Add episodes to doom 2?

I was wondering how to add wads as selectable episodes in doom 2? I've used a utility that combined all the master levels into a single wad and made it a selectable episode from the start menu in doom 2.

Was wondering how it's done, and how can you make multiple wads come up as selectable episodes?

Also curious if it's possible to make plutonia and tnt selectable episodes?

I guess it would depend on what engine you are using. With ZDoom, you can add extra episodes via MAPINFO. More specific info on adding extra episodes can be found here. It's pretty simple to use, once you figure it out.

ZDoom can load multiple WADs along with each other automatically (assuming the game can find them) by using the GAMEINFO lump. For instance, I made my own Master Levels WAD load my customized No Rest For The Living maps as a third episode with this line in GAMEINFO:

// Loads my No Rest for the Living PWAD
LOAD = "NRFTL-xbox360.wad"

You could probably do something similar with the Final Doom IWADs, but it would be kind of messy, and you would have to clear up any conflicts between the textures that there might be. Probably better to just use them as IWADs.

"ZDoom can load multiple WADs along with each other automatically (assuming the game can find them) by using the GAMEINFO lump. For instance, I made my own Master Levels WAD load my customized No Rest For The Living maps as a third episode with this line in GAMEINFO:
code:
// Loads my No Rest for the Living PWAD
LOAD = "NRFTL-xbox360.wad" "

That's pretty much exactly what I wanted to do. Add master levels and nrftl as 2nd and third episodes. Also wanted to see about adding the two xbox exclusive levels as a bonus episode.

That and add a new titlepic that says something like "Ultimate Doom ]["

Brewtal_Legend said: Also wanted to see about adding the two xbox exclusive levels as a bonus episode.[/B]

Probably not worth the few seconds of effort.

Betray was in still in the game files that I extracted from the Xbox 360 version, so I dumped it in with the Nerve maps and let it run as an episode too, for shits and giggles. But yeah, those two maps are awful.

Mithran Denizen said:

Betray was in still in the game files that I extracted from the Xbox 360 version, so I dumped it in with the Nerve maps and let it run as an episode too, for shits and giggles. But yeah, those two maps are awful.

Yeah, I keep hearing that they are pretty bad. Still haven't gotten around to trying them myself yet though. Only interested in them for the sake of completeness really.

How exactly did you get nrftl and master levels to both come up as selectable episodes along with hell on earth? I have master levels and nrftl both setup as separate wads that when loaded, come up as a selectable episode. But if I load them both at the same time so all three can be selected, they are selectable, but no matter which episode I pick, nrftl starts up.

The only reason you have for playing them is for the sake of completion. The sewers is complete crap, and basically just as bad as any random 1994 WAD. Betray is a little better, but its nothing compared to the id levels.

Processingcontrol said:

The only reason you have for playing them is for the sake of completion. The sewers is complete crap, and basically just as bad as any random 1994 WAD. Betray is a little better, but its nothing compared to the id levels.

Yeah. The general consensus seems to be that they are pretty bad. I still intend to try them though. Probably not going to end up going through the trouble adding them as selectable episodes. Still hope to make nrftl and master levels selectable episodes though and make a new title pic. Still can't get them both to show up as episodes along with hell on earth and have them load properly. They show up and are selectable, but no matter which episode is selected, the same one always loads.

In mapinfo

episode 2 E2M1
{
name = "lalalalalalalala"
}

skib said:

In mapinfo

episode 2 E2M1
{
name = "lalalalalalalala"
}

So what? Something like:

master levels

name = master_levels.wad

Nrftl

Name = nrftl.wad

In order to have 2 separate wads, but load them both at the same time and each one pop up as a selectable episode along with doom2?

So I get an episode selection that looks like:

Hell on Earth
Master Levels
NRFTL

no, name = "Master Levels"

skib said:

no, name = "Master Levels"

you mean with quotes?

Do I put one in each wad? Or can I make one map info in one wad call to another?

Is there a better example if I have 2 WADs that overlap with the same set of levels (MAP01 - MAP30)?

Mr. Chris said:

Is there a better example if I have 2 WADs that overlap with the same set of levels (MAP01 - MAP30)?

You'll have to rename the map label lumps. There's no way to have two different MAP01 accessible separately in the same session.

Don't forget to change the MAPINFO lump (next = MAP33...)

Off topic but isn't "No Rest for The Living" episode for Xbox only?

Gez said:

You'll have to rename the map label lumps. There's no way to have two different MAP01 accessible separately in the same session.

So if the two wads are both labeled map 01, map 15, etc, in the maps, then the same levels will load no matter which episode is picked?

So one wad needs to be something like mlmap 01, mlmap 07, etc, and the other wad something else like nrmap 01 etc?

Yes, that's correct.

Yes, in quotes, 1 wad!

ok. I got one of the wads edited so it no longer uses the same format for "Map 01" and it works now. I can load both wads, each setup to show as an episode and they work perfectly now.

But, since I've gotten the two to work, I was wondering if I could just combine them into a single wad so I only have to add one.

I figure I could just copy and paste all of the files from one wad into the other. I also figured that some of those files couldn't just be copy and pasted like the map info. I think I would have to copy the contents of one mapinfo into the other so the one map info will have the contents of both and it should work. Am I right?

Also, what other files would have to be edited instead of just copied. I saw a file called something like pp_start in both wads. Will it make a difference which one is used? What is it?

Okay, you should know you can find the answer to many of your questions here.

Brewtal_Legend said:

ok. I got one of the wads edited so it no longer uses the same format for "Map 01" and it works now. I can load both wads, each setup to show as an episode and they work perfectly now.

But, since I've gotten the two to work, I was wondering if I could just combine them into a single wad so I only have to add one.

I'm not sure if you tried to make one wad autoload the other, but if not, then that's probably your easiest solution. That way you only ever need to load one wad, and (assuming that the other is in the same directory) it'll automagically add the other one. I think I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but if I didn't, it's pretty simple.

Just pick the wad that you want as the first new episode, open it up and give it a new text lump named "GAMEINFO". In that new lump, put the name of the second wad after the "LOAD = " keyword. Since this is also only intended to work with Doom 2, you could specify the IWAD. Assuming that you want the master levels to be the second episode, and NRFTL to be the third, the GAMEINFO inside the master levels wad should look something like this:

IWAD = "doom2.wad"
LOAD = "YOUR_NRFTL_WAD_NAME_HERE.WAD"

That way, when you drag and drop the master levels onto the .exe, it should start the game without asking you for an IWAD, and it'll load NRFTL along with it. You could even put a GAMEINFO lump in both if you wanted, so that adding either one will always autoload the other.

I figure I could just copy and paste all of the files from one wad into the other. I also figured that some of those files couldn't just be copy and pasted like the map info. I think I would have to copy the contents of one mapinfo into the other so the one map info will have the contents of both and it should work. Am I right?

If you are hellbent on merging the two, it shouldn't be too hard. MAPINFO loading might actually be cumulative in ZDoom, so you may be able to get away with putting both MAPINFO lumps in the same WAD, but I can't say I've ever tried. If not, then yeah, you could just copy the text from one into the other. Since you said you already renamed all the maps, there shouldn't be any conflicts in doing so.

Also, what other files would have to be edited instead of just copied. I saw a file called something like pp_start in both wads. Will it make a difference which one is used? What is it?

Well, if you added seperate LANGUAGE lumps for the map names and intermission texts in each set, then you'd need to merge those, too. Nevermind, those DO load cumulatively. The PP_START and PP_END lumps are just markers for patches to rest between. They don't make any difference in this case, and in fact, patches don't strictly need to be within them like some other lumps do with their markers. I'm not sure why you would have PP_START in the NRFTL wad, though, as the episode used no new textures (though it did use a new intermission screen and some sprites). I included the modified graphics from the XBLA port in my NRFTL WAD, as well as the new skies from the master levels, and I know I needed to rename some of them in order to avoid conflict with Doom 2 or each other, so you might want to check for that.

And yeah, what Gez said.

Been poking around the wiki, but haven't found the answer I was looking for yet.

How do I make the game use a different interpic between levels for each episode? Do I have to specify it under each episode heading?

As it is right now, I have inserted interpic into each wad without actually doing anything with any of the lumps that specify to use the interpic. But it still uses the interpic of which ever episode was loaded last no matter which episode I choose.

Haven't tried combining them both into one wad yet.

Custom intermission pics can be defined for each seperate map in MAPINFO, with the enterpic and exitpic properties. Info on their use be found here. Just add those properties to the definition of each map in the episode. I don't think there's a way to define the INTERPIC via an entire episode or cluster in any simpler manner.

Make sure that each custom image has a seperate name in the WADs themselves; if they are all called INTERPIC, the last one to load will override the others, rendering the whole thing useless.

For reference, my NRFTL episode's first map definition looks like this:

map NRFTL01 lookup "NHUSTR_1"
{
   titlepatch = "NWILV00"
   next = "NRFTL02"
   secretnext = "NRFTL09"
   sky1 = "SKY1"
   cluster = 11
   par = 75
   music = "$MUSIC_MESSAG"
   enterpic = "NRFTLPIC"
   exitpic = "NRFTLPIC"

Those last two lines are what you need, and are repeated in the other eight map definitions in the episode. I renamed the new intermission pic to "NRFTLPIC" in my WAD, so you'll have to replace that with whatever yours is called.

k. got the intermission pics to load, but they don't look right. They come out distorted. Not sure what I did the first time when adding them into the main wad. It's been a while since I edited anything.

I am using a 320x200 256 color bmp image and importing it into the wad using slade. After I import it, I then convert it to doom graphic format.

For some reason it doesn't want to work though. It comes out distorted like an acid trip

When you convert them in SLADE, make sure to change the palette from "Existing/Global" to "Doom" on both panes, or you might get odd results. I'm not sure if that's what your problem is, but it's possible.

If that still doesn't do it, you might want to try first converting them to a PNG using Doom's exact palette; I typically do so in Photoshop before converting custom graphics to the Doom palette, and Irfanview or GIMP should do the same thing as well, if not better. I doubt that SLADE would have trouble with an 8-bit .bmp, though.

I managed to gt it working. Was just about to edit my post about it too.

I changed the initial image to 24-bit bmp and did like you said and picked doom pallette when converting it.

Now it seems to work.

This is the pic I was using

Sorry for the bump.

Having a couple issues with intermission pics.

For the master levels pic, it works fine.

But when I play Hell on Earth, the intermission pic for nrftl pops up and it displays the level names for nrftl instead of Hell on Earth.

I tried going into the nrftl wad and adding the exitpic and enterpic like I did with the master levels wad, but I get the following error mesage:

Execution could not continue.

Script error, "DII_NRFTLe.wad:MAPINFO" line 34:
NR_INTER: Unknown top level keyword

NR_INTER is the name of the intermission pic

Here's the mapinfo (hope it's ok to post, if not, I will remove it)

I'm away from my regular Dooming computer, so I can't check too far into it myself, but it looks like you're blending the shitty old Hexen-style MAPINFO syntax with the awesome new style that's preferred for ZDoom, and so you're running into a problem where the new style syntax comes in.

The MAPINFO that you posted seems to be predominantly the older style, which doesn't use curly braces or equals signs; it uses spaces to seperate keywords from properties, and is likely interpreting the equals sign in exitpic = "NR_INTER" as the property, then interpreting "NR_INTER" as a new keyword.

To fix this, I guess you could either change the offending lines to the older style by removing the equals signs (and presumably the quotes, too), as here, for example:

map nap01 "the earth base"
music d_messag
next nap02
sky1 SKY1 0
cluster 1
nojump
nocrouch
par 75
exitpic NR_INTER

...or you could convert the whole MAPINFO to the non-shitty syntax like so:

map NAP01 "The Earth Base"
{
	music = "D_MESSAG"
	next = "NAP02"
	sky1 = "SKY1"
	cluster = 1
	nojump
	nocrouch
	par = 75
	exitpic = "NR_INTER"
}

I'd recommend the latter, personally, but it's a bit more work (you'll likely have to tweak the cluster and episode definitions as well), and it probably won't give you anything extra in return. If you're as lazy as I am, you might want to just try the first idea.

If you do feel like updating the whole thing, then you may want to peruse the ZDoom wiki pages on the old and the new formats.

I actually tried your second idea of adding the brackets, but I still got an error.

I didn't actually make the mapinfo originally, so I don't now a whole lot about it. Does it seem more or less the same as the one you use for nrftl?

***EDIT***
Just tried the first method and it works as far as getting the game to load and displaying correctly when playing nrftl. When I play hell on earth, the correct interpic shows, it still displays the level names for nrftl.

I know the MAPINFO that I made uses the newer syntax, and I seperated most of the text strings into a LANGUAGE lump, but aside from that, I think it's functionally equivalent to what you have here. As mentioned above though, I can't properly compare them right now since the files are on another computer.

If you haven't already, you could try using the first suggestion, by eliminating the equals sign between the keywords and the properties. If this still gives problems, you could try alternating between "NR_INTER" with or without the quotes, as I'm not 100% sure which way should work.

Otherwise, if you want to keep trying the second idea, I might be able to help eliminate the problem if you explain the error you're getting. Is it exactly the same as the previous one?

Oops, missed your edit. I'll try to look into the other problem you mentioned.