Modding Doom on the go

I'm often in the situation where I'm going out but I keep thinking how to advance on my megawad project. Currently I really can only do it home, stuck to my Windows desktop. As I'm typing this on my iPad, right now I'm imagining an iPad map editor, where with a bit of effort I'd move things and vertices with my thumbs... But there are complications about this: Apple's gatekeeper policy possibly discouraging "strange" projects like this, and the need for app intercommunication (wad editor, map editor, dehacked editor, game). Anyway, there's Android too and it has no issues with that, though currently I use my iPad for a tablet.

Just to pose a question: what would you find most attractive about Dooming on your touchscreen device? I think a wad lump manager with cloud storage (e.g. Dropbox) compatibility would be easy. I'd love to port Slade, but what if I have to get rid of wxWidgets in order to do it... Or maybe not?

But honestly, most people just want a map editor...

There's also the map editor for OSX issue. Maybe it's best to just improve Eureka to be as good as Doom Builder...

I looked for a portable editor myself a while ago, my search came up with nothing but debates on Android builders and multiple different Maes threads (Where I did learn a lot of interesting things... Except none of them was what I wanted to know).

I imagine running an old DOS Doom editor on the good old portable DOSBox could satisfy the need to map but it possibly couldn't produce maps you would want to have in the megawad.

I am honestly unsure of any further methods to edit Doom on a portable device.

I'm usually sitting at my computer for about 4 hours a week at the most, with occasional "fuck it" days that happen about once a month where I get to binge on doom for about 8 hours all day.

its a major reason I don't get much mapping done. In my experience I have the best luck drawing doom maps on paper. It keeps me from getting distracted from designing the core layout of the map when I finally sit down in front of the editor. Jotting down notes of maps to look at for inspiration, or gameplay ideas, pictures, etc.

I'm honestly surprised there isn't a DoomBuilder app for smartphones.

^

That would be rather fun to have for my iphone.

This seems like a neat idea, but I feel that in practice it would be quite kludgy to work with. Testing would be hell since any source ports on iOS or Android would probably be out of date.

If someone could come up with a really innovative new way of mapping (think trendhbroom for quakeone) on a touchscreen then it might be neat to have a tool just for building geometry on the go.

I wonder if anyone has looked into an HTML based editor...could run it on any platform then.

WadAuthor uses a pretty simple interface.

You right click to generate a sector, then you split lines and drag vertices around until you mold the sector into what you want. I could imagine a UI where you woulc double tap the screen to create the sector, using your finger to drag vertices around, and holding your finger between a line for a second to split it.

However, I'd think editing a sector's properties or thing properties might be a bit cumbersome what with all the tiny fields you have to check and uncheck, or type things into. There's also a lot of information you need to see, like the lengths of lines to get accurate measurements, light values, height values, floor and ceiling flats, sector effects. Which is a lot to fit on a tiny screen without obscuring the canvass and other buttons for changing editing modes, etc.

I'm starting to think an iPhone DB app would be cumbersome. I think it would only work on a tablet.

mikeo007 said:

I wonder if anyone has looked into an HTML based editor...could run it on any platform then.

Wouldn't it be possible to make a Doom level editor using HTML5? I mean, you can draw on a canvas, and apparently also load (and save?) files.

boris said:

Wouldn't it be possible to make a Doom level editor using HTML5? I mean, you can draw on a canvas, and apparently also load (and save?) files.

There are a lot of HTML5 / javascript image editors out there, so I don't see why a level editor would be any different.

I wish I could do this too, but with my MacBook. I would love, love, LOVE to build doom maps on road trips.

Grub said:

I wish I could do this too, but with my MacBook. I would love, love, LOVE to build doom maps on road trips.

There must be map editors for Macs you can use. If you can install Windows on your Macbook you're golden. That's how I used my olde Macbook. :p

Mapping on a tablet sounds like it would suck. I have a nice little laptop with Slade installed, but it still sucks unless I use a mouse.

Linguica said:

There are a lot of HTML5 / javascript image editors out there, so I don't see why a level editor would be any different.

It's totally possible. I've messed around with a few (very tiny) test things to this end but what's really necessary is a good standard library for WAD/Doom Level writing/reading in a few languages to make things easier. So far there's MTrop's fantastic Java libraries and various bits and pieces in the Slade and Doombuilder source (c++(?), c# respectively) but none of these languages are great for the web.

Just found this, which can compile c# .net applications to (relatively) readable javascript. https://github.com/sq/JSIL

It's a very interesting idea, and while still a very big project, makes the idea of doombuilder on the web entirely possible.