So for those who have seen the Big Infernal Spider, I am sure you have seen it "glide" along the ground. Know how when before it sees the player it is jumping in the air. The image it is on when it is in the air (Its legs extended down below the spider) is shown when the spider "glides" suddenly along the ground.

I am assuming that the spider is supposed to be jumping, but it doesn't. It looks really silly too see the spider suddenly glide along the ground like that. So, is it supposed to jump around? I have tried to change the "Mass" in it's code to see if that might change anything since I assume Mass means how much it weighs. But nothing happens.

If the spider does not jump, other than its Idle, then I think it should be removed for reasons already mentioned. (Not the spider itself, just that one function that makes it glide on the ground)

Contact Icytux about this. I don't know enough about the monster and I wouldn't like messing with it without his input. He might be interested in improving it.

Contacted! Now we wait. :3

[wiki]ThrustThingZ[/wiki] is what make the spider "jump".

Try this and see if it makes it any better for you.

The spider, originally, is made to jump high that it needs quite a vertical space, so when testing, spawn it where there is enough vertical space, like for instance, map 30 of Doom 2. The code above didn't change that aspect though.

If, however, you don't like it and want it to behave just like a normal monster, use this...

Edit: Silly me, forgot to put A_Look in the second piece of code.

That code is already in DECORATE, but I think that is only for when it is in Idle as it is only in the Spawn section.

I think I found out where the jumping comes in though in the code.



I am not sure about this, but judging from the first two lines (jumping) and the (Skullattack) I assume that this is the Jumping attack, where the spider is supposed to jump in the air towards the player. This is when it "glides" across the ground instead of actually jumping in the air.
Perhaps change the (Skullattack) with a thing thrust towards the player? Though I am not sure if that would still do damage or not.

Is this correct? If so, how would one change this part of the code to actually make the spider jump when it uses this attack?

PS: I have tested this enemy in a room with the ceiling ridiculously high and it still does not jump.

I apparently misunderstood what you were trying to say, my bad. I thought you meant the jumping in the "idle" state.


A_Jump* functions are used for state/frame jumps in an actor's decorate code. They are not for actual in-game "jumping". A_SkullAttack is the charging attack performed by lost souls.

You can simulate the effect of a monster jumping forward (or any direction). One thing you can try is using [wiki]A_ChangeVelocity[/wiki].

I made some testing on the spider with that function. So, try this and see if it's any better.
Just replace the A_SkullAttack in the Missile state with that line.

It doesn't seem to do anything, though I am probably doing it wrong lol. I replaced the SkullAttack with the code and added the image rotation sprite so the code would work, but all it does is change to the image and then continue walking. It doesn't jump or move forward (or any other direction for that matter)

This is it so far. I changed some few variables to try and get the z and x axis to do something by raising the number really high.


With the code looking like it currently is, should it be working? Did I set it up correctly? Sorry I am not skilled in DECORATE at all so I can only guess at it.

I also tried to give it the ThrustThingZ before the code to see if maybe that might work... it didn't lol. I was hoping it would jump (ThrustThingZ) THEN do the (ChangeVelocity) to make it go forward.

As I said, just replace A_SkullAttack with A_ChangeVelocity. You don't need to change the frames or their duratiions. After you do that, the code should look like this:

Code:    MNTR V 0 A_Jump (82,20)    MNTR V 0 A_Jump (32,9)    SPI2 U 5 A_Facetarget    TNT1 A 0 A_jumpifcloser(1024,6)    SPI2 E 0 A_Facetarget    MNTR E 0 A_Playsound ("spider/step")    SPI2 U 50 A_ChangeVelocity(25.0, 0, 23.0, 1) // <------    MNTR A 0 A_Playsound ("spider/land")    SPI2 A 1 A_stop

Ooooooh oops. Now it works. Heh sorry about that. ^.^;

Anyway, this is a lot better now. No more simple sliding along the ground. Thank you BlueShadow for this. So should this then be resubmitted to the forms? I'd do it myself, however, if I did I'd still like to have Icytux look at it first. I had not heard anything from him about this. Should I resubmit it and leave it there until he replies to the thread?

No problem.

I think it's better to have his permission first before you do that. Besides, maybe he was intending for the monster to behave like this (charging instead of jumping).

BTW, I've edited the code so not to allow the monster to perform the jump if there isn't enough "room" above its head to achieve full-height jump. So, if you are interested in this "fix", then here is the code:

As usual, just replace the original part of the code with this

Code:    MNTR V 0 A_Jump (82,21)    MNTR V 0 A_Jump (32,10)    SPI2 U 5 A_Facetarget    TNT1 A 0 A_jumpifcloser(1024,7)    TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIf(ceilingz <= 280, 6) // <--- checks if there is enough room to perform the jump    SPI2 E 0 A_Facetarget    MNTR E 0 A_Playsound ("spider/step")    SPI2 U 50 A_ChangeVelocity(25.0, 0, 23.0, 1)    MNTR A 0 A_Playsound ("spider/land")    SPI2 A 1 A_stop