I have created a sawblade! (Unfortunetly, it sucks)

Would you like to play a game?

How much blood would you shed to stay alive?

-Horror movie references end here-

So, the other day, I decided to play Sonic the Hedgehog (1991, most assuredly) on Sonic Mega Collection. The game owns my socks off, by the way.
Anyway. In the metally level (Scrap Brain Zone, if I recall correctly), there were the sawblades.
A simple trap. But I wanted to see if I could recreate those in SRB2...
I chose the FOF method. I whipped up and animated a simple sawblade texture, applied it to an FOF, made some metal rods stick from the ceiling to seemingly hold the sawblade FOF up.
The FOF is an intangible sides-only FOF (Linedef type 67, to be precise) with plain damage.
These are the fruits of my labor.
Though, they can scarcely be called fruits. But that's what they're called nonetheless.

Test WAD: Here. (Sendspace. Because I'm too lazy to use something else.)
Contains a test map with rings and shield meant for testing damage.

However, there are a number of issues with this method of sawbladery.

• If the sawblade is too thin, the player can easily pass right through it. Even in the test WAD, Sonic can thok right through harmlessly. Yet if it's too thick, part of the texture is appearent on the other 2 sides of the blade. You can see this in the test WAD too.
• The player is not harmed unless his horizontal center is within the FOF. This is because of how damage effects are applied to intangible FOFs. They do not hurt on contact. Rather, they only hurt if the player is "inside" the FOF.
• The player can pass right through the blade if he is invincible by any means. Though, this is the same in Sonic 1, so it's unimportant.
• In OpenGL, if you have a shield, the corona will show on the transparent parts of the texture.
• The texture buggers up in Software. I dunno how to fix this...
• It looks like there are 2 sawbades rather than just one.

The FOF is intangible, because the damage by solid FOF can only be done if the player steps on it. The player does not recieve damage if he touches the sides.
I blame SSNTails for this. Because everything wrong with SRB2 is his fault.
Another reason is that if the designer uses a moving FOF, the player could (Theoretically. I have not tested this) get killed instantly due to the crushing factor.
And as for the metal rods... The textures on the sawblades get buggered up if their linedefs get split at all.
So, you can do what I did, and simply move the metal rods very close to the FOF, but not touch.

So. Sawblades in SRB2. Possible? Sure.
Practical? Not this method, anyway...

So. If you wanna use this sawblade in your level (which I doubt you do), the necessary lumps are all in the test WAD.
You can feel free to alter any of the lumps for any of your needs.
You can figure out how to set up the sawblade by looking at the test wad. Heck, you could probably guess at it. You've gotta know how to make FOFs, though.
If you want a sawblade sound, make your own. I'm too lazy.

And that's it. Hopefully, I didn't forget anything important... Odds are, I did.
Got a better method? Post it. Please. 'Cus I sure could use it as much as the next guy.

(Sweet genius, that was a long post...)

SRB2-Playah said:

[*]In OpenGL, if you have a shield, the corona will show on the transparent parts of the texture.

Click to expand...

That's not a corona...

Anyways, great job Playah.

Ooo.Very nice idea.

For making the blade, you could make secotrs in front of both sharp sides of your blades with a sector equal in height to the saw and give it a damage plain prop, and make the flat sides have an invisible, solid sector.

Awesome sawblade dude! If I make my Sonikku Doom Mod I'll definitely use a sawblade like that in the levels. Plus I'll give you credit for the sawblade.

I remember those saws from Sonic 1. *downloads* Are you gonna make it move? It may help make it more threatening.

It could only move up and down I think.

Playah, I think it would have been a better idea to make that sawblade using Paint Shop Pro's vectors, so that you could rotate the graphic without it distorting so much.

Looks great. It's hardly a long post though. :p

The texture in Software only seems to mess up in the top part, according to your screenshot. Why not use it to rise out of the floor?

He could always, ya know, use a middle texture.

Then he could use an FOF independant of the texture, and make it so you could actually get hurt when you're hitting it.

Maybe try using a moving water block, so that you'll always get hurt by it, instead of the sides-only FOF. Don't know much about this stuff, so I'm not sure.

This wouldn't be easier to write a SOC for, would it?

Probably not. The graphics and hurt radius wouldn't be as controlable.

On ther other hand, if you're going for a sawblade that's flat, it would seem a viable option.

SOCs don't work with radius? I thought you could create a circular object with them accurately. :\

Well, the radius would be a radius, yes. It's just that the radius would be just perfect in one dimension, but horrible in another.

Unfortunately, you can't make SRB2's "hitboxes" rectangular, so using objects wouldn't really be possible.

But how does that affect how a sawblade would work? It's a circle, so it'd be perfect, yes? As far as it being in one dimension, I think a sawblade in more than that would be a very, very bad thing. Besides, that's what the things' direction settings are for.

I'm talking X and Y, not Z. If you gave it a certain radius, the saw would have to be a weird.. box thing.