Words cannot describe how angry I am. My WAD glitched beyond repair.

My WAD was going well, it seemed. I had been working hard the past week or so and I was playtesting what I had already done. I notice my rocket goes through a wall in the gazebo. No big deal, I think. I tried to fix it in WadAuthor, but no matter what I did with sectors and linedefs I couldn't fix it without rebuilding the area from scratch. So I click Check Map...

Dozens of missing textures. I think "All right, I've got my work cut out for me." I select a room motif to make my life a bit easier, and fix them all and save. I go to playtest my level, and behold: All kinds of height problems that weren't there before. Raised sections became flat. Platforms under lava. The southern cross I had worked so feverishly on to get right became unrecognizable. Entire sections of floor had been replaced by horribly-placed warp3 textures. The entire second floor was a giant mess.

I realized there was no way I would ever find, track down, and correct all these glitches, so I deleted the WAD. 70-some hours of hard work, gone down the toilet.

In other words, KISS MY ASS WADAUTHOR!

That sucks. Are you sure you or WadAuthor didn't make any backup files?

Never ever use blanket motifs/auto-fixes in WadAuthor. It will only make your life tougher.

udderdude said:

That sucks. Are you sure you or WadAuthor didn't make any backup files?

Yes, I'm certain. In fact, less than a minute after I realized what happened I thought "I really should have backed up my file".

So you had turned off WadAuthor's automatic backup feature, didn't make any manual backups, overwrote your file each time you saved a new version, and made drastic automated changes in the wad? And you blame the program for your data loss?

Have you checked for any files with the .BAK extension? (Although it sounds like you might have already overwritten any useful ones.)

The autofix feature does have its uses, but there are obviously severe limitations to what it can accomplish.

Grazza said:

The autofix feature does have its uses, but there are obviously severe limitations to what it can accomplish.

Correct. Though WadAuthor is a complete and utter bitch of a program until you get used to it. I guess it's kind of like a new pair of underwear. At first it's constrictive, but then it becomes a part of you.

Not to sound like im recruiting or anything, But why dont you try to rework your wad on the Doom builder lever editor? its simple.. and it backs up ( I think. ) but its really simple to work things out. but it may not be as good as wadauthor.. but it may be better also. ( it is a little slower but i think its just me. )

renagade said:

Not to sound like im recruiting or anything, But why dont you try to rework your wad on the Doom builder lever editor? its simple.. and it backs up ( I think. ) but its really simple to work things out. but it may not be as good as wadauthor.. but it may be better also. ( it is a little slower but i think its just me. )

I was using Wad Author before I switched to Doom Builder. And yes, of couse it is hard in the start, but DB is alot faster to alot of things.

Hmm, Well I can relate to that problem. Wadauthor seems to have this weird habbit of some times causing the map to have messed up heights, I *THINK* it has something to do with the sectors, like its switching something around. But I have no Idea, Its been a while since Ive used Wadauthor, Switched to DB.

One thing Id like to say though, is that DB has a few problems too, like auto joining lines when they are 4 pixles apart. Ive fuigured out that if you split the line with verticies first, and then draw a line on those verticies, it works fine for lines smaller than 4 units apart. Another thing is that It can not join line defs to another selected line def. This is a problem that I cant get over, because you can not go down to a 1x1 scale on DB. This makes it difficult to use its curved line defs and make a stair way out of it. Omong other structures.

Anyways, Enough of my rambling. I hope that you can find a back up or something of your map. Oh and since its still 11pm here on the 25th, Merry Chrismass, and to all a good night :)

P.S. I think this problem has been mentioned here a few years ago, but I dont know. Maby ive been smokin too much. :\

Grazza said:

Have you checked for any files with the .BAK extension? (Although it sounds like you might have already overwritten any useful ones.)

Yeah, simply renaming the *.bak file to *.wad should give you the previously saved version. So, assuming you didn't save a second broken version, you might still have it.

I would never use Wadauthor. I've used it once since WinDEU (back then) was exiting for no reason after 15 minutes. So I thought, sibnce everyone was using wadauthor at the time, i would too. I opened my map, edited 1 stupid sector's shape, resaved the wad. I ran it..and My wad became a load of crap. All the textures got replaced with some other texture. Somehow, Wadauthor named all the textures wrong or something.

In WadAuthor's defence, I've been using it for about 4 years and haven't had too many problems with it. Like all editors, you have to learn to do things a certain way. Once you've learned all the subtle nuances of your editor of choice and incorporated them into your style of mapping, you won't have any more problems. Hopefully.

If it makes you feel any better, I had the same problem 3 years ago. I complained about it and the author ended up getting involved. He tried to fix it, but we could never consistently recreate the problem. So I just ditched the editor, and I would recommend you do the same. It seems the data-swapping will continue.

Well, I don't know if that makes you feel any better, but your post makes me feel better :P

Ezxariarch said:

I would never use Wadauthor. I've used it once since WinDEU (back then) was exiting for no reason after 15 minutes. So I thought, sibnce everyone was using wadauthor at the time...

A good reason to do anything...