Starting fresh, need help.

My friend and I have decided to work on a Megawad together, I'm gonna start fresh so we both use the same programs that way we can transfer the maps between PC's without issue.

We plan on making levels with multi floor areas, where rooms will be stacked on each other. I made a post about this recently and they said Doom Legacy, or ZDoom would be a good editor for that.

Is there a difference between ZDoom and GZDoom? and i've never heard of Doom Legacy before, I have been using ZDoom should I change to something better? Is there something better?

So many questions

Also, the last map I made I got a lot of complaints about using the vanilla textures, are there texture packs out there that are better/cooler/more current?

Zandor said:

Also, the last map I made I got a lot of complaints about using the vanilla textures, are there texture packs out there that are better/cooler/more current?

Personally speaking... I don't see anything wrong with stock textures. The good side of them is that you will ensure a artistic consistency, since they are all created by the same person (Adrian Carmack).

GZDoom is essentially ZDoom with OpenGL rendering that allows for some additional effects. Better 3D floor support, dynamic lights, etc.

I don't recommend Doom Legacy.

Noiser said:

The good side of them is that you will ensure a artistic consistency, since they are all created by the same person (Adrian Carmack).

Stock textures are anything but consistent. Although you could say they're consistent in their inconsistency.

Da Werecat said:

Stock textures are anything but consistent. Although you could say they're consistent in their inconsistency.

Well, they have thematic differences, but the drawing style is pretty consistent to me. The only exception would be the textures created by photographs (that are consistent in your own group anyway).

It depends upon what platform you intend to run upon. Use a port you are comfortable with.
Doom Legacy is developed on a Linux system, and may have some issues with the latest Win OS. It also does not cater to the I-don't-want-to-read-any-docs user.
(see http://www.doomlegacy.sourceforge.net)

You may want to read the Level design concepts document.
http://doomlegacy.sourceforge.net/hosted/level_concept_r2.zip

For editing ZDoom maps, I recommend getting GZDoom Builder and SLADE 3.

Zandor said:

We plan on making levels with multi floor areas, where rooms will be stacked on each other. I made a post about this recently and they said Doom Legacy, or ZDoom would be a good editor for that.

Be aware that 3D floors can be kinda tedious to stack, even though it has been greatly simplified by things like Boris' 3D floor plugin for GZDoom Builder. Depending on how ambitious exactly you are, it can be much simpler to cheat by putting each floor in a different area and using silent teleports to create for the player the illusion of seamless movement.

Gez makes a good point.

Stacking rooms on each other is not directly supported. You will have to mess around with 3D a fair bit, becoming rather tedious. It's all very possible though, however to my knowledge 3 rooms or more stacked directly on top of each other has never been done before (I could be wrong).

Also if you do make several rooms stack and plan to create a few triggers, particularly with linedefs you may run into problems. For example, placing a line to activate a script or action in one room is likely to activate within all layers. So unless you do some clever script on/off tricks you're likely to have every trigger activate in the one room. Creating slopes would also be very tedious and may become difficult to comprehend in the editor.

Chezza said:

Gez makes a good point.

Stacking rooms on each other is not directly supported. You will have to mess around with 3D a fair bit, becoming rather tedious. It's all very possible though, however to my knowledge 3 rooms or more stacked directly on top of each other has never been done before (I could be wrong).

I've done it in my Doomworld Mega Project map. Having said that, I've been working on that map for the past three or four months (off and on) and I still haven't finished it. Even using Boris' awesome plugin, progress can be slow going. Just detailing multi-storey buildings can become very finicky. In my opinion, a magawad with lots of 3D sector usage is a little too ambitious, especially if the author(s) have little to no experience with (G)ZDoom.

Pretty sure Paranoid features an area with three or four levels of offices stacked upon one another thanks to 3D floors. But Paranoid isn't quite the level of ambition I'd recommend to a beginner...

Stacking is simplified with UDMF supporting multiple tags for a sector. You can cut down the number of dummy sectors you need. SLADE doesn't seem to support that feature yet in its map editor.

In any case, a megawad is a very ambitious thing to plan even if you've made a few maps before. I'd start with a smaller project.

So it's been a while since I did any of this stuff, but I just looked and i've been using Doom Builder to make my levels, and I think chocolate doom to play them.

Everyone here is talking about ZDoom, so i downloaded ZDoom, but that just lets you play the game. I thought ZDoom, or GZDoom was a builder? Really confused right now, sorry for the total newbness but I just need an explanation.

ZDoom and GZDoom are source ports. They allow you to play the game on modern systems.

For level editing, there is something called GZDoom Builder, which can be considered the spiritual succesor to Doom Builder. Despite the name, it can be used to map for any major source port.

Hope that helps.

Zandor said:

So it's been a while since I did any of this stuff, but I just looked and i've been using Doom Builder to make my levels, and I think chocolate doom to play them.

Everyone here is talking about ZDoom, so i downloaded ZDoom, but that just lets you play the game. I thought ZDoom, or GZDoom was a builder? Really confused right now, sorry for the total newbness but I just need an explanation.

**Edit** haha Zed's explanation is far more shorter and direct. You can just read his post ^^^^

Haha don't worry I have been there and pretty recently too.

I can't give you the most accurate explanation but I will say this, a Sourceport runs Doom with various features and options available. From rendering, lighting, audio and graphics to multiplayer and gameplay options. The most modern sourceports that I know of are Zandronum, Zdoom and Gzdoom. If you run Doom on Zandronum you will notice there's more support and options available for multiplayer as opposed to Zdoom / GzDoom. In fact I think it's the most popular port for multiplayer Doom. The options and design of all three of these sourceports are pretty good for running advanced / modern map editing formats like UDMF.

If you want to play Doom with vanilla features and options that's more polished than the traditional version then you may want to use Chocolate Doom instead. But it won't have the ability to run wads with advanced features and formats. Unfortunately that means if you develop your maps using editing formats with advanced features (UDMF format and 3D features for example) then players who use Chocolate Doom won't be able to play your maps. And it's not just chocolate doom, there are quite a few Doomers and sourceports that don't support those formats.

So what's the go with DoomBuilder and GZDoom Builder? Is GZDoom Builder only for GZDoom?
Nope, from my understanding you can use almost any doom map editor to build any maps however Gzdoom builder has editing tools that's more supportive of advanced features. You can still use Gzdoom builder to make maps for Chocolate Doom if you wanted, just make sure to select the appropriate format before you start developing the map (so don't make it UDMF format if you want vanilla doomers and older sourceports to run it).

So you can use Doom Builder 2 to make maps for GZDoom if you wanted, or visa versa. Obviously if you use an older format in GzDoom Builder many of the advanced features will be unavailable.

Multiple sectors on top of each other? I heard that's possible in the Build engine, but not in id Tech 1. People say its IMPOSSIBLE to create such maps on the Doom engine.

Wait.

You could try some kind teleporter illusion, where the player gets teleported to another room outside the sector, with a texture saying which floor, like Floor 1, Floor 2, and etc.

Have you ever tried making a map on UDMF? I couldn't so I stuck with vanilla Doom format.

I have TOTAL confidence in you! :D

And make sure to have an FTP viewer so you can upload it to idgames!

So what I've taken from all this is I should use GZDoom Builder (I've been using Doom Builder 2), with the Doom2 wad file as a resource (I've been using ultimate Doom) and GZDoom as a test platform. And with it all set up that way I should be able to get the most out of it.

I'm not into coding, or re-writing things because I'm not skilled in that area. I just want to use the program to the best of its parameters.

About to get started again this week.

Zandor said:

I'm not into coding, or re-writing things because I'm not skilled in that area.

That's fine, because neither using a mapping editor nor playing in a source port requires you to do programming.

You should look at some maps with 3d-levels. It is more than room over room.
The most impressive use of 3d floors are bridges, walkovers, steps, and walkways.

There are some interesting examples in phobia, hth2.wad, and chex newmaps.wad (DoomLegacy only).

wesleyjohnson said:

You should look at some maps with 3d-levels. It is more than room over room.
The most impressive use of 3d floors are bridges, walkovers, steps, and walkways.

Yeah, part of what I was planning to do for the current level I'm working on includes floating platforms, anyone seen that before?