Oblige_III.txt

ROOMS
-----

Rooms are areas on the map (bounded by a rectangle) which have
clearly defined boundaries.  For example, in MAP11 of DOOM 2
the circle + the nukage areas on both sides would all be part
of a single (albeit complex) room.  The boundaries will often
mostly consist of one-sided lines.  Another criterion is that
the majority area of the room is traversible without taking
special action (teleporters, doors, bridge switches).

Rooms can contain other rooms, the most usual configuration
will be one room surrounding (fully or partially) another.
Take MAP14 of DOOM 2 for example, the blue armor room sits
within an indoor room (walkway with a few sky holes) which
in turn sits within an outdoor room (which has full sky and
a walkway next to water).  MAP16 is another good example of
room-in-a-room-in-a-room.

How to create such maps:

1) decide how many "huge" rooms to make at very start
2) allocate space for them on map
3) give them a THEME (using a key/prob table in GAME)
4) decide what quests belong in each one
5) decide how to connect them
6) repeat process to create sub-rooms in each huge room.



SYMMETRY
--------

Many maps use symmetry.  Very often a room will be symmetrical
along the main path through it (i.e. both left and right sides
of the path are mirror images).  Sometimes this extends to the
whole map, nearly always flipped across the Y axis (see MAP02
of HEXEN for a good example).

Rooms can also be diagonally (transpose) symmetrical, which
requires exactly two exits which are perpendicular.



SEEDS
-----

The bare map consists of a grid (say 28x28) of seed cells.
Each seed begins at a minimal size (like 3x3 blocks + border).

Some rooms can be a single seed, larger rooms will use a
block of seeds (e.g. 3x3 seeds).  Hallways might be a thin
strip (e.g. 1x4 seeds) or could be a tangled network of
connected seeds.

Seeds represent a section (or the whole) of a room, and
where two seeds are linked there will be a door between
the two rooms are (or between a hallway and a room).
A single seed room can only have four exits (N/S/E/W) but
multi-seed rooms and hallways can have more exits.
Other connections, especially WINDOWS, also require a seed.

Room-in-a-room can be achieved by assigning a subset
of the seeds of the outer room to the inner room.
Other configurations (partial inclusion) can be done
similarly.

Once all the connections are decided, the seeds are grown
to their full size, based on what the room will contain
(including stairs, ledges, feature prefabs,
pickup/switch/player spots, etc).

Growing seeds requires certain constraints to be kept:
  - maintain connections (keep both seeds in contact)
  - keep symmetrical exits opposite each other.
  - keep hallways straight (unless 'cavey').
  - in multi-seed rooms: all seeds stay in a grid.

Perhaps (YES) : seeds also represent important contents
of a room.  For example: a COOP start room needs at
least 4 seeds (one for each player start).  Other
important stuff include: switches, quest items,
teleporters, and the feature prefab(s) of a room.

QUESTION: should seeds be like chunks? e.g. if the
room has ledges, does that require an arrangement
of seeds?? (e.g. an L-shaped ledge would need 2x2).
---> YES: "significant" height diffs require seeds

Intra-room seeds may need stairs/a lift to connect
to each other.  Such stairs can be assigned like they
are now (into chunks).  HOWEVER a big difference is
that the stair area will be included in the seed size
(known in advance) hence there can never be errors
placing stairs into rooms.

Where two rooms meet there will be a link and also
a border.  

QUESTION: there is always a border between two rooms
even at places containing no links.  Are seeds
responsible for containing the border info?  Can the
whole room get by with a single border definition?
---> each room makes its own border (NOT SHARED like now)

Borders are normally quite thin.  Sometimes they could
be fatter, e.g. to accommodate a deep door.  However
for creating anything long, like a staircase between rooms,
this should NOT be done with a border, instead use another
room or seed (a HALLWAY).


SECTOR SYSTEM & PREFABS
-----------------------

The new map system will be purely sector/linedef based.
The are four different ways of modifying the map:

1. make a sector area SOLID.
2. replace a sector area's floor with X (ceiling unaffected)
3. replace a sector area's ceiling with X (floor unaffected)
4. replace a sector area's floor + ceiling with X

'
Perhaps: represent SOLID using a ceiling with a very low
height (-32000), and make the code silently convert this to
void space (by creating one-sided linedefs).

Sectors here will be contiguous areas (i.e. separate pieces
require separate sectors) and never contain holes.
Sectors will have an 'l_tex' and 'u_tex' which are
used when the linedefs do not specify them (also used when
the sector is split).

The sector stuffer will decompose sectors into triangles
(using a BSP algorithm) in order to perform the replacement
operations.  This will be done in the C++ code for speed.

The initial map will be a single large SOLID rectangle with
all the textures/flats set to the ERROR textures.

IDEA: Other possible operations would be: MIN/MAX on the FLOOR
and/or CEILING.  ADD/SUB on the FLOOR/CEILING (e.g. stairs).
Ability to create extrafloors.  Not needed now, investigate later!

LUA API:

wad.blast_sector(op, region, sector_info, line_loop)

   op = 1 'REPLACE'
   region = 1 'FLOOR' or 2 'CEILING' or 3 'FLOOR+CEILING'

   sector_info = table: f_h, f_tex, l_tex, c_h, c_tex, u_tex,
                        light, kind, tag, flags.
                [for 'FLOOR' then the c_ fields will be absent, etc]

   line_loop = array(line_info)
   line_info = table: x, y, front (side_info), back, kind, tag, args, flags.

   side_info = table: l_tex, u_tex, rail, x_offset, y_offset

Each line in the loop specifies the start coordinate. The current
line's end coordinate will be the next line's start.  Line loops
always join back to the very first start position.  The 'x_offset'
can take a special value to indicate "last x_offset + last length"
(to get perfect alignment).  

NOTE: the 'back' sidedef is optional, especially when adding a
group of touching sectors (e.g. stairs). When both are present on
one side of a line: they get merged but the 'front' table takes
precedence.


ALGORITHM FOR GROWING SEEDS
---------------------------

function grow_all()

  set location of each seed using a 3x3 grid.

  repeat
    for each direction (N|S|E|W) do
      decide seeds to grow
      normalise all grow/shrink flags to:
        1. prevent overlaps
        2. maintain integrity of multi-seed rooms
        3. maintain links between rooms
        4. maintain symmetry
      actually grow/shrink the seeds
    end
  until all seeds have reached their minimum size

end -- grow_all



SEED INFORMATION
----------------

f_h, c_h : height range

x1, y1, x2, y2 : block range
     
room : room reference

combo : combo ref (for textures)

content : NIL | "stair"    | "lift"   | "teleporter"
              | "diagonal" | "player" | "pickup"
              | "switch"   | ...

dir[2/4/6/8] : information for South/East/West/North

     kind : "wall" | "pass" | "door" | "window" | "falloff"

     link: reference to 'joined' seed, or NIL



DEATHMATCH MAPS
---------------

Talk about "Cycles" : start at room R and go through rooms S/T/U
(however many there are) until you get back to R.

Each Cycle will either be Clockwise or Anti-Clockwise.
Most of the time, some rooms in a Cycle will be at significantly
different heights than other rooms.  Hence can define the
"height profile" for a Cycle.

Cycles can be one-way, e.g. using falloffs or teleporters.

Can also talk about the "hallway profile" of a Cycle.
Also could be "outdoor profile", but that is probably not
the best way to decide the inside/outside-ness of rooms.


Topology Algorithm:

1. create very first room R

2. create N cycles, as follows:

   (1) pick a start room
   (2) choose turn dir (Clockwise or Anti-Clockwise)
   (3) branch out from start room at random angle (can be 45deg)
       to a free spot on node grid.
   (4) create new room at that spot
   (5) cur room := new room
   (6) angle += turn_angle
   (7) try to branch out, if successful goto (4),
       else connect back onto the graph

3. [NO] turn node graph into seed matrix.
   Instead, create whole rooms as we go.