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THMG

Why do you use the editors that you use?

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Given that there's a variety of editors for a variety of things relating to doom modding and mapping, I'm interested in hearing why you (yes, YOU) use the specific tools you use. Prefer one map editor over another? Have a specific program you like to use for making textures? Anything! I just want to know why you've chosen to work with the specific editor set you use.

 

Myself, I'm not too talented a coder or an artist, so for the most part I only use GZDoom Builder and SLADE 3. I've grown to rely on the variety of little tricks here and there that GZDoom Builder has over DB2, particularly the full support for GZDoom's full host of features. SLADE is a bit of a no-brainer in my opinion, seeing how useful it is in .wad managing, particularly textures.

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I use slade3 but also gzdoombuilder because it's literally just doom builder with more (quite beneficial) features (i don't even use any of the dumb zdoom meme stuff)

i haven't noticed any bugs with it either

 

i also use paint.net because, again, its just paint with more features and its free and really easy to use, especially for little stuff like creating/editing textures

 

edit: oh yea also whacked for dehacked editing

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i use openmpt to make .it format music because i detest midi sequencers o:) otherwise I pretty much use fairly common things - slade and gzdoombuilder and prboom-plus

oooh i do use an old pixel art editor called Usenti because I like the way the palette works

 

edit: im kinda interested in anotak's version of doom builder but as a rule I only learn one new trick every ten years

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I use gzdoom builder, because it's only one map editor which I could control efficiently when I started two years ago. Slade for other things like textures, midis and sprites. 

 

19 minutes ago, bonnie said:

 (i don't even use any of the dumb zdoom meme stuff)

Sorry for derail, but how do you know that zdoom stuff is dumb and full of memes? Short explanation would be enough. 

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I've mostly settled on Eureka for map editing because it's light and unfussy and it works well on both Windows and Linux (SLADE's map editor is kind of unreliable and its Linux support is a bit iffy as well, Doom Builder is too Windows-centric).  Now that it supports Hexen format I probably don't have any need to use a different level editor.  The only thing I really miss compared to the "heavyweight" editors is being able to move floor and ceiling heights in 3D mode... unless it's in there and I've just not been able to find the instruction for it...

 

SLADE is good for WAD management though and I use it fairly often for that.  It's also often the best option for color swapping graphics according to a palette so I find it handy there as well.

 

Most of my texture work and other digital graphics are done in GIMP.  Despite a few annoying quirks it's powerful and it's free, and never having been a Photoshop user I don't have the "confusing interface" complaints regarding it.  Once you figure a few things out there are a lot of really useful things you can do like realign a texture to make sure it's seamless, not to mention the layer-based stuff it can do.

Occasionally I'll mess around with GrafX2 (a sort of Deluxe Paint alike) mostly in cases where I want to work very strictly within a palette (one thing GIMP's not that great at, lots of functions throw a fit if you try to do them in paletted mode so you end up swapping back and forth between palette and truecolor a lot...).  For general use I find GrafX2 is maybe a little too in love with the idea of imitating Deluxe Paint interface though.

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I used to use DEU because it came on one of those CDs from the 90s with lots of random wads on them.  Now I use Eureka because I'm running linux and because it and freedoom are listed in my package manager.

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I use Eureka because my primary computer is a Mac and it seems to be one of the few editors that works on a Mac (and it also works on Windows, which is good since I also have a Windows laptop and don't have to switch editors). It reminds me of DEU, which I used back in the 90's, so there's a comfort factor involved. Eureka is also not fussy to deal with and easy to set up. The latest version (1.21) also has a number of handy features and you can build a number of styles, so I think it's fairly flexible.

 

4 hours ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

The only thing I really miss compared to the "heavyweight" editors is being able to move floor and ceiling heights in 3D mode... unless it's in there and I've just not been able to find the instruction for it...

As far as I can tell, there's not a way to change the floor and ceiling heights using the mouse in 3D mode like you can do with offsets. But I don't find it too burdensome to highlight the sector in 2D, tab into 3D, and change the floor and ceiling heights that way.

 

I also have a copy of Slade3, but haven't done much with it, and I don't generally modify sprites and textures because I have little artistic talent in that way.

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I use XWE because it's much faster and less cluttered than other WAD management tools. It has really nice useability with all important functions being instantly accessible and requiring a minimal number of steps.

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12 minutes ago, yakfak said:

i use openmpt to make .it format music because i detest midi sequencers o:)

For mods I like to use milkytracker since I like the interface and I've never had the need for another format other than .xm so MT is all I really need, if we are talking about non-mod trackers then I like Deflemask and Famitracker, I have tried Vortex Tracker but i'm not a huge fan of the ui

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I use a home-made WAD editor that works pretty good for me. It does a lot of custom WAD stuff: Multiple WADs at once, with cut and paste within a WAD, or between different WADs, Doom text graphic building, full-blown image editor, alpha/beta/raw image support, colormap/translucency/light maps, sound conversion, map conversion, map editing, texture building, etc. Unfortunately it's not sharable at this point, because of its ties to my old source port, with its custom map naming, hard-coded texture/sprite sets, etc. One day I'll clean it up. Regardless, I use it because I know it works, and I know how it works.

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GZDoom Builder for mapping. I just find it useful to have, as well as its more advanced features. SLADE for lump management - I would use SLADE's map builder, but I'm too used to Doom Builder 2's way of handling things. I do use its map editor in a pinch when I need to quickly adjust something and I have SLADE up and running.

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I recently made the switch to from Doom Builder 2 to DBX for some Eternity mapping: it hasn't gone the greatest, but it's interesting to map from a slightly different perspective. SLADE3 for managing wad files.

 

6 hours ago, Memfis said:

I use XWE because it's much faster and less cluttered than other WAD management tools. It has really nice useability with all important functions being instantly accessible and requiring a minimal number of steps.

 

"Still crazy after all these years..."

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Progression of map editors:
for early Doom maps

  • RGDoomED
  • DOOMCad
  • DCK
  • DETH
  • tried WADAUTHOR, but did not warm up to it

once I discovered ZDoom

  • ZETH (for many years)
  • Doombuilder2
  • GZDoom Builder
  • GZDoom Builder - Bugfix (current)

Progression of lump editors:

  • NWT
  • Lumptool
  • XWE
  • Slumped
  • Slade
  • Slade3 (current)

Deepsea for both (still use it occasionally)

 

The reason why should be obvious, each represents a step forward.

Edited by Kappes Buur

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I've been mapping with SLADE3 due to the irrational reason that I could actually manufacture a UDMF map in Doom name space with it with a lot less tinkering than GZDoom Builder despite the fact that I'm probably not going to make maps in that name space. Then I actually liked the editor, and since I very much plan on using EMAPINFO in the future that's one less editor I need anyway. Which is weird since I tend to like a variety of specific tools rather than a swiss army knife. But it's really I put more time in learning SLADE3, and that familiarity makes me like it.

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I Mainly Use Doombuilder Only Because Im Too Lazy And Dumb To Use A Different One. Slade Is Good For Changing Textures Of Chainguns To A Texture Of Da Wae Memes For Friends

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Before Doom 2 came out, DEU + BSP

 

After Doom 2 until 2012, DETH + BSP (I used Zennode for a while but it was problematic) - I switched because DETH supported Doom 2

 

From 2012-2016:  DB2 - switched because DB2 worked in Win7 64-bit 

 

Now: GZDoomBuilder.  I have no interest in the ZDoom functionality, I just like GZDB's sound propagation mode and slightly better Visual mode, mainly.

 

 

I used SLADE3 for WAD management stuff, though I don't have to do a whole lot of that.

Edited by Capellan

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These days I use GZDoom Builder-Bugfix since I mainly target GZDoom.  I also use SLADE3 to manage my wad and pk3 resources, GIMP if I need to edit graphics, Goldwave to edit sounds, Renoise to compose music, and good ol' GNU Emacs if I need to do any sort of text editing.  PNGOUT and advzip are what I use to optimize the compression of things like pk3 and png files.  All of these choices are pretty much just personal preference.

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Just popped back on after a long absence....saw this topic and let's see,

 

I started with Doomcad then moved into DETH and then ZETH, used Deepsea shortly therafter.  Used Zennode for a while as well.  Trying to get the old brain cells fired up and retrieve my archives...hard work!

 

 

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Doom Builder X + SLADE. These cover like 99% of what I do, DBX handles properly, performs well, doesn't casually crash, has all the good stuff that I need for mapping, sans one or two features that GZDoombuilder has, which I would like in DBX, but I don't need them per se, and there's no way around SLADE anyway.

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Not counting editors I used to use, just the current stuff.

 

Mapping:

GZDoom Builder (finally upgraded from db1 a year ago!)

 

Lump management/palette edits/etc:

XWE

Slade3

 

Dehacked/behavior edits:

WhackEd4

 

Graphic edits:

Paintbrush.exe

 

Music edits:

Guitar Pro 5

Sekaiju

 

Sound edits:

sndrec32.exe

 

 

As for why I use these particular programs, it's a mix of user friendliness and familiarity. There are more robust tools out there, but what I use here allows me to make whatever change I like in a matter of minutes so I'm happy with the setup.

Edited by Doomkid

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So far I've been using Doom Builder 2 for overall level creating and Slade 3 to change music or textures.

 

With DB2 my mapping needs are satisfied (only problem was when I tried for once to make a 3D floor, in which case it wasn't visible in the editor and I tested it 2 or 3 times, before I could find the perfect spot).

Slade3 is excellent.

 

P.S.: XWE I never even managed to open.

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On 10/01/2018 at 0:06 AM, therektafire said:

For mods I like to use milkytracker since I like the interface and I've never had the need for another format other than .xm so MT is all I really need, if we are talking about non-mod trackers then I like Deflemask and Famitracker, I have tried Vortex Tracker but i'm not a huge fan of the ui

cool :3 how's yer music sounding?

some friends of mine did a little work on forking and updating screamtracker so im tempted to learn that

screamtracker was used for a bunch of old epic megagames music iirc

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I started with Waded 1.83 and Doomcad 5.1 both horrible horrible level editors, esp Waded which would delete linedefs (on Doortraks). I also used Edmap 1.31, especially for Death Tormention E4M4, it wasn't too bad but had limitations. Most of twzone.wad was made with Doomcad 5.1 (built nodes using BSP 2.2x or something), and then I used Doomcad 6.1 (and BSP) from 1998 to 2003 and reconfigured it for Boom features and it was easier because it displayed flats and textures while when using Doomcad 5.1 I had to write down the texture names and their descriptions on paper. Doomcad 6.1 is what I used when making my Twilight Zone 2, Death Tormention, 2002ado maps and also Spacia.wad. My first Doom Builder maps appeared in Bella2.wad and after briefly using Doom Builder 2 before it failed due to a Windows 7 upgrade I currently use Gzdoom Builder even though the only Gzdoom maps I ever made were in Doomed Space Wars. I prefer mapping for Vanilla, Limit Removing or Boom Compatible.

 

Graphic and lump editors. I used Wintex for many years. Now I currently use XWE and Slade.

 

Music. I have composed most of my midi files using Cakewalk Home Studio and Cakewalk Sonar with a few made in FL_Studio. But most of my original electronic music (or studio albums) is created using FL_Studio. You'll find my music on my Youtube channel and website.

Edited by pcorf

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On 1/9/2018 at 5:19 PM, Matthias said:

Gzdoom Builder is too buggy.

 

How so? I haven't experienced any problems yet. Granted I haven't been using it for long.

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  • GZDoom Builder (bugfix) for level editing.
  • Slade 3 for wad and pk3 management and editing actors, script libraries...
  • Adobe Photoshop for editing textures, sprites, Menu & HUD Graphics and resizing.
  • Format Factory for converting sound effects and music formats.
  • (occasionally) Blender to export set of sprite frames from 3D Models.
  • Audacity for cutting sound pieces from videos.

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