ZETH Issues

Okay folks: due to the fact that the majority of the community seems to enjoy ZDoom, I am attempting to familiarize myself with it. Since I am accustomed to DETH, I figured ZETH might be a good way to add ZDoom specific features after building the architecture with WinDEU 5.2. However, I've hit a snag: the latest version (4.16?) from zdoom.notgod.com doesn't want to run. I get an error reading "WallTexture invalid option in ZETH.INI"

Anyone have a version of ZETH that works with (most of) the latest bells and whistles (i.e. slopes and beyond)? And by the way, the outdated .ZIP linked to on Doomworld's editing pages works just fine, but doesn't have a lot of latest features.

I use deth too as my standard editor. I have had huge problems with ZETH, sometimes it doesn't want to run at all (with various error msgs). Sometimes it has fucked up resolution and colors. I would be very interested in a remedy.

The best advice regarding ZETH is not to use it. It's buggy as all hell.

Hmm... Isabelle Camille.

Linguica said:

The best advice regarding ZETH is not to use it. It's buggy as all hell.

Which leaves DeepSea and WadAuthor as the only editors that support ZDoom? WA doesn't like large levels, and I'm not shelling out $30 for DS -- anything else out there?

I still would appreciate a link to a working copy of the latest ZETH version, if anyone has one...

Well, ZETH is maintained by R. Heit himself... so even if it does have bugs he might not be displeased if you bother him with specifics about any bugs you find. The best way for an editor to improve is if skilled mappers use it, as long as it has a maintainer. This is the ZETH FTP directory:

http://zdoom.notgod.com/ftp/zeth/

Lutz said:

Which leaves DeepSea and WadAuthor as the only editors that support ZDoom? WA doesn't like large levels, and I'm not shelling out $30 for DS -- anything else out there?

I still would appreciate a link to a working copy of the latest ZETH version, if anyone has one...

I have to tell ya, if I did the kind of editing YOU do I would buy DeepSea. It does work, unlike ZETH. It's abilty to do extremely large levels is what you really do need. IMO it's your only real choice. Even a "working" version of ZETH would be inadequate for what you would want to do with it.

Oh yeah? Right... like he needed DeepSea to finish P:AR. Another editor in development is Why, which has, I've heard, a DEU-like interface. Thus it might be fine for a DETH user. I'm not sure what zdoom features it supports now, but it is apparently highly customizable.

http://www.hut.fi/~jpakkane/why/

I don't use ZETH myself (for a number of reasons) but it is installed on my machine, and ver 4.16 starts and is able to edit maps.

I haven't changed any of the ini settings other than to point doom2.cfg at my doom2.wad file. I just tried altering that to look at a zdoomconverted file and an untouched one, and the IWAD I use for my Aspects project (which has massive additions to the TEXTURE1 lump). All of them worked.

I then tried something similar using doom1.cfg and again it worked. I tried a few changes to the texture options and so on that I could see, and couldn't reproduce the error. Sorry.

I also noticed quite a cool feature where the path between moving camera nodes is linked by lines so you can see exactly where the camera will go. But that's a BTW comment, obviously.

myk said:

Oh yeah? Right... like he needed DeepSea to finish P:AR. Another editor in development is Why, which has, I've heard, a DEU-like interface. Thus it might be fine for a DETH user. I'm not sure what zdoom features it supports now, but it is apparently highly customizable.

http://www.hut.fi/~jpakkane/why/

Well, since ZDoom now supports levels with greater than 32k sidefs (or soon will) and Lutz has run head on into this limit before and Deepsea is the only editor out at the moment that can really support such massive sized levels I stand by what I said.

I don't see why Heit wouldn't add a feature like that to ZETH. I doubt he'll allow his engine to be editable only with a commercial application.

If youre gonna make a map Zdoom specific, then you migth aswell make it a hub, no point in making a supercalifragialistically huge map when there's an alternative. Unless you are like fred and want to have 32k sides in each room.

Am I one of the select few people out there that ZETH behaves for?

The only time ZETH crashed for me was when v4.10 was released, it had problems with large maps which has since been fixed, but otherwise it's worked well for me. The latest version works better than the older ones.
Stats for the level in question are currently at:
11326 vertices
13950 linedefs
23588 sidedefs
3061 sectors

I've searched my .ini files for WallTexture and can't find it anywhere. If there's a line in your .ini that has that, delete it or comment it out with a #

GooberMan said:

Am I one of the select few people out there that ZETH behaves for?

Nope, works like a charm for me too, in all versions of windows I've had (98/ME/XP) ;)

Not that I'm likely to shift from DeePSea anyway, but I have a problem with Zeth that makes it hard to use. A lot of the popup menus appear too wide. That is, they spill off both the left and right sides of the screen. Any menu that does this is shown with no text on it (menus that fit on screen are shown correctly), so it is only possible via trial and error to work out what each option actually is. I've tried all the different screen resolutions and the problem remains. Been like this for every version I have tried.

Anyone else get this?

I'm not sure what zdoom features (Why) supports now

Why does not currently support ZDoom very well. This is due to two things:

1. It does not read the Hexen level format
2. I don't have a config file for Zdoom.

But you can manually edit every feature of every level primitive in Doom mode (like all 16 flags of things and linedefs, arbitrary thing numbers and so on).

Hexen support will be added once I get the editing interface a bit more pleasant.

Look people -- this conversation is great and all (especially the people who can read my mind and know what I want and/or what I'm going to do), but I would like an answer to my original: DOES ANYONE HAVE A VERSION OF THE LATEST ZETH THAT WORKS? If so, SEND IT TO ME.

For the record, I use WinDEU 5.2 to build my architecture, and use DETH to add MBF-specific effects, and that ain't gonna change (dammit, deep, the DW community does not revolve solely around your editor); I'm now trying to use ZETH to add ZDoom specific effects. So, once again -- I'd LOVE a working copy of ZETH.

Thank you.

Heh :)

myk gave this link a few posts up : http://zdoom.notgod.com/ftp/zeth/

You can try the different versions of zeth that are there till you find one that runs. I don't think anyone has any special version of zeth that only they own, so one of the versions on that page is bound to work for you.

Lutz, did you check the zdoom FTP I linked above, or is that no help (and you were already familiar with it)?

Well, consider this post dead; ZETH just isn't going to work for me, since it just isn't going to work at all. Man, it DOES crash all the time...

Anyway, I guess I'll play around with WA some more; yippee...

I'm assuming you also know that you have to run the zwadconv utility on the Doom iwad you will be using before you start editing. If you don't no editor will work properly. You will get crashes when selecting textures and all sorts of other errors.

uhhh, the doom2.wad I use with ZETH is still in the old Doom/Boom format (DeePsea also works fine in ZDoomHexen with a Doom/Boom doom2.wad)... you'll need to run zwadconv on doom2.wad for wadauthor to work with ZDoomHexen format though.

Oh. Ok then. I just assumed all editors required the iwad to be converted.

Lutz said:

(dammit, deep, the DW community does not revolve solely around your editor);

Where did that come from? I haven't posted a single thing in this thread. You can be stuck in whatever editor you like and a bit odd considering your devotion. If someday you want to take advantage of hi-res textures - a feature of ZDOOM that very few people have exploited - yet it makes one of the biggest visual impacts possible and make levels that are 32k+ linedefs (in 11.7 - since Randy modified ZDOOM to handle this - cheers to Randy), check out DeePsea since they can be created rather easily - plus you can avoid those gigantic miss-merged PWADS:)

As far as your problems, they are just your problems - meaning something to do with your hardware/software or who knows, maybe just a FAT issue. I'd run scandisk (or chkdisk if XP), redownload and reinstall. ZETH 4.16 from notgod's site works fine most of the time (not counting old quirks that have been around forever).

deep said:

Where did that come from? I haven't posted a single thing in this thread. You can be stuck in whatever editor you like and a bit odd considering your devotion. If someday you want to take advantage of hi-res textures - a feature of ZDOOM that very few people have exploited - yet it makes one of the biggest visual impacts possible and make levels that are 32k+ linedefs (in 11.7 - since Randy modified ZDOOM to handle this - cheers to Randy), check out DeePsea since they can be created rather easily - plus you can avoid those gigantic miss-merged PWADS:)

I actually had a lot of problems merging my PWADS with DeepSea -- too many vertices close to lines, or something (not that I could save my level anyway). My point is, back when I was having issues with merging separate .WADS, your answer was always "use DeepSea -- it works." In fact, that seems to be your answer to a lot of problems.

Also, I was drunk and bitchy when I wrote that -- and I'm still drunk and bitchy (different drunk, though) so maybe you shouldn't take this too seriously. I guess it's my time of the month, which is weird, since I'm a guy.

Lutz said:

I actually had a lot of problems merging my PWADS with DeepSea -- too many vertices close to lines, or something (not that I could save my level anyway). My point is, back when I was having issues with merging separate .WADS, your answer was always "use DeepSea -- it works." In fact, that seems to be your answer to a lot of problems.

It's my answer because it does work -IF- you use the current version ( 11.66 sbsoftware.com, not the obsolete version here at DW and soon 11.7).

As you recall, Fred did that (at least that's the last thing you told me) and he has an OLD version and that does not work the same as the current version. If you had problems with the new version you never told me what you were doing nor what was happening. Always give complete details otherwise all you end up doing is spreading false rumors which is always guaranteed to get a response:)

Also READ THE DOCS. There are many options to control automatic merging, tolerances, etc that don't exist in any other editor. Defaults are set up for beginners.

If you think you can jump in DeePsea, not read a friggen thing, then you are not only being unfair to DeePsea but also to yourself. How far do you think anyone can get without reading something in trying to run any version of DEU (windows or dos) jumping from a program like WA? Enuf said.

The old version works too, but the original purpose of the paste/merge was for prefabs. IOW, you make some object of any complexity and you could pop them into any level as a "paste". I never considered full PWADS at the time. PWADS that have been run through a nodebuilder add "fake" vertices and these screw up the OLD paste/merge code. At the time I forgot about that and thought perhaps he was pasting OFF the scale of the level which is also possible. IOW, you can't paste where the vertex coordinates go over +/- 32k.

Since I've pasted a level that was 2 VRACK2s for sure it works ok. Now you can paste 3+ VRACK2s in 11.7. If someone has a problem, they can't just say "it doesn't work" (unless you just want to flame), but should give ALL the details. Like what version, supply copies of the levels in question and so forth and READ the docs.