tutorial: read here for people new to making levels

That got your attention I hope.

Anyway, since there's a recent stream of crap levels and I'm bored as all hell, I might as well start making a series of tutorials on making levels. DW's old tutorials are here, but I decided to make a new set because this focuses on using new editors and the old tuts link seems to be hidden.

http://www.doomworld.com/tutorials/index.shtml

There's also a PDF guide that helps you get started on DB and a few mapping tips.

http://drsleep.newdoom.com/data/doombuilderguide.pdf

And then there's part one of my series of tuts, here I go!

Anyway, we'll start by downloading a level maker. I'm going to use Doom Builder for this tutorial and I guess you should too.

http://www.codeimp.com

Okay! Installed? Yay! Now you have to set up a few things like where your IWAD (main wad file, like doom2.wad) is. Now that were done with that, load up a new level, a window should come up like this.



For this tutorial I'm using "Doom 2", so hit the arrow thing next to the setting name and select that (make sure you set up where your doom 2 iwad is otherwise you'll get an error!).

Now that we're looking at our editor, let's start by looking at how we can make our levels. Look at the toolbar.



New
Open
Save
-
Move Mode
Verticies Mode
Line Mode
Sector Mode
Things Mode (Pickups, Badguys, keys, etc)
3D Mode
-
Build Nodes
Play Level
-
Undo
Redo
-
Flip Object Horizontally (left/right)
Flip Object Vertically (up/down)
Rotate Object
Resize Object
-
Grid Settings
Snap to Grid
Snitch Verticies
Center View


Okay, we're going to make our first room. First press the sector button and then INS so we can start sector drawing. Make a 256/256 box using this. The numbers next to the line help you tell how big your line is.



Now with that done, right click on the sector's line. A window should show up.



Everything is self explanitory except for the two images to the right. The left one is the ceiling flat texture and the right one is the floor flat texture. Pick a texture for each thing and then it ok.

The next thing to do is to add textures to our walls. Let's do this by going into line mode, then selecting a line by rightclicking on it. (For time's sake I'm going to highlight all the lines by dragging my cursor and holding left click to make a "box" that goes over the lines and then they're all selected. Anyway, either way a window should show up after line(s) are selected and you rightclick.



The first one shows properties of the line, and the second one shows what textures the line uses. Choose the sidedefs properties and selected the front middle texture. Choose a texture and then hit ok.

Load up things mode and then double click in the center of your box and your doomguy shows up (the player 1 spot). Then, highlight your room and copy paste it (basically duplicating it) and put the room 32 pixels away from the other room. Now we're going to link our two rooms by making a door!

First draw a rectangular box in the middle of the two rooms that's 128 wide and 32 'tall' like this. You now have sector 2! (this is the third sector, because the first sector is sector 0).



Now, goto sector mode and then rightclick to the sector properties. Make this door sector a height of 0. Goto line mode, and select the lines in the sector that are going horizontal (or the ones that are not exactly white). After loading up the linedef properties for these two lines, the first thing that you should do is select the number next to linedef action and replace 0 with 1 (telling the line to become a door!). Next, goto sidedef mode and select the upper texture (the right window thing should say "missing texture". Hit tab once this texture window thing shows up and then select "bigdoor2". After doing that, hit ok and then select the vertical lines withen your door sector, and make the middle texture "doortrak". We're all set!

All we have to do now is to build nodes and then load the level. First, hit the nodes button (looks like some gears). Now, hit the 3d mode button to see your level.

If you want to play your level, you have to tell DB where your exe is. Goto Options->Testing and replace the location of what db thinks it is to where your exe is (ie zdoom.exe).

Part 2 coming soon!

http://drsleep.newdoom.com/data/doombuilderguide.pdf

That skin you use is horrific.

Yeah I saw the pdf a few minutes afterwards. Anyway, I plan on making a few more tuts on detailing and some other things later today.

BlackFish said:

Cursor not showing up dee-lee.

Eye-eye-arr-see, when using the Print Screen button, it doesn't include your cursor in the screenshot. :D