Sector specials

Doom sector specials

In the Doom format maps, these are the same as the sector types used by Boom with the following four new specials:

21 Light_Phased

22 LightSequenceStart

23 LightSequenceSpecial1

24 LightSequenceSpecial2

Note that Doom format maps for Heretic do not have access to these specials since Heretic features sector types up to 51.

Hexen sector specials

In Hexen format and UDMF maps, the sector specials available are:

1 Light_Phased

2 LightSequenceStart

3 LightSequenceSpecial1

4 LightSequenceSpecial2

These specials deal with phased lighting ("moving lights"). Two different ways to go about doing phased lighting are: automatic, or by-hand. The automatic method is (obviously) more convenient, but the by-hand method is more flexible. Light_Phased is the by-hand special. Place it on a sector, then set the sector's lightlevel to a phase index (0-63). As you place the special on nearby sectors, increment the index for each sector.

Or, to use the LightSequence specials, just place the LightSequenceStart special on a sector. Then, for each additional sector, alternate between LightSequenceSpecial1 & LightSequenceSpecial2. The resulting phased lighting will appear to move toward the sector marked with LightSequenceStart.

For instance, if you wanted phased lighting to flow up a staircase, you could either place Light_Phased on each step, and change the phase index (lightlevel) accordingly. Or, you could place LightSequenceStart on the bottom step (and set that step's lightlevel to something mid-ranged), and then let the game calculate the phase indices for each step by placing the LightSequenceSpecial specials on all other steps. Note that for the LightSequenceSpecial specials to have proper lighting, set their lightlevels to zero, which causes it to use the previous sector's lightlevel. Hence, that "nice value" which was placed on the first step will iterate through all the other steps. If a step's lightlevel is not zero, then that value will filter down to all other steps after it.

26 Stairs_Special1

27 Stairs_Special2

These specials are used by the stair building line specials Stairs_BuildDown, Stairs_BuildUp, Stairs_BuildDownSync, and Stairs_BuildUpSync. The are not used by the Generic_Stairs and Stairs_BuildUpDoom specials, which follow the normal Doom convention for building stairs.

To build stairs using any of the four stair-builders listed above, set the first sector's type to Stairs_Special1. Then alternate between Stairs_Special2 and Stairs_Special1 for the remaining sectors you want in the staircase.

40 Wind east weak

41 Wind east medium

42 Wind east strong

43 Wind north weak

44 Wind north medium

45 Wind north strong

46 Wind south weak

47 Wind south medium

48 Wind south strong

49 Wind west weak

50 Wind west medium

51 Wind west strong

These are Heretic's wind specials. They affect the player and anything that has the WINDTHRUST flag set. Most of Heretic's projectiles are affected by wind.

65 dLight_Flicker

66 dLight_StrobeFast

67 dLight_StrobeSlow

68 dLight_Strobe_Hurt

69 dDamage_Hellslime

71 dDamage_Nukage

72 dLight_Glow

74 dSector_DoorCloseIn30

75 dDamage_End

76 dLight_StrobeSlowSync

77 dLight_StrobeFastSync

78 dSector_DoorRaiseIn5Mins

These are the same sector specials as Doom, except that they are numbered beginning at 65 instead of 1.

79 Sector_LowFriction

Lowers the friction in the sector to create icy terrain.

80 dDamage_SuperHellslime

81 dLight_FireFlicker

These are the same sector specials as Doom, except that they are numbered beginning at 65 instead of 1.

82 dDamage_LavaWimpy

83 dDamage_LavaHefty

84 dScroll_EastLavaDamage

These are from Heretic. Unlike Doom's damage specials the radiation suit does not protect from damage by these sector types. The damage from these sectors is of type 'fire' so if a player has a burning death sequence it will be used. Furthermore, each time these specials inflict damage a terrain splash will be created.

85 hDamage_Sludge

This is also from Heretic; however it works like the Doom damage specials: slime damage, radiation suit protects from it.

87 Sector_Outside

Set the sector to always use outside fog regardless of ceiling texture.

89 GLSector_NoSkyDraw

Prevents drawing by the GL renderer of the sky above or below the sector. This can be used to fake some 3D floor effects by letting geometry be drawn behind what would normally be a column of sky, similar to the effect used often in Doom 64 (for example, the hovering pods in the start room of Staging Area).

90 GLSector_Skybox

Tell the GL renderer that the sector is a skybox, causing it to change texture clamping mode. Useful for cube skyboxes created in map geometry (rather than through GLDEFS by preventing thin lines caused by texture tiling from appearing between the seams of the box.

105 sDamage_Hellslime

115 Damage_InstantDeath

116 sDamage_SuperHellslime

Strife's sector specials. The instant death effect kills the player instantly. The other two damage types don't start hurting the player immediately. Instead they accumulate a certain amount of 'poisoning' and when a certain threshold is reached they start hurting the player. Such damage infliction does not stop when the player leaves the sector. It will continue a little longer.

118 Scroll_StrifeCurrent

Carries the player in a direction determined by the sector's tag. There are better means to achieve this so use of this special in new maps is not recommended.

195 Sector_Hidden

Hides the sector from the textured automap display. In the Universal Doom Map Format, this can be set instead with the "hidden" flag.

196 Sector_Heal

Heals the player slowly up to 100 health points. This was originally added to allow playing the Caverns of Darkness mod.

197 Light_OutdoorLightning

198 Light_IndoorLightning1

199 Light_IndoorLightning2

Set lightning properties for sectors without a sky ceiling

200 Sky2

If this sector contains a sky the secondary sky will be used.

201 Scroll_North_Slow

202 Scroll_North_Medium

203 Scroll_North_Fast

204 Scroll_East_Slow

205 Scroll_East_Medium

206 Scroll_East_Fast

207 Scroll_South_Slow

208 Scroll_South_Medium

209 Scroll_South_Fast

210 Scroll_West_Slow

211 Scroll_West_Medium

212 Scroll_West_Fast

213 Scroll_NorthWest_Slow

214 Scroll_NorthWest_Medium

215 Scroll_NorthWest_Fast

216 Scroll_NorthEast_Slow

217 Scroll_NorthEast_Medium

218 Scroll_NorthEast_Fast

219 Scroll_SouthEast_Slow

220 Scroll_SouthEast_Medium

221 Scroll_SouthEast_Fast

222 Scroll_SouthWest_Slow

223 Scroll_SouthWest_Medium

224 Scroll_SouthWest_Fast

These specials scroll the sector's floor in the direction and speed indicated and also carry anything on it in the same direction. These are intended mainly for compatibility with Hexen levels because they also exhibit the odd Hexen behavior of carrying things faster than they scroll the floor.

225 Carry_East5

226 Carry_East10

227 Carry_East25

228 Carry_East30

229 Carry_East35

The east carry specials will also scroll the floor texture.

230 Carry_North5

231 Carry_North10

232 Carry_North25

233 Carry_North30

234 Carry_North35

235 Carry_South5

236 Carry_South10

237 Carry_South25

238 Carry_South30

239 Carry_South35

240 Carry_West5

241 Carry_West10

242 Carry_West25

243 Carry_West30

244 Carry_West35

These carry specials from Heretic do not scroll the floor texture.

Sector flags

Generalized flags

The following flags can be logically ored into the value for further effects. Note that in a Doom-format map, the bits are downshifted three places: Boom uses bits 5 to 9, not 8 to 12. This prevents from having more than 16 normal types of sectors, therefore in the UDMF and Hexen map formats ZDoom pushed them away.

Boom		Hexen/UDMF		Effect
Bits	Value	Bits	Value
5	32	8	256	2/5ths damage per 31 ticks
6	64	9	512	5/10ths damage per 31 ticks
5+6	96	8+9	768	10/20ths damage per 31 ticks
7	128	10	1024	Sector is a secret
8	256	11	2048	Friction is enabled for this sector
9	512	12	4096	Wind/current/pushers/pullers are enabled for this sector

True flags

These flags are used as normal flags rather than being inserted into the sector's special effect number. They can only be set directly on a UDMF map. They can also be changed by the Sector_ChangeFlags action.

Identifier constant	Value	UDMF name	Description
SECF_SILENT	1	silent	Actors do not emit any sound within this sector.
SECF_NOFALLINGDAMAGE	2	nofallingdamage	Falling damage is disabled on this sector's floor.
SECF_FLOORDROP	4	dropactors	All actors standing on this floor will remain on it when it lowers very fast.
SECF_NORESPAWN	8	norespawn	Players cannot respawn in this sector.
SECF_FRICTION	16	N/A	Friction is enabled on the sector.
SECF_PUSH	32	N/A	Pushers are enabled on the sector.
SECF_SILENTMOVE	64	N/A	Sector's movement makes no sound.
SECF_DMGTERRAINFX	128	damageterraineffect	A terrain splash is spawned at the end of each damage interval.
SECF_DMGENDGODMODE	256	N/A	Getting damaged by the sector ends god mode.
SECF_DMGENDLEVEL	512	N/A	Being in the sector ends the level when health goes below 10 points.
SECF_DMGHAZARD	1024	damagehazard	Changes the damage model of the sector to Strife's delayed damage.
SECF_NOATTACK	2048	noattack	Monsters in this sector do not attack.