That's right, you can create glitch-free,working transparent water! This effect was invented by the innovative genius, Bob Averill (creator of BOBSP1.MAP and BOBSP2.MAP, which, by the way, I included with this CD). This is quite complex to construct. If you don't like my explanation, read Bob's (included in the "Cool Stuff/Miscellaneous" section of this CD). My example is explained a lot like Bob's (except with images), so it shouldn't be too hard to understand.
Switch to the largest grid size and create a sector 4 grid squares by 4 grid squares.
Stay on the largest grid size and create another sector inside the first. Make this sector 2 grid squares by 2 grid squares.
Switch to the smallest grid size. Now move each vertex of the smaller sector diagonally outwards 1 square.
Switch back to the largest grid size. Create another 2 by 2 square sector as shown below. There will be a very small gap between the two sector's walls.
Parallax all three sector's ceilings. Blue sky (#199) will work.
Parallax only the two inner sector's floors.
Texture the floor and walls of the big sector however you want. Leave the two inner sectors alone for now.
Hold the Left Mouse Button
on the small inner sector's floor (the really thin one bordering the big one). Now press PGDN
until you can no longer see it's floor (even while looking down). This will hide the parallaxed floor from the player, and keep the effect looking good. Now place the mouse cursor over the area where the big invisible floor should be, and press PGDN
twice. Notice how you can now walk over the gaping pit, but you will not fall through.
Place four sprites in the locations shown below. Make sure they are not blocked (they have to be blue, not pink).
Change them all to the water texture (#336). Use the R
key to floor align them.
Make sure they are all at floor level (use Ctrl + PGDN
on each of them).
Use the T
key to make them as transparent as you wish.
Texture the walls of your pool.
Tag the big inner sector (which will now be referred to as the above-water sector) [0,1]
.
Place an S[Channel,7]
in the above-water sector. Make sure it is not blocked (it should appear blue in 2D mode, not pink).
Use Right Alt
to encapsulate all of the sectors. They will flicker green. Press Insert
on any green area, then use the Left Mouse Button
to drag the copied sectors to the left of the original. The copy and the original should be completely independant of one another.
Tag the copied inner sector's tag to [0,2]
. This will be the below-water sector. In the rest of the steps, we will be dealing with the below-water sector only.
Raise the water sprites up a few units. You have to raise them so you can access the invisible floor beneath them.
Lower the invisible floor until it matches the height of the parallaxed floor (the small, bordering sector's floor). Make sure the S
is on the invisible floor (use Ctrl + PGDN
on it).
Turn the floor parallaxing off and texture both of the inner sector's floors.
This is hard to explain. Temporarily remove parallaxing from the below-water sector's ceiling. Lower it down until it is at equal height with the surrounding floor, then lower it 2 units. Now parallax it again. It will become invisible. This needs to be done so the player will not end up transporting above the water when trying to submerge. To finish, press Ctrl + PGUP
on each water sprite. This will raise it directly to the invisible ceiling.
Finally! If you followed these steps correctly, you will be able to submerge into transparent water!