Help with mod making

I'm a new face around here, so... hai! I'm Aurora and I'm from Finland.

I recently caught the Doom fever and played through Final Doom and Doom II. Being a creative personality and a level designer for various other FPS games, I've gotten a sudden urge to create a Doom mod. The concept of the mod involves a violent space race between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union in an alternate history universe. The player finds herself amidst the crossfire, fighting both regimes to escape the cosmic hell.

I downloaded Doom Builder and am familiarizing myself with it. So far, it all seems quite easy. I've also drawn some layouts, on which I'll be basing the mod's maps. What I need help with is programming. I want to create two sets of enemy soldiers, functioning much like the Wolfenstein 3D soldiers, who not only fight the player, but also target members of the opposite group, eg. Commies fight Nazis and the player but not fellow comrades, same for the Germans. Is it possible at all to create enemies that behave as I described, and if so, how?

Finally, I'm wondering if we have any skilled sprite artists here, who would like to lend me a hand with a task that's difficulty goes beyond my talent. I want to change DoomGuy (the status bar face) to DoomGirl; narrow nose, round jaw, blue and deep eyes, and neatly combed blonde hair. Easier said than done I suppose; but here are the ripped sprites for whoever might be up for the task:
http://sdb.drshnaps.com/sheets/Misc/Misc/Other/Doom-Head.png
If someone can make the first 8, I think I'll be able to edit the rest from those myself.

Welcome to the wonderful world of DOOM!

Firstly, if you want to do custom enemies and all you probably will want to make your mod for zDoom and work in Doom Builder's "Doom In Hexen Format" format.

It allows for scripting and a plethora of additional goodies. Check the zDoom wiki for getting started. Some good links:

MAPINFO is used to define the names of maps, music, episodes, interludes, etc.

ACS is the scripting language. Acquire basic knowledge of it.

DECORATE is how you make custom enemies and the like.

Also acquire a WAD editor for creating said lumps. Some can be found on Doomworld's main site under utilities. I reccomend SlumpEd.

There are two DOOM girl status bar face sets I know of. They're nothing great, but the first one is decent and they may serve as a base in any case:

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=951
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=14217

Thanks for the advice, StoneFrog and myk! I'll begin learning the scripting language right away.

I edited the first sprite, and here's the result:
There's something weird there... the eyes perhaps. I don't know how I'd improve that. Comments?

By the way, another question crossed my mind; if I make a mod for ZDoom, what content may I distribute with it?

The hair looks pretty good like that but it's using a custom palette instead of DOOM's 256 color palette*. I don't know if that is allowed for the status bar graphics in ZDoom or other engines (I guess the ones that rely on advanced graphics cards can do that). The eyes might do well with more detail. You could experiment by using a lighter blue on one of the pixels so the iris doesn't look so big and uniform. The shadow on top could be blurred a bit like that too.

* Maybe brown hair would be easier than blond in DOOM.

ZDoom itself can be used for whatever as long as it's non-profit. DOOM stuff derived from the IWADs can be used as long as it requires the IWAD (such as DOOM2.WAD) it was taken from, and must also also be for non-profit mod. Other content (not derived from the DOOM games) may be added as well; it just needs to be licensed to be usable and distributable in mods.

Other engines that allow a lot of easy customizing (especially adding new monsters or characters in addition to the existing ones, as opposed to modifying the existing ones) are EDGE and the Eternity Engine, although ZDoom has more mods to use as examples.

Nice work on the face! Though I think the eyes and lips are bit too barbie-esque, not really the kind of person who'd be going through hell and back.

If I was gonna create a female Doom marine, I would put in a little more of this and perhaps a little less of this

Or how about :



--->

Yeah agreed - the sprite above was good exxept for the lips (too deep red, too noticable) but now it's perfect! The long blonde hair is fine imo.

Ahhh. Now that sprite looks like it means business. Definitely getting there now. The proportions look both prettier and tougher at the same time.

And on a side note, the girl in front of the jet fighter is really..... what's the word I'm after? Lets just say that serious ass-kickery rarely looks as good as that.

Just fixed something in my post above. It was saying, "The hair looks pretty good like that but it's not using a custom palette instead of DOOM's 256 color palette". I was trying to say it's not using DOOM's palette, which may make it not work in various engines which expect the standard palette.