What can Dehacked do?

Before I start, I'd like to reccomend that you don't direct me to using decorate just because it's more powerful in every way. I'm working on a wad that I want to be usable by all ports, and Dehacked is apparently my best bet. I've toyed around with whacked before but I didn't ever really do anything with it. I'd just like to know what it can do.

I know enough that you can replace monsters by giving them new attacks and junk. I know you can edit all forms of text such as item strings, text scenes, mapnames, and cheats. That's pretty much all I know about it. I'm just wondering if I can do things that are worth while with it?

Can I:
-Create new monsters, additional to the ones already in stock?
-If not, Can I create new monsters by replacing decoration objects such as blood spills and hanging corpses?
-Create new sprites and things?
-Create animated textures/flats without patching the default ones?
-Edit the speed of animated textures?
-Create new states for monsters?

I want to use a lot of animated textures in my new wad and obviously ANIMDEFS can do it easily, but that would limit the map specifically to only being for Zdoom. I also want to create some new monsters but I'm not sure I can without decorate or replacing preexisting monsters.

-No
-Yes
-No
-No
-No
-No

Dehacked is extremely powerful and still has usefulness... but It isn't nearly as robust as Decorate or similar. See Batman Doom for an example of what is capable with Dehacked. As for most of your questions about creating new enemies and things... it can only be done by replacing previous entries. Usually this isn't a problem since there are so many junk objects in Doom to replace... even ones you never see. There is an object "Lost Soul Corpse" which is nothing since there is no lost soul corpse. Cacodemon corpse, blood pool, 2 versions of each hanging body... one solid, one with no clipping... there are a ton of objects that can be replaced to create new entries. In addition you cannot add new frames... but you can steal used ones to make new monsters. However, code pointers can only be applied to those which already have a code pointer... so stealing Arch Vile flames is usually first on my list... or Boss Brain frames.... or steal all the animations for armor/health/powerups and leave them with one frame that is not animated.

Textures are not really Dehacked's area. Lump managers will handle animated textures, but you can't change their speed or create new animated textures. So you're kinda SOL there.

Scuba Steve said:

Lump managers will handle animated textures, but you can't change their speed or create new animated textures. So you're kinda SOL there.

There's the method of packing 2 or 4 or more animated textures into a single texture, by placing them side-by-side and using x-offsets to select which one to display in the map. Big PITA though.

This is why I must unfortunatly bow at least to PrBOOM in my semi-old school efforts. It allows much of what you want without resorting to ZDOOM or any other high end ports.

If you want to define new animations (and switches) without limiting your map to ZDoom, Boom and all compatible ports support the binary-format ANIMDEFS lump, which is generated from a textfile using the Boom command-line utility SWANTBLS (google it, i don't know where to find it). The utility comes in a pack with a bunch of other Boom-related programs, and it includes an example text file.

Of course, if you're going for vanilla Doom compatibility, the method Ajapted described is your best bet.

Before doing that, though, I'd recommend replacing:
- WFALL1-4 (not used in doom.wad or doom2.wad)
- BLODGR1-4 (a pipe with green stuff coming out of it in the corner, only in doom.wad)
- BLODuh..something. there's another blod-something in doom2.wad that's a small pipe with a little bit of blood coming out of it. no one ever uses it.
- DBRAIN1-4 (boss brain animation)

All of those can be replaced in either doom or doom2, including the ones that aren't used in one or the other.

and if you still need more, start adding new ones to the side of the existing ones using x offsets like Ajapted said.

Or just use ANIMDEFS and make your map for Boom. :p

It's available on team tnt's website.

Ugh what a shame. I'm at least glad I can work with textures, but flats are out of the question. I kinda wanted a lot of different types of liquid.

Flowing water
Different directions of flowing water
Water with glass over it
Water with grating over it
Shallow water (with FLAT10 slightly merged into it)

Of course I kinda wanted to do this with other liquids such as lava and nukage too. I also wanted to make a new color liquid that's the same color as the swamp water in hexen.

I'm glad I can replace useless decorations with new monsters though, that's a relief.

I thought ANIMDEFS was a Zdoom specific lump? It works with boom? Does warp and warp2 properties work in boom too? or is that zdoom specific?

Boom can scroll flats in any direction or speed you want, using line triggers, so while you can't rotate the water you can make it move in the direction you want. For the grass and gratings, maybe use some grass midtextures here and there, and a midtexture grid to make the grating? (Using custom textures, of course.) Not an ideal solution, but it'd work.

ZDoom's ANIMATED text lump is ZDoom-specific. ANIMDEFS is a binary lump that works in Boom. Warp and Warp2 are ZDoom-specific.

esselfortium said:

ZDoom's ANIMATED text lump is ZDoom-specific. ANIMDEFS is a binary lump that works in Boom. Warp and Warp2 are ZDoom-specific.

You mixed up the names.

ANIMATED is the binary Boom format and ANIMDEFS the text based Hexen/ZDoom format.

esselfortium said:

Before doing that, though, I'd recommend replacing:
- WFALL1-4 (not used in doom.wad or doom2.wad)
- BLODGR1-4 (a pipe with green stuff coming out of it in the corner, only in doom.wad)
- BLODuh..something. there's another blod-something in doom2.wad that's a small pipe with a little bit of blood coming out of it. no one ever uses it.
- DBRAIN1-4 (boss brain animation)

People probably use BLODRIP, otherwise how would the PIPE1 texture (that with red margins) make sense?...

Also, what about using the brand new free forgotten by id SWATER1 to 4 flats? Also, SLADRIP1 to 4 (that neat looking slime release through gratings) also appears only in Doom1, what a shame.

BTW, the SWITCHES and ANIMATED lumps have the same (or similar) formats as the internal records in Doom.exe. Also, inside the executable, but not 100% sure inside the Boom lumps, I was able to add a brand new switch or animation (inside that strangely empty block), but modified Doom later griped when a loaded wad lacked those switch textures (animations should be more lax given that there's a virtual "SWATER" definition). Don't forget to tell which game it belongs to when you add a switch or animation.

Back on the Dehacked topic... tricks you could do.

- If you still aim at a few ports, not every Doom compatible, see whether they simultaneously accept extra thingtype or frame numbers, for new monsters and frames.
- There's no invisible ("cyan") frame in Doom, but Boom has sprite TNT1 frame 0 for you, which they used to skin the Point Pushers, when they could have simply made them invisible by flag. Thanx TeamTNT.
- You'd probably have to rename a sprite to have access to TNT1. You'd do nothing by replacing the offsets in the Sprite table. Just go to the wanted sprite, hit J, which brings you to its Text table position, then enter a replacement. Thanx Dehacked's author, Greg Lewis.
- Redefining shot missiles as monsters is most often unstable and crash prone (so cancel it if crashes happen). The stable way I found was to make the missile-to-monster NOT a projectile, NOT can't-be-hit, and shot when its owner was passable and (optionally) dead (if the missile were NOT projectile and owner solid, it would have died from start anyway). This way I was able to make a boss monster spawn its secondary self (as I did in a home only wolfenstein doom mod with a hitler boss).

printz said:

People probably use BLODRIP, otherwise how would the PIPE1 texture (that with red margins) make sense?...

Next to floors with blood flats? :p

Graf Zahl said:

You mixed up the names.

ANIMATED is the binary Boom format and ANIMDEFS the text based Hexen/ZDoom format.

Oh, heh. Whoops.

You can also add more frames to the stock Doom animations by renaming the textures/flats names to have a,b,c etc extentions to them.

kristus said:

You can also add more frames to the stock Doom animations by renaming the textures/flats names to have a,b,c etc extentions to them.

I've heard about this before, but I'm not sure exactly how it works.

You do something like WFALL1, WFALL2, WFALL3, WFALLA, WFALLB, WFALLC, WFALL4, right?

esselfortium said:
I've heard about this before, but I'm not sure exactly how it works.

That's described in the DOOM specs. They have a first and last texture or flat that are hardcoded. Those and anything between them (in TEXTUREx or in the flats lump list) is used, in order.

Oh, cool. Good to know, thanks :)

kristus said:

You can also add more frames to the stock Doom animations by renaming the textures/flats names to have a,b,c etc extentions to them.

Whoaaa that's handy info. I never knew that.

esselfortium said:

Boom can scroll flats in any direction or speed you want, using line triggers, so while you can't rotate the water you can make it move in the direction you want. For the grass and gratings, maybe use some grass midtextures here and there, and a midtexture grid to make the grating? (Using custom textures, of course.) Not an ideal solution, but it'd work.

I meant glass over water, like this:


And gratings over water, like this:


Both of which are flats.

As helpful as your suggestions are, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't seen anything like it before. Thanks for the help though, I appreciate it a lot.

JohnnyRancid said:
I meant glass over water,

And gratings over water,

Both of which are flats.

Boom allows the "deep water" hack, but the flat must be opaque. It can't be translucent nor partly transparent (properties which apply only to middle textures and sprites).