Difference between revisions of "Fake floor"

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m (fmt (eh, I'll move this to "Illusio-pit" soon. It's hyphenated in the description for wow.wad))
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An '''illusio-pit''' is a pit sector at least 128 units below its surrounding floor and does not have its walls textured. It is often used as a dummy sector to raise the floors instantly suddenly revealing the enemies. It was given its name in wow.wad, an infamous and controversial [[WAD]] by Paul Thrusell which was his only release in 1999 consists of a room with a pit which has its walls untextured. A [[Cyberdemon]] is placed inside the large inescapable pit while there is a hanging torso. You are given a [[BFG9000]] and a few other items. The level has no exit. Illusio-pits have been used in parts of other [[Joke WAD]]s such as [[Mock 2: The Speed of Stupid]] and [[The New Adventure]].
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[[File:Illusiopit.png|thumb|alt=Example of fake floor|Example of fake floor in [[wow.wad]]. (Top: Before jumping in the pit, bottom: Inside the pit.) Notice the [[Hall of mirrors effect]] due to lack of a texture on the walls of the pit.]]
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A '''fake floor''' is a map design technique consisting of a lowered sector forming a pit which has no lower textures on its surrounding walls. This creates an illusory floor at the level of the surrounding sector, above the actual floor height. Amongst other uses, this technique can be implemented using a relatively deep pit to hide monsters which are raised to attack the [[player]], or with a shallower one to add a [[deep water]] effect. Another use of this technique is to create sectors which have differing brightness between their floors and ceilings.
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The reason for the existence of this phenomenon is related to [[Doom]]'s [[visplane]] system, which draws floors and ceilings using a flood-fill-like algorithm. Since the surrounding lines have no textures to interrupt the drawing of the surrounding sector's flat, it "flows" out of its sector's boundaries to cover the other sector.
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[[File:Multilighting.jpg|thumb|alt=Floor and ceiling having different brightness|Example of different ceiling and floor brightnesses on [[Mordeth|Mordeth's]] MAP07 (under construction)]]
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The technique is discouraged for use with modern [[Source port|source ports]], particularly ones that use hardware rendering, as the trick mostly works only on the original [[Doom rendering engine|software renderer]].
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A notorious [[joke WAD]] called [[Wow]] uses this effect in a comical way, calling a fake-floor pit the player may fall into an ''illusio-pit''. This name has become a widespread and popular term for the phenomenon.
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[[Category:Gameplay]]
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[[Category:Editing]]

Latest revision as of 01:03, 4 April 2014

Example of fake floor
Example of fake floor in wow.wad. (Top: Before jumping in the pit, bottom: Inside the pit.) Notice the Hall of mirrors effect due to lack of a texture on the walls of the pit.

A fake floor is a map design technique consisting of a lowered sector forming a pit which has no lower textures on its surrounding walls. This creates an illusory floor at the level of the surrounding sector, above the actual floor height. Amongst other uses, this technique can be implemented using a relatively deep pit to hide monsters which are raised to attack the player, or with a shallower one to add a deep water effect. Another use of this technique is to create sectors which have differing brightness between their floors and ceilings.

The reason for the existence of this phenomenon is related to Doom's visplane system, which draws floors and ceilings using a flood-fill-like algorithm. Since the surrounding lines have no textures to interrupt the drawing of the surrounding sector's flat, it "flows" out of its sector's boundaries to cover the other sector.

Floor and ceiling having different brightness
Example of different ceiling and floor brightnesses on Mordeth's MAP07 (under construction)

The technique is discouraged for use with modern source ports, particularly ones that use hardware rendering, as the trick mostly works only on the original software renderer.

A notorious joke WAD called Wow uses this effect in a comical way, calling a fake-floor pit the player may fall into an illusio-pit. This name has become a widespread and popular term for the phenomenon.