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Memfis

Migrating from DB1 to DB2

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I'm considering finally migrating to Doom Builder 2 since it's like more powerful apparently. But in what ways? Is there some sort of a list of new features I should know about to use DB2 as efficiently as possible?
So far the coolest feature seems to be that you can just draw a line over a bunch of sectors and everything will split up correctly. So making additional detail on the ceiling and stuff like that is now mega easy.

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It's generally just easier to get things working the way you want them to, especially when it comes to splitting lines and sectors.

And then there's all the plugins and stuff too.

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Yes, the plugins. Visplane explorer is specially useful if you're creating a vanilla map bordering with limits.

(Honestly I've never had experience with DB1, as probably many of us, the younger/newer people here too, so can't tell what you're asking.)

(EDITED)

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Oh, and there's the option to show the floor or ceiling textures (floor textures are on by default) instead of the wireframe design of DB1. Alternatively, you can turn wireframe on.

Just a small feature, but it's extremely useful, especially if you're trying to make interesting flat designs (like making sectors which contain the fleshy tentacle flats).

I started mapping with DB2, so I can't tell you if it's much better and I can't be arsed to download it.

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Haha, already managed to crash the program by trying to save a one sector level using DeepBSP.
But it seems pretty cool, I really like being able to align textures by 8 units (not 1), seeing the floor flats is useful too. Curve lindefs stuff looks pretty confusing, like you never know what you'll get until you try, but maybe can get used to it.

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Make Sector mode is a great time-saver. I have it bound to a key so I can quickly switch to and from it. The name is a bit confusing; it's not for drawing sectors, but for un-splitting them, basically (i.e. creating new sector references, I guess). It allows you to un-merge joined sectors by simply clicking inside any enclosed space, or turning a void pillar into a sector. You can also often use it to automatically fix broken sector references.

I could never figure out a quick way to do any of that in DB1, so I'd always end up having to spend a few minutes tracing over every vertex of complex sectors I wanted to unmerge from each other. Even tracing over sectors like that is easier in DB2, though, because it does a better job of snapping to nearby vertices regardless of whether they're on the grid. (And to disable that behavior, disable "Snap to Geometry", but be cautioned that this is also equivalent to disabling "Stitch Vertices" in DB1, so it's something to be done only temporarily when you need to move a vertex really close to another.)

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scifista42 said:

(Honestly I've never had experience with DB1, as probably many of people here too, so can't tell what you're asking.)


You just made me feel really old :( I don't why, btw, but this thread actually made me think of DoomCad6.1 which was what I used before DB.... uugggh, that just sent shivers down my spine! Yikes.

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DoomCAD was great, I loved it back in the days. It was so much easier to use than DEU. Though the 3D preview was all kinds of useless. It also had a really great tutorial.

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Yeah, I never used the preview either. What I still have nightmares about, however, are the countless times I did something "wrong" (read: poor exception handling or something like that) and the f**king program crashed and hours of work was lost.

On topic btw: I haven't changed to DB2 and have no immediate plans for it. DB1 still does everything perfectly for me and I never feel restricted by anything.

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Hmmm, in 3D mode after you select a bunch of floors or walls, is it possible to "unselect" everything by one press? Don't see that in key binds.
Browse textures window is pretty small, why not use the entire screen to show more textures (or bigger textures)? Can I change that?

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Press C to deselect everything. Also, you can maximize the browse textures window using the usual buttons on the upper right. I also have mine set (via the preferences) to use a black backdrop so the textures stand out better against it.

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In preferences, there's an option to give preview size of the texture. In that Interface, there's slider called "Preview image size."

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GZDoombuilder has many more shortkeys which need to be remembered than there are in either DB1 or DB2. To obtain a list of these shortcuts go to the Help menu.



Not all of the 241 actions are bound to keys or combination of keys.

Of course, customizing shortcuts is done through F5 - Controls.

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Thanks for the useful responses, I guess I'll use this thread for various DB2 questions for a while... Like is it possible to change the default textures/flats? Sick of STARTAN2. :)

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Highlight stuff and press 'e' for the kinda hidden edit screen. I like db2 now and have only been using it recently.
You can select all things then select all lines.. now if you move the lines the things won't move, however if you press 'e', all those selected things and lines will move.

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You are in for a treat, Memfis. Once you get used to it and have the keys and other preferences set up to your likings you'll never look back.

The BEST things compared to DB1 IMO, is that you can draw sectors and linedefs directly over other sectors and linedefs and it wont get fucked like in DB1 (badly explained, but maybe you understand)

Also "make sector" tool is fantastic. I use it all the time to fix fucked up sectors and stuff. I remember tracing huuuuge sectors in DB1 just to un-merge them, uuuuugh.

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Memfis said:

Thanks for the useful responses, I guess I'll use this thread for various DB2 questions for a while... Like is it possible to change the default textures/flats? Sick of STARTAN2. :)


GZdoom builder has this feature as I asked for an expansion of the feature myself.

If it helps I created these textures for Zdoom mapping purposes that makes use of the new feature.

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=44792

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Doom Builder 2 crashes much less often than Doom Builder 1, if at all on reasonable maps. And even if you get an error, chances are that it will recover and continue working.

On the flipside I've always found its shape transformation (rotation, scaling, tilting) slower to use than in Doom Builder 1. Also the "Find and Replace Mode" feels heavy as well, and should have been an Edit menu option. Oh well.

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Hm, so is GZDoom Builder, like, even better? Won't it be overloaded with useless options for me if I'm not interested in GZDoom editing (I usually make boom or limit removing maps)?

darkreaver said:

The BEST things compared to DB1 IMO, is that you can draw sectors and linedefs directly over other sectors and linedefs and it wont get fucked like in DB1 (badly explained, but maybe you understand)

Yeah, that's just awesome, I immediately started making a map with mountains, caverns with lots of overlapping small parts, etc. :) Very easy to draw them now.

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This has been my experience with GZDoom Builder, and that's even though I planned to make UDMF maps. Too many options piled on top of each other make for a cluttered interface. DB2 looks clean, GZDB just drove me mad when I tried it one or two years ago. Which is surprising because there weren't *that* many differences. Shows it doesn't take a lot to go from intuitive to cumbersome, when it comes to UIs.

But if you're just starting you might as well use GZDB right away before you get used to DB2. Without any comparison skewing your perceptions you might just like it right away, and if you don't, that'll be the time to try DB2.

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gggmork said:

Highlight stuff and press 'e' for the kinda hidden edit screen.

It's not hidden in any way, it's right there in the "modes" menu. But I guess nobody looks in there, since all the usual modes have the keys as in most (all?) editors (i.e. S for sectors, L for lines etc.)

There are some hidden features though, like entering relative values (for example entering "++64" as ceiling height for a sector will raise the ceiling of all selected sectors by 64 units) or creating a void when holding Ctrl while drawing lines.

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The one thing that bugs me with DB2 is drawing a line or sector where all the vertices need to be attached mid line. If I try to draw from a line it mostly selects the line (or sector if drawing in sector mode). This is something that I assume I am doing wrong but the work around of drawing from void or use line mode inside a sector has never bothered me enough to find the correct way. Are you supposed to put a vertex in first or something?

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Not sure if I understood you correctly but does selecting lines mode, pointing at a line and pressing INSERT solve your problem?

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Haha, yes then Memfis! I thought I was the only one who used insert. If you look at Chubzdoomer's Youtube tutorial of lifts (I think), you'll see he overcomplicates things by telling you to draw the line separately, then switch to vertices mode and drag the unconnected vertice to the wall.

Another thing (I'm not sure if it was in DB1) is the awesome ability to pre-make doors by selecting the desired door sector and holding Shift + D.

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I miss the big bright messages appearing when you do something in 3D mode. In DB2 you have to actually move your eyes to the bottom left corner of the screen to read them, while in DB1 your eyes can read them kind of automatically, if you know what I mean. These messages are pretty useful imo, it's good to know that you changed the sector brightness to 128 and not to 112, for example. So... is it possible to enable the classic big messages?

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??? How the hell do you flip/rotate anything? I tried assigning key combinations to Flip Selection Horizontally/Vertically but they don't do anything?
???

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Memfis said:

??? How the hell do you flip/rotate anything? I tried assigning key combinations to Flip Selection Horizontally/Vertically but they don't do anything?
???

Select the stuff you want to edit, then press E to enter edit mode. A tab appears on the side of the screen that lets you flip, scale, rotate, etc. your selection.

There's a picture of it in action at the bottom of the first post in this thread.

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Thanks Melon! But is it possible to bind any of these actions to keys? At least flipping would be very useful for me.

More questions/stuff:

* I noticed that DB2 does autoalignment stuff sometimes, like I have everything at 0, then I move or add a few vertices and then I notice that some walls aren't at 0. Most of the time I find it helpful: often it seems to do exactly what I planned to do anyway but automatically. But sometimes I get ugly alignments that I don't want. How does all this stuff work exactly? Currently I have "When splitting linedef manually: Duplicate texture coordinates" in the options so I wonder where the non-zero values come from even when I don't align anything at all manually.

* Use STEP1 texture somewhere -> STEP1 flat appears in the used flats lol?

* I miss DB1's thing selection in 3D mode. It had a "thing browser" just like the texture browser and for me it was much faster/easier to use. Also in DB1 I could delete objects in 3D mode, is it possible in DB2?

* In "floor textures" mode (as opposed to wireframe) the grid is a bit hard to see on some flats (FLAT5_4 is a good example), I wonder if something could be done about this. Maybe borrow the idea from Elastomania, where black and white dots are used for the timer (depending on the color of the background): http://i.imgur.com/46i9O6x.png (look at the top right corner)

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purist said:

The one thing that bugs me with DB2 is drawing a line or sector where all the vertices need to be attached mid line. If I try to draw from a line it mostly selects the line (or sector if drawing in sector mode). This is something that I assume I am doing wrong but the work around of drawing from void or use line mode inside a sector has never bothered me enough to find the correct way. Are you supposed to put a vertex in first or something?


I'll give that a try, thanks Memfis. I am very good at living with minor annoyances at the expense of looking for a simple solution :-)

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