Noclip mode
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In some video games, no clipping is a state that gives the player an almost "ethereal" quality, allowing them to float through walls, ceilings, floors, even other entities (people/objects that can be affected by input from the player, like a breakable window, a bookcase able to fall over, a flying baseball, etc..). It is typically activated by entering a cheat code.
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[edit] Description
The term was popularised by the games of id Software in the 1990s. The name is derived from the command traditionally used to activate it: typing "noclip" in the game's command PC game console. The cheat is commonplace, particularly in action-oriented first-person shooters such as Quake or Half-Life and in scroller games like Sonic the Hedgehog. The first instance of the "NoClip" code probably came from id Software's popular game series, Commander Keen.
Noclip modes (and other similar modes) often originate as a means by which developers test games. If a new feature is implemented in a game but requires play to determine whether it works, it saves time if a developer can quickly reach the relevant portion of the game by avoiding death or by "flying" over time-consuming regions of the game environment. This source of God modes often manifests itself in the route by which players activate these modes - for example, running a game with a development mode flag.
The equivalent code for a given game may also turn off clipping, but this is not the reason why the player can walk through walls. The code turns off collision detection, an entirely separate toggle. The code generally does not turn off back-face culling, which is why the other side of a one-sided wall is not drawn when you use "no collsion" mode to walk through it. It is unclear why id Software chose to call a "nocollide" code a "noclip" code, unless the code also turned off clipping, and that was the (developer-intended) point to the cheat: to test the system when everything in the level was being drawn at once, and also remove collision so that one could quickly inspect the level for problems.
Some developers have continued in the fashion of id Software, and refer to this cheat as "clipping" even when it only turns off collision detection, perhaps due to user familiarity with id's code. Other developers call the toggle by its proper name.
Generally speaking, walls and objects have no "substance" unless advanced in-game physics is being used. Collision detection refers to the intersection of a wall or object with the player's avatar. If there is an intersection (collision is on), the game stops the player's motion, as if they had bumped into the intersecting object. Otherwise, the avatar will not interact with the object and will pass through it. This is a relatively simple method of implementing in-game physics with walls.
No-clipping can conflict with other elements of the game. For instance, in Duke Nukem 3d, having noclip and walking outside the level area causes death--and if the player has god mode activated the game will be left in an infinite loop or crash due to the way god mode was implemented.
[edit] Benefits of no clipping
A benefit of noclip is that it allows players to access areas that might otherwise be inaccessible.
In the case of Doom, or Perfect Dark, for instance, there are numerous rooms that are not linked directly to any part of the game and are used only to hold monsters or people until a transporter retrieves them. The NPCs in these rooms can also be used for cut scenes or to be moved after an event and act as reinforcements.
In other games such as No One Lives Forever or AvP 2, a variation of Noclip allows the player to see characters and areas that are not intended to be accessed otherwise, including "set" areas used for various cut scenes. These Sets are often half textured with a "NoRender", "null" or "NODRAW" material so as to optimise it, as the camera or player's view would/could never see from that angle anyway. To the player, the outer wall will appear invisible, and the portents of the room in question will be clearly viewable. These textures are solid, whilst being still invisible. This method is also employed as a "player boundary" in normal gameplay, a "mysterious" invisible boudary holding the player from one place against another.
[edit] Uses of no clipping
This is a list of what you can do when you use Noclip:
- Cheating, clearing the level/game in an amazing time score.
- Getting past a severe game-stopping bug or glitch that would render the user unable to do anything except restart the game.
- In Game designing and debugging, a method of finding bugs, glitches or errors in map quickly, often past areas which consumes a lot of time to pass through.
- In multiplayer games, a method of sneaking up or hiding inside solid (and not hollow) objects or just outside the maps to hunt down or win against other players, which is usually frowned upon.
- Seeing parts of the world not normally accessible in normal ways, including Easter Eggs.
- Seeing what it would be like to leave the boundaries of the game's worlds.
- Seeing what lies beyond a "Loading Screen", in depth without triggering the Screen.
[edit] "Hall of mirrors" effect
In classic Doom and similar games, going outside of the level results in a Hall of mirrors effect, whereby the game engine does not have any part of the level to render so just repeats the last rendered part over and over again.
Typing "gl_clear 1" in Quake engine games is a way to empty the buffer of the image of what was last rendered. With this setting, a magenta color is drawn outside of the world, clearing the screen and aiding navigation when outside of the level.
[edit] Other instances of no clipping
There are bugs in games such as Sonic Adventure 2 and We ♥ Katamari at which the character's shadow appears on all floors below the character instead of only the floor immediately beneath the character.
This can also happen in Half-Life engine games, where if a mapmaker has not set the correct properties on a floor (disable shadowing, etc), the shadows of the players above will show through. This is not helpful in the least for players in upper rooms trying to hide or avoid detection from players below them.
In the original Metroid for the NES, there is a secret world that can be found by taking advantage of an in-game glitch involving bomb jumps and an open door. The area where the player ends up is similar to spaces you can find using a Noclip code, in that it stores sprites that were not used in the final game.
In Mega Man and Mega Man 2, time attacks of the games exhibit "shortcuts" in which glitches allow the Blue Bomber to no-clip through several screens worth of walls at a time after scrolling through areas.
In Rakion you used to be able to go into the wall with a glitch that is used when transforming into chaos mode. However, a recent patch by softnyx has resolved this glitch.
In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for the Xbox, inputting a code will trigger a special message reading, "Punch it, Chewie!" While not a true noclip, pressing the first-person view button twice gives the player full camera control until they press it again.
