Creating new monsters

I know this is a relatively dead simple thing to do for edge. But how does one put a new monster for a port like zdoom? Does it require a trick or two with dehacked?

Also so far the only zdoom mod i've seen with a brand new monster is sirensZD. What other examples of new zdoom monsters are there?

I don't intend to do new monster wads at the moment but the near future may require me to give it more thought.

There is indeed a trick. The trick is to search this here forum for your question.

BlueSonnet said:

Does it require a trick or two with dehacked?

I'm not sure if you'll find what you're looking for, but an excellent site for DeHacked tutorials is Enjay's Little Place of DooM. Also, if it's not on the site, you should ask Enjay (Nigel Rowand) for help. He is always quick to assist, with concise and well-written instructions. (He's recovering from an illness right now, so it may be a few days before he replies.)

DeHacked (any port):

It's quite simple to add new monsters with DeHacked, it requires only that you give an object (barrel for example) attack frames and speed and walking frames. You can, for example, give a barrel all the properties of an imp and all your barrels will now be imps! You can then, of course, make it stronger or spectre or what have you. Also, you can refer it to different frames and let it do different things. Giving it different codepointers, you could do whatever with it. I once replaced the nazis with scorpion monsters that shot both a machine gun AND a rocket, and had a close range attack. The limit of frames and codepointers may be an issue, so you may consider getting rid of things you don't need (respawn frames, nazis, Keen, unused decoration items).

ZDoom specific:

Have you considered adding in Hexen or Heretic monsters? By including the correct sprites into your wad, you can summon these monsters via scripts, and have them in your levels. See TNT3 for an example, which adds new imps and new cacodemons (and a new spider) that are just monsters from Hexen and Heretic with changed sprites. If this isn't enough for you, you can use SetActorProperty() and change their speed and health.

On a side note, above mentioned getting rid of decoration items. If you're using ZDoom and in need of frames for DeHacked, you can even get rid of ALL the items (corpses, pillars, etc) and add them in with the DECORATE lump. ADDITIONALLY you could get rid of the frames for all the pickup items and add them in with DECORATE as fake pickups, and script with ACS what they do. This would give you MANY more frames to use, if you're up to the work. =)

BlueSonnet said:

I know this is a relatively dead simple thing to do for edge. But how does one put a new monster for a port like zdoom? Does it require a trick or two with dehacked?

Also so far the only zdoom mod i've seen with a brand new monster is sirensZD. What other examples of new zdoom monsters are there?

This is a dehacked/BEX thing. As ReX said, Enjay's place is the best for this, as that's where I learned how to make new monsters. (find the super imp tutorial and study that) Now I can't get enough of it...

Examples: The recent TnT3 has some new Heretic/Hexen based monsters, and I made one new(ish) monster in LTSD.

Thanx.

I'm sure inserting a monster into your level isn't hard. Just open the map file in notepad and where it says the monster you want to replace, type in the name of the new monster that you created.

Also, you could do this much more easily in EDGE using DDF.

BlueSonnet said:

I know this is a relatively dead simple thing to do for edge. But how does one put a new monster for a port like zdoom

=P