Let's Make a Level for Duke Nukem 3D, Part 22

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Last time, we made it so the player can take an elevator up from the inside of the landed spaceship to the outside. Now, we're going to make it so that when the level begins, the spaceship comes in for a landing.

As you can see, to make my job easier I've deleted the half of the replica landing zone area that the player cannot see out the cockpit windows. Since there's an elevator inside the ship, it isn't practical to make the entire ship lower down into place. Instead, I have to make the entire room raise up into place from below the ship.

That's tricky with sloped sectors. You have to place the Sector Effector sprite with LoTag of 31 (floor move) at the height of the first wall of the sloped sector (the "hinge" it slopes from) and that's the height the entire sector will move to.

This is what the floors look like, lowered into their starting positions. The ceilings will have to be moved as well, with their own Sector Effectors for moving them into place. But first let's add some Activator sprites and make sure the moving floors work.

...That's not quite right. The entire room moves into place properly except for one sector. Upon checking it out in the grid view, it's because I forgot to give that SE sprite a LoTag of 32. With that fixed, it works perfectly:

Sorry I don't know how to make gifs of webms, but you'll see the effect in action when you play the map. However right now, the descent is smooth and silent. That's not right for a spaceship landing. We need the earthquake effect to make the screen shake around, and a rumbling noise.

However, that will have to wait for the next installment. :)

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^{Stay Cozy!}