Swim to Another Area



This is a tutorial to teach you how to create an underwater cave which will allow the player to swim to another room or area. This turorial is a continuation of the Basic Water Pool and Diving Water Pool tutorials. To view this map in Shadow Warrior download water3.zip




Fig 1. 2D mode view.

1. Continuing on from the Diving Water Pool tutorial, create a second area (2) separate from the first area (1). Create a Surface Water Pool in area 2. Insert three ST1 sprites in sector C. Assign the same values to them as we did in the Diving Water Pool tutorial except give the SECT_DIVE_AREA (HiTag 7) sprite in sector C a new LowTag of 2 (in our case), or your next available tag on your map.


Fig 2. 2D mode view of sector C.

2. Try and keep the floor height (Z-coordinate) of sector C the same (or at least close to) sector A. Just try to keep in mine, in a real world situation water seeks an equal level unless acted on by pressure or some other external force.


Fig 3. Create sector D.

3. In 2D mode, create sector D with it being the exact same size and shape as sector C. Also, place sector D in the exact same position and distance from sector B that sector C is from sector A. Now, insert a ST1 sprite in sector D in the same position you place the SECT_DIVE_AREA sprite in sector C. Give this ST1 sprite a HiTag (Alt-H) of 8 (SECT_UNDERWATER) and a matching LowTag (Alt-T) the same value as the one in sector C (in our case 2).


Fig 4. Connecting sectors B and D.

4. Using the Space Bar create a connecting sector between sectors B and D. This will be the cave for the player to swim from one area to the other. Just go from vertice to vertice and when you come back to the starting positon the lines between the sectors should turn red (if you did it correctly). Now, in the cave sector insert a ST1 sprite and give it a HiTag of 8 (SECT_UNDERWATER). The LowTag stays at zero because this is just an underwater area and there is no way to suface in this area.


Fig 5. 3D mode view in sector B.

5. In 3D mode (numeric pad Enter), make sure you lower the ceiling of the cave and change the ceiling texture to something other than a water texture. Also, change the palette (Alt-P) of the walls, ceiling, and floor to 9. Add any shading that you want (numeric pad - and + keys) and your done. In this picture, you are standing in sector B looking towards sector D.




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