Partial invisibility

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Revision as of 10:05, 22 February 2018 by Quasar (talk | contribs) (Other games and ports: wtf?)


A blur artifact sits in the tower behind the yellow door in E1M3: Toxin Refinery.
A partially invisible player as seen by another player (in multiplayer mode) on E1M3: Toxin Refinery.

A partial invisibility powerup (called blur sphere in the manuals) is an item that appears as a floating red and blue orb with a pulsing eye-like pattern.

Picking up this powerup will grant the player partial invisibility for 60 seconds. The player's sprite (in multiplayer mode) will appear similar to that of the spectre, while the affected player will see their own weapons and hands as partially invisible. When five seconds remain, the weapon will begin blinking, signaling the end of the artifact's effects; the player sprite however remains fully blurred until all 60 seconds elapse. Picking up another partial invisibility item while a previously collected one is still active resets the duration to 60 seconds; any surplus time is lost. For this reason it is best to not collect another sphere until the current one is about to expire.

Monsters firing upon an affected player will have their accuracy reduced, in that their aim is offset by a random angle, causing them to miss more often. This however may cause more experienced players to inadvertently dodge toward incoming projectiles, being accustomed to monsters firing directly forward. Nevertheless, a blur sphere confers a definite advantage against long-range hitscan attacks such as those of zombies or spiderdemons. The partial invisibility is unable to disrupt monster melee attacks, homing missiles, or the arch-vile's flame attack.

Partial invisibility can also be invoked with the cheat code idbeholdi.

In -altdeath mode, partial invisibility and invulnerability spheres do not respawn. Some source ports allow flags to be set to cause them to respawn.

This item is included in the items percentage displayed at the end of each level.

Data

Partial invisibility data
Thing type 2024 (decimal), 7E8 (hex)
Enum MT_INS (58)
Appears in Shareware Doom
Registered Doom
The Ultimate Doom
Doom II/Final Doom
Radius 20
Height 16
Sprite PINS
Frames 4 (ABCD)
Class Item
Pickup

Appearance statistics

In the IWADs the partial invisibility is first encountered on these maps per skill level:

The IWADs contain the following numbers of partial invisibilities per skill level:

Other games and ports

Invisibility powerup in D3DM3: Frag Chamber.

Due to difficulty in rendering the effect, all partial invisibility spheres were removed from the Atari Jaguar map set, and all other ports using its map set do not contain any of this powerup in those maps. Most were replaced with soul spheres.

The Sony PlayStation version restored the powerup to its vanilla appearance but, as with spectres, it applies translucency to the player's sprite and weapons. However, it was not added back to maps which were adapted from the Jaguar version. In the Ultimate Doom episode, the powerup only occurs in levels beginning with MAP26: Sever the Wicked. It appears as normal throughout the Doom II episode. It can also be found as usual in all episodes of the PlayStation Final Doom.

Doom 64's partial invisibility item has the appearance of a dark red sphere with a central core emitting multiple electric arcs. Like the PlayStation version, the marine will appear slightly translucent.

There is an invisibility powerup in Doom 3, appearing chiefly in multiplayer. It has no effect on monsters, only rendering the player translucent.

Notes

The partial invisibilty powerup, as seen in the Doom press release beta.
  • Demons and spectres appear to direct some attacks away from an invisible player, but only the sprite frames have been changed; the melee attack is aimed normally. In versions of Doom prior to v1.5, the attack angle was also offset, and consequently these monsters could initiate infighting.
  • When an invisible player is killed, his corpse sprite will retain its blurry appearance, as a spectre's corpse does.
  • Deathmatch players should note that weapons with visible projectiles, particularly the plasma gun, can give away a blurred player's position, as the opponent may target the shots' point of origin.
  • ZDoom-based source ports enhance the powerup's effect so that, in addition to the above, idle monsters are not alerted when the partially invisible player is within their sight, as with the similar Shadowsphere powerup in Heretic.

See also