by Ed the Bat » Sun Sep 30, 2018 20:11
Where necessary, I've made the actors spawn a series of invisible 'blockers' (essentially the same idea as Bridge Specials) to handle special collision shapes. In most cases, this was already being done around the actors by the maps, but having the actors do it automatically offers some benefits:
1) The setup is uniform, so all Bulldozers (for example) are guaranteed have the same blocking. I found one or two discrepancies in the original map-based blocking setups, and now we won't have to worry
2) Adding or relocating actors (if you decide to add more Bulldozers in new maps, or move around the ones in existing maps) is as easy as just placing the actor. The mapper doesn't need to meticulously place bridge specials or 3D sectors.
3) If an actor has to move around, like a cargo loader moving out of the way, the blockers can easily be moved with it, without having to adjust the map
I've tried looking for a way to do this for the floating islands (one of many issues I wanted to fix for those damn things, but couldn't...), but due to how they are shaped, a series of rectangular bridge specials wouldn't really cut it.
Where necessary, I've made the actors spawn a series of invisible 'blockers' (essentially the same idea as Bridge Specials) to handle special collision shapes. In most cases, this was already being done around the actors by the maps, but having the actors do it automatically offers some benefits:
1) The setup is uniform, so all Bulldozers (for example) are guaranteed have the same blocking. I found one or two discrepancies in the original map-based blocking setups, and now we won't have to worry
2) Adding or relocating actors (if you decide to add more Bulldozers in new maps, or move around the ones in existing maps) is as easy as just placing the actor. The mapper doesn't need to meticulously place bridge specials or 3D sectors.
3) If an actor has to move around, like a cargo loader moving out of the way, the blockers can easily be moved with it, without having to adjust the map
I've tried looking for a way to do this for the floating islands (one of many issues I wanted to fix for those damn things, but couldn't...), but due to how they are shaped, a series of rectangular bridge specials wouldn't really cut it.