NEWDOOR.WAD shows a new way of making transparent doors.  

I found that traditional techniques (or at least my understanding of them)
for producing effects like transparent doors don't work so well when using 
the built in nodebuilders of WinDeu5.21 and DMapEdit4.11.  With these 
nodebuilders I got mega-hom in the doortracks.  I found a workaround that 
produces an effect equivalent to the effect I get using WARM on a 
transparent door produced by the traditional method.  However, in earlier 
experiments I learned that the WinDeu5.24 and DMapEdit4.11 nodebuilders 
produce perfect nodes for certain light effects whereas the other 
nodebuilders don't, so I decided to try a similar technique to produce 
transparent doors (since there are some similarities in method).  
It worked.  I got perfect transparent doors. 

In all transparent doors that I have seen to now, when the door rises you 
see a flash of HOM as the door passes your line of vision, and the view
from beneath leaves something to be desired.  Also, these doors produce
steady HOM when seen from below, as when seen from steps leading 
up to them.  I've found a fairly easy way to eliminate this bad side-effect.
However, the method works only with  the WinDeu5.24 and DMapEdit4.11 
nodebuilders - with the other nodebuilders the result is no different than 
the traditional transp door, complete with flash of HOM when the door 
opens and steady HOM when seen from below.  Using the WinDeu and DME 
nodebuilders these side-effects are 100% eliminated and the door can 
be put anywhere.

NEWDOOR.WAD has two otherwise identical levels built by different 
nodebuilders:
MAP01 = DMapEdit4.11
MAP02 = WARM1.4

P1 start is in the west facing the first door.  This door is built 
the same way I've always made 'traditional' transparent doors.  These doors
are all quite thick wide to show off all characteristics.   The second 
door is my first attempt to get around the mega-hom in the doortracks 
problem with tradional transp doors using DME nodebuilder (which you can 
see in the first door of MAP01).  It works to an extent - I think the 
effect is equivalent to the traditional result.  The third door is done 
with the new technique and is, IMO, perfect.  There are steps leading 
down from it so you can view from below. No HOM.  Of course, being that
wide the door looks and acts more like a cage than a door...

When you pass to MAP02 (IDCLEV02) you'll see that there is no hom in the
doortrack of the first door, and the view from below (as the door rises) 
is quite different. Likewise the view from below is different for the 
second door.  You'll see that the third door is little different than the 
1st or 2nd.  When the door rises there's a flash of HOM and the view from
the steps shows steady HOM.

The method for producing these new transparent doors might have a 
redundancy or two in it.  Once I got it working I decided to hell with 
further experiments attempting to simplify an already fairly simple method.
This kind of experiment is maddening enough, with all the millions of 
details that I always seem to forget about until I'm already in DOOM...

Sept11/95

Drake O'Brien