Has anyone ever managed to extract the level data from the alpha versions?

This is something that's bugged me for a while, there seems to be a number of places offering the graphics from the alpha wads but there's no mention of the levels being extracted.

Is this just utterly impossible, or is it just that noone's tried?

A lot of the alpha levels are early versions of levels present in DOOM, so I'm guessing that makes people have less of a reason to do it.

I'm sure it's been done before, considering there's some videos of it.

Yadex can open and edit the alpha/beta IWADs.

JohnnyRancid said:

I'm sure it's been done before, considering there's some videos of it.

erm...that's being run with the alpha executable. I think he means extracting the levels for use on the final version.

Ooops my mistake.

MikeRS said:

Yadex can open and edit the alpha/beta IWADs.

Yadex looks promising, but I don't have access to a system running Linux or the proper tools to port it to Windows.

Would it be against the rules to ask for someone to convert the alpha and beta stuff to "modern" doom format with that? I'd assume it's OK since iD allows free distribution of the releases but I wanted to make sure.

I'm sure that there has been at least one, maybe two WADs released where someone has extracted the levels and made them compatible with modern engines.

Didn't deathz0r extract the levels at one point?

MasterOFDeath said:

Didn't deathz0r extract the levels at one point?

Yes

I just played through 0_4resor.wad, he could drop the silly Blood beast hands and the out of place half-life map bfg, and counter-strike sounds

I wanted to make a DM version of this wad years ago curious to see how these alpha designs played online

it'd be better for a source port (ODAMEX?!?!) to support alpha wad data though ;)

leileilol said:

it'd be better for a source port (ODAMEX?!?!) to support alpha wad data though ;)

Chocolate-Alpha.exe

leileilol said:

it'd be better for a source port (ODAMEX?!?!) to support alpha wad data though ;)

That'd be nice, but there's a ton of differences between the alphas and the final version (like how BSP isn't used in the alpha maps). I'm not sure how you could implant alpha support short of reverse-engineering the alpha engines, then going from there.

I'd be happy with a program that can view the maps and artwork straight from the .wad files.

The levels and graphics have already been extracted from the wad files. Why do you need a tool to do it all over again? Or a source port to play the levels, when obviously they are horribly unfinished and/or broken.

EarthQuake said:

The levels and graphics have already been extracted from the wad files.

yeah good luck descending narrow alpha stairs in doom ports.

leileilol said:

yeah good luck descending narrow alpha stairs in doom ports.

Using dehacked to modify the player thing's height fixed that for me in prBoom.

Anyway, the levels are certainly interesting to play through. Would be nice if iD released their alpha and beta releases from between 0.2 and 0.4, and between 0.5 and the first shareware release (yes I know about the press release beta but that's only got 3 levels).

fishmech said:
Yadex looks promising, but I don't have access to a system running Linux or the proper tools to port it to Windows.

It can be compiled in Cygwin under Windows and run using Cygwin's X server, with a change or two to the Makefiles to let them know that the executables will end in .exe.

http://bobnet.dyndns.org/doom/yadex-cygwin.png

(I realize Cygwin is a fairly big dependency, but at least it's free...)

Zdoom alpha 0.2

http://www.mediafire.com/?lvbaaz1pjjf

0.2 resource.

http://www.mediafire.com/?b0txibm781n

whatah said:

Zdoom alpha 0.2

Note: this is not a custom ZDoom version that can play the alpha 0.2 version... (I would have been surprised.)

CODOR said:

It can be compiled in Cygwin under Windows and run using Cygwin's X server, with a change or two to the Makefiles to let them know that the executables will end in .exe.

http://bobnet.dyndns.org/doom/yadex-cygwin.png

(I realize Cygwin is a fairly big dependency, but at least it's free...)

You could probably get it to work with MinGW/MSYS/XMinGW

Note: this is not a custom ZDoom version that can play the alpha 0.2 version... (I would have been surprised.)

I thought that at first, then I realized that there's no way in hell that a few hacks would allow ZDoom to run something as ancient as the 0.2 engine. You'd probably have to make a completely new port in order to even begin allowing 0.2 to work on modern computers.

While we're on the subject, does anybody know how to take screenshots in 0.4 and 0.5? I'm planning on working on the wiki's 0.4 and 0.5 pages, and screenshots would be as big help. I know somebody found a non-working -savepcx command parameter for 0.5 a long time ago, but nobody seems to have followed up on it.

Just use dosbox's built-in screen capture

leileilol said:

Just use dosbox's built-in screen capture

That works! Thanks!