects, as it would be very easy to implement them with the angle being the axis center .

I'm sure that the renderer would need some modifications to support these, but I really don't know how easy or difficult it would be. BTW, it's good to see you around Mago!

[Mago KH]

Firebrand - Hi bro, nice to see you too.

First suggestion (Fixed (anchor) sprites) - Thanks for the answer, I have already thought of that myself, having patches almost entirely invisible (only an object in it like a rope with wet clothes) and define its height so it can be used to watever reason (in the example, to be hanging near someone's window, or between two near buildings). Still, unless difficult to implement, the fixed sprites have many advantages over invisible, passable linedefs:
a) It allows the player to pass around it's borders (or below, above, etc), but it COULD be solid and act as an obstacle in itself (and thus, it could be destroyable, have scipts or specials based on hits attached, etc);
b) Sprites are considerably easier to add in a map, having a detailed tree top like in the pictures would require a lot of sectors only for it. In maps based on forests, the amount would be huge.
c)While sectors over sectors are taboo, detailed vegetation would be made much simpler with fixed sprites because you could have many of them above/below each other without any problems (for example, you could have a lot of plants on the ground, beneath a big tree full of branches, and nothing owould overlap or intersect).

Second suggestion (patch-over-patch sprites): I think it cant be done by sectors trick, so the feature request remains.

Third suggestion (3d sprite): this i guess might be hard, but still I think this would be extremely valuable for detailed city recreation. What I'm asking is: imagine a rectangle sprite 40 w x 120 h units. You could set its XY orientation (not only N or NW, but by the unit), and then the Z angle. If I make it have a 45

[Mago KH]

Trees made by 3d log and 2d leaves:



Bushes:





The last pic shows well how sloped sprites (horizontal sprites) could be used - to make curves forms in the example.

[Janis Legzdinsh]

Engine has support for different orientation modes of sprites, so it's easy to add things like that. Another way is to have them as 3D model.

[Firebrand]

What are the available modes for sprites orientation?? I'm curious about it, heh!

[Janis Legzdinsh]

In Object class there's an enum that defines several SPR_* constants with explenations of each.

[Firebrand]

Sounds good, I'll give it a check, maybe Mago's solution is already implemented .

[Mago KH]

?????????? Im sorry man, you both got me lost! Are we talking about VavoomC? Does this mean that I can handle all the things I asked here from a map editor?

[Firebrand]

Sorry about that Mago, we didn't wanted to confuse you, this is something that has to be handled in the way the decoration is spawned in the world, which is done via VavoomC, so it can't be done with a map editor, the only thing that could control this is how you import the sprites into a WAD file, do you remember how sprites work in the Doom engine?

That you create a sprite lump with a 4 letter name, a letter for the frame (A, B, C, etc.) and numbers that describe the angles where the sprite is being seen (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.). If you create a sprite lump with a 0 in the angles, it will be just seen from the front angle. Well, this is something similar to that, but it's done via the progs.

If you want I'll create a thread in the KDev forums as well as some examples of this by modifying the source , I really don't want to confuse you, but I don't think my explanation was clear enough , so by making an example it might be clearer for all.