Category:Editing Walls and Wall Effects

NOTE: Much of information on this page is from around 1999. Some may be outdated, and some may be incorrect -- this page exists to get you started with the Level Editing and may not currently cover some of the additional features available in Mapster32.

Map Name: NONE

To make a masked wall, point the cursor at the general location that you want the mask to be (the mask must be placed on an existing red line somewhere in the level), and press the [M] key. It is advised that you point at the floor and not at the ceiling when placing the masked wall. Now you can change the texture, shade, shift, and most anything else about the mask. Just remember that a masked wall has *two* sides, and both sides must be edited.

Map Name: NONE

One-way walls are just as easy to create as masked walls. Do the exact same thing as you do in the masked walls how-to, this time pressing the [1] key. This time your mask will only have 1 side to edit, not 2. The other side will be invisible, so make sure you have the invisible side on the side you want it to be. The side on which you press the [1] key will be the visible side.

Map Name: TUTORIAL.MAP (ROOM 4-B)

Forcefields are an effect that have many uses, but are easy to make.
To construct a forcefield, follow these steps:

STEP 1: Create a masked wall where you want the forcefield to be.

NOTE 1: This mask should not be on a wall where the player can see the wall itself. Doing so causes the wall texture to shift, which makes the effect quite ugly. Create one buffer sector on either side of the forcefield to prevent the player from seeing this problem. Take a look at forcefield #1 in the tutorial map to see this error in action. Then look at forcefields #2 and #3 to see the "buffer sectors" that make the effect non-visible.

STEP 2: Change the texture of this mask to one of the following:

BIGFORCE - Tile #230

W_FORCEFIELD - Tile #663

NOTE 2: The BIGFORCE tile is used to make forcefields that are invisible during the game, and which do not hurt the player when they player touches them. The W_FORCEFIELD tile is used to make forcefields that flicker (you can see them), and the player does get hurt when they touch the forcefield. Forcefields made with the W_FORCEFIELD texture cannot be made invisible. In the tutorial map, forcefields #1, #2, and #4 are made with the W_FORCEFIELD texture, while forcefield #3 is made with the BIGFORCE texture.

STEP 3: While in 3D mode, press the [B] and [H] keys on the masked wall. This makes the masked wall block you and other characters from walking through the wall, and it makes bullets "hit" this wall.

STEP 4: Now point at the mask in 3D mode and press the [M] key. The mask will disappear, but all the attributes are left the same. You must do this, so that the forcefields will appear in the game.

NOTE 1: You should only make forcefields using the W_FORCEFIELD texture operated by a switch. That way you can actually see if the forcefield is on or off.

STEP 1: Give the masked wall a unique lotag.

STEP 2: Place a switch somewhere in your level and give it the exact same lotag value as the masked wall.

Map Name: NONE

Although they seem basic enough, walls have several hidden features that make them a little more complex than generally thought. The first thing that should be mentioned is two sided walls. Two sided walls appear as red lines in 2D mode, and they have two completely separate sides with completely unrelated attributes. If you set the shade of one side of a two sided wall to 10, the other side will still be zero (or whatever the default for that wall was). This also means that two sided walls have four tags: 2 hitags and 2 lotags (1 each for either side). Below is a list of wall tags and what they can do.

A hitag of one is a pretty complex subject. When you give a wall a hitag of 1, the wall is EXCLUDED from a certain function or effect. I've only seen this tag used in lighting effects such as flickering lights, flickering lights when shot, and light switches. If you have a sector that is brightened by a light, and you want to exclude a wall in the sector from being bright, give it a hitag of 1. This is particularly effective in using the "open door, room lights up" effect. Use this to force the door to stay dark while the room lights up. This is a quite useful tag.

Giving a wall a lotag value of X (any number you want), in addition to any "doortile" texture, will transform a door into a "switch". An example of this tag can be seen in Episode 1, Level 2, at the entrance to the book store. The revolving door uses a certain sector-effector sprite and a sector tag to make it revolve. This sector effector and sector tag are run by way of an activator. Let's assume that the lotag of the activator is 12. You would give the walls of the door a lotag of 12, so when the player presses space on the door, the sector effector sprite function is called, and the effect takes place. This can be used in many different ways.

So what is a "doortile" texture? It's simply a texture with the name doortile appended to it. The available doortile textures are as follows:

#150-#159, #395, #447-#449, #717, #781, #1102, #1144, #1169, #1178, #1179, and (v1.4-1.5 only) #4391.