Zdoom Texture/Sound editing

Can anyone point me in the direction of tutorials with regards to editing wad files for Zdoom? I want to make taller stretched skies, edit the ambient sounds, have a go at scaling large textures, etc.

I've been using Wintex & Wadauthor for years, but recently discovered Doom Builder (what an amazing tool - everything you've ever wanted from a doom evel editor).

Is wintex now an outdated tool to use? What are the current up-to-date tools that I should be using?

Frederick the Great said:

Can anyone point me in the direction of tutorials with regards to editing wad files for Zdoom? I want to make taller stretched skies, edit the ambient sounds, have a go at scaling large textures, etc.

The Zdoom Wiki will have most of what you need.

http://www.zdoom.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

The knowledge base may also help

http://zdoom.org/zdkb/zdoomindex.html

Asking questions here or on the Zdoom forum is also good - provided you've checked the Wiki first.

http://forum.zdoom.org/

Is wintex now an outdated tool to use? What are the current up-to-date tools that I should be using?

Wintex has been out dated for years. IMO it's always been crappy and, being an old tool, it doesn't have support for many of the modern port features. I use DeePsea for both my editing and lump management needs. However, if you've found DB, you probably won't want to switch editors, so I recommend XWE for lump management.

http://www.doomworld.com/xwe/

Thank you so much Enjay; I'm downloading DeePsea as I type this, but already it looks as if I wont be using Wintex anymore.

Thanks for the links - the Zdoom Wiki is very useful.

Use XWE and Doombuilder. Both products are free and easy to use.

BlackFish said:

Use XWE and Doombuilder. Both products are free and easy to use.

Thanks for the advice.

I'm pretty old school when it comes to doom editing. My first level editor was Doom Cad, which a friend purchased from a magazine back in the mid 90s around the time of Command & Conqour Red Alert. After that it was Wadauthor for years, and now finally Doom Builder (Which reminds me so much of the editor that came with Duke Nukem 3D).

Frederick the Great said:

I'm downloading DeePsea as I type this, but already it looks as if I wont be using Wintex anymore.

Even if you decide you don't like the editor side of things, the lump management in DeePsea is very good. There are a whole host of tools available when you press the F7 key. Although the size of maps you can save is limited in the shareware version, the lump management tools are not restricted.

If you do decide you like DeePsea for map editing (which I do) it's worth grabbing the edit version of Risen3D from the DeePsea site too. DeePsea uses that for its 3D editing features. Although it is based on a game engine (Risen3D, obviously) it does allow you to load and edit ZdoomHexen format maps. I use it all the time for that without problems. Zdoom slopes and GZDoom floors are not supported (they simply don't appear in 3D edit mode) but handling for Zdoom specific hi-res textures and so on is very good.

I want to make entierly new texture entries for Zdoom... I simply have too many textures that I need, and replacing the original doom2.wad textures is simply not adequate. I've never made new entries before in my life; Tutorials anyone? I'm using XWE and would really appreciate if anyone could find me some tutorials for this program also.

Frederick the Great said:

I want to make entierly new texture entries for Zdoom... I simply have too many textures that I need, and replacing the original doom2.wad textures is simply not adequate. I've never made new entries before in my life; Tutorials anyone? I'm using XWE and would really appreciate if anyone could find me some tutorials for this program also.

Can anyone help me with this? Tutorials; i'm not afraid to do my own research, just need to know what i'm looking for.

Still looking for tutorials for XWE... still can't find any that are satisfactory, and the documentation that comes with it is somewhat limited.

I basically want to make textures from scratch (aswell as tall sky textures for zdoom) with new names, like NZ01, etc.

Can anyone help?

Er... all you have to do is use a graphics editing program to make the patch. Make sure there aren't any colours outside of the Doom palette range and you'll be fine (otherwise, XWE will automatically translate it to the Doom palette, which has unpredictable results).

As a tip, XWE will automatically insert a patch into the PATCHNAMES and TEXTURE1 lumps if you load it in 'patches only' mode (click the button marked 'patches' down the bottom of the screen there). Otherwise, you'll have to do it manually if you want it to work in game.