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DarthMaul
Newbie

Posts: 3
Registered: 04-10

Does XWE have configuration settings for TNT: Eviloution and The Plutonia Experiment? I just noticed when viewing the maps for TNT Eviloution that some flats were not displaying right in the program when TNT.WAD or PLUTONIA.WAD were loaded. What if somebody wants to use a flat or texture from Final Doom in a custom PWAD? For instance, FLAT20 from TNT Map 05 didn't show up correctly in the room with the blue key. This is a nuisance.

Last edited by DarthMaul on 04-26-10 at 17:58

04-26-10 16:58 #

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myk

Posts: 14809
Registered: 04-02

Loaded as a PWAD? You might want to try loading them as IWADs. Unfortunately, XWE doesn't seem to have a way of changing the IWAD while running, but you can edit the xwe.ini file:

code:(TOOLS)
;
; Feel free to change these
; XWE will ask for location or find the file automatically
;
;MainWAD,D:\Doom\,DOOM.WAD
MainWAD,D:\Doom\c\,plutonia.WAD

04-26-10 19:03 #

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DarthMaul
Newbie

Posts: 3
Registered: 04-10

Even if TNT.WAD is loaded as an IWAD, it doesn't help. Some of the flat names in TNT are being misread by XWE. I haven't checked Plutonia, but I'm assuming the same thing. For instance, the flat "LAVA1" on Map 06 is showing up as "LAVA1 _8". If the wad were to get saved, it would cause the flat to be replaced by alternating grey and white squares when used in ZDoom, and would cause Doom95 to crash. Of course, if the name of the flat is renamed to what it shows up as in WadAuthor, then the offending flat shows up correctly in XWE.

04-26-10 20:25 #

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myk

Posts: 14809
Registered: 04-02

Yeah, I see what you mean. I believe XWE expects the space after a lump name to be blank, yet other tools sometimes write junk there which the DOOM engine does not really care about. Presumably, this is not an issue with id Software's two IWADs and many user PWADs, but might be in some fan-made sets (including TNT).

You'll have to resort to another WAD editing tool, I'm afraid. You could try SlumpEd, Slade3 (I think there's a beta available), Deepsea shareware, or even the old WinTex or NWT.

04-26-10 20:42 #

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Quasar
Moderator

Posts: 5154
Registered: 08-00

DarthMaul said:
Even if TNT.WAD is loaded as an IWAD, it doesn't help. Some of the flat names in TNT are being misread by XWE. I haven't checked Plutonia, but I'm assuming the same thing. For instance, the flat "LAVA1" on Map 06 is showing up as "LAVA1 _8". If the wad were to get saved, it would cause the flat to be replaced by alternating grey and white squares when used in ZDoom, and would cause Doom95 to crash. Of course, if the name of the flat is renamed to what it shows up as in WadAuthor, then the offending flat shows up correctly in XWE.

As opposed to being misread, it may have already corrupted your IWAD's directory. It wouldn't be the first time it happened.

I would never ever let XWE touch the "live" copies of any of my IWADs. Feed it a backup copy in case it decides to eat it alive. Also be sure any PWADs you let it examine have been backed up properly. Never depend on the idea that you didn't save anything means it didn't write to the file - it is known to write to files for no logical reason.

04-26-10 20:44 #

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Gez
Why don't I have a custom title by now?!

Posts: 9159
Registered: 07-07

Heh. So the infamous XWE+SLumpEd combo bug is also an XWE+DEUTEX combo bug!

To make the explanation short, here's what happens. XWE thinks a lump name (whether in the WAD directory or in the PNAMES lump) is a full 8 characters. Whereas in reality, they may be shorter than that, and then a 0x00 is used to mark the end. But XWE doesn't accept that and changes the 0x00 into a space (if I'm not mistaken), which means that the name doesn't stop there but continue to its full length, which means that if there are any garbage character after the terminator, they become part of the name.

And since XWE has the genius idea of constantly overwriting all the files that are open with what it thinks it should contain, even the IWADs, this screws up TNT and Plutonia completely. (They were built with DEUTEX, you can find a _DEUTEX_ lump in them as a proof.)

How you can solve this:
-Open the faulty IWADs in a hex editor.
-Search (as ASCII string) for a known troublesome flat name. It should be towards the end since usually directories are written at the end, but it could be anywhere.
-Overwrite with 00 in the hex part all the non-character values that are after a flat name shorter than 8 character. Like for LAVA1, you will see 4C 41 56 41 31 00 5F 38. 4C 41 56 41 31 corresponds to LAVA1, 00 is the terminator, 5F 38 are the garbage characters, turn them into 00 as well. Beware not to overwrite values that shouldn't be overwritten, though!

That said -- looking at TNT.wad in a hex editor, this thing is horribly dirty. And by horribly, I mean abominably and terribly. This doesn't even look valid. Dirtectory entries are supposed to be 16-byte long, and therefore to align nicely with a standard hex display. This is just weird.

04-26-10 20:52 #

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Quasar
Moderator

Posts: 5154
Registered: 08-00

Gez said:
That said -- looking at TNT.wad in a hex editor, this thing is horribly dirty. And by horribly, I mean abominably and terribly. This doesn't even look valid. Dirtectory entries are supposed to be 16-byte long, and therefore to align nicely with a standard hex display. This is just weird.

Very few wad files are aligned, and this is unfortunate for many reasons, not the least of which is the efficiency of reading data out of them.

Most existing wad utilities write the header, lumps, and directory back-to-back with no padding for alignment. Even Doom Builder 2 does this.

04-26-10 23:04 #

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myk

Posts: 14809
Registered: 04-02

Quasar said:
As opposed to being misread, it may have already corrupted your IWAD's directory. It wouldn't be the first time it happened.

Maybe it did in some way, although this phenomenon in particular doesn't require any meddling from it, as I experience it yet have disabled the XWE auto-backup feature and keep read-only IWADs.

Recently I made a small fix for Scythe X and, being a regular user of XWE for various tasks, I ran into this issue because it was built with SlumpEd. I had to resort to DeuTex, as SlumpEd itself always crashes on my system.

I would never ever let XWE touch the "live" copies of any of my IWADs. Feed it a backup copy in case it decides to eat it alive. Also be sure any PWADs you let it examine have been backed up properly. Never depend on the idea that you didn't save anything means it didn't write to the file - it is known to write to files for no logical reason.

The auto-backup option in the latest XWE beta messes with WADs every time you open them. I keep meaning to make a sticky post of all the known XWE glitches and complications and any measures to take but it might require some extra research (at least among the relevant posts already made.) XWE has a good number of decent features and an acceptable interface, which can attract users, but one must be mindful of its bugs.

04-27-10 00:20 #

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DarthMaul
Newbie

Posts: 3
Registered: 04-10

As of today, I have decided to not use XWE for any WAD files, and also because of TNT and Plutonia. Of course, I already have backup copies of those files, so I'm all set. I've switched to Doom Builder instead.

The primary reason I had switched to XWE initially was because of a bug in WadAuthor's nodebuilder. WadAuthor would create an invisible pit on maps where there was a raised sector over a lower floor, like the '0' in Doom II Map 11. XWE does not have this bug, but the malicious bugs that XWE has have made me stop using it for the most part.

04-27-10 04:48 #

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GreyGhost
a ghost... only grey

Posts: 6867
Registered: 01-08

Have you tried using an external node builder with WadAuthor?

Quasar said:
As opposed to being misread, it may have already corrupted your IWAD's directory.

I don't think directory corruption's the issue here. A quick scan through the SECTOR lumps of TNT.WAD v1.91 turned up padded flat names for maps 6, 7, 9, 16 ,19, 26, 29 and 30 plus lower-case names in Map11. While I don't know if it's a map editor or node builder that's responsible for this issue, XWE appears to be the only wad editor that's affected - not that I'd consider using it as a map editor.

04-27-10 12:56 #

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