Tips for making Mods and Wads

[PhobosLord6045]

HEY EVERYONE! Let me start this off by saying I've been playing Doom since it first came out in the 90's. (I'm telling my age I know). About 10 years ago I started messing around with Doom Builder and trying to create new levels. I did upload a level on the Doom World website back in 2010. It was titled UAC Demon Invasion. (I know its under PhobosLord 81, but I locked myself out of that account somehow, so I created a new one). Anyway, I want to get back into creating levels. Maybe even Megawads once I get into the groove again. My question is, are there any tips out there in the Doom Community as to what are the best Wad Editors, what type of PC is best for creating, and so on. Any advice and or tips to get me back into it would be greatly appreciated. THANKS! 

[nrofl]

I’m too lazy to get UltiDooMBuilder, so I just stick to GZDooMBuilder, I think UltiDooMBuilder, SLADE 3 and maybe WhackEd4 if you want would be enough to get you around.

 

As for PC’s? I don’t think that’s under much concern. I’m running on a fossil of a pc you’d find in an attic and I have little to no problems running everything I mentioned in the paragraph above. 

[Doomkid]

Here’s a list of current Doomish tools, I try my damnedest to keep it up to date: https://doomshack.org/doomtools.html

 

here’s a list of various tutorials, including some in video form, that should help you out: https://doomshack.org/tutorials.html

 

The mapping ones by GamingGargoyle and China Doomed will be these best for learning the Doom Builder family, and for little bits and pieces like adding music and textures, there’s a playlist of vids by me linked as well.

 

Hope this helps!

[Dexiaz]

On 4/22/2022 at 7:38 PM, PhobosLord6045 said:

and so on

 

If you don't mind about using modern sourceports to play your mods, I'll suggest you to create maps in "UDMF" format. It's the best map format, especially if you want to learn. It's more suitable.

[Naarok0fkor]

Always make backups of your mods & Wads...

[BetelgeuseSupergiant]

16 hours ago, Naarok0fkor said:

Always make backups of your mods & Wads...

Absolutely agree! GZDB bugs can critically damage your wad. This is very rarely bug, but it's possible

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

2 hours ago, BetelgeuseSupergiant said:

Absolutely agree! GZDB bugs can critically damage your wad. This is very rarely bug, but it's possible

Yep, I also suspect SLADE corrupted few of my project files. Maps became just a jumble of lines, and other files within the wad became unreadable. Happened twice already, and I'm not mapping very long.. So yes. Keep backups. Slade makes a backup automatically by default but only one, and it gets overwritten frequently. In both of my encounters with demonic corruption, the auto-backup was also corrupt and completely useless.

[Gez]

2 hours ago, HrnekBezucha said:

Maps became just a jumble of lines

The most frequent case for this is when a map's format is misinterpreted between Doom format and Hexen format.

 

The TL;DR is that they're incompatible but they look the same -- the only way to somewhat-reliably check which is which is to look for the presence of a BEHAVIOR lump. If it's present, it's Hexen format, if it's absent, it's Doom format.

 

So if you take a Hexen format map, and delete the BEHAVIOR lump, it'll be interpreted as Doom format and be completely broken. And the lines end up looking like a cocainated spider's web. But this can be repaired by simply recreating the BEHAVIOR lump...

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

8 hours ago, Gez said:

The most frequent case for this is when a map's format is misinterpreted between Doom format and Hexen format.

The first one was Hexen format map but the other was a strictly vanilla project with 3 maps in it. Only one of the maps got jumbled up, and some custom sounds and textures. Not all, that's the weird part.

[lokbustam257]

On 4/22/2022 at 10:38 PM, PhobosLord6045 said:

My question is, are there any tips out there in the Doom Community as to what are the best Wad Editors

If you have decent to high end PC and running Windows 10/11, then Ultimate Doom Builder might fit you. If you don't like UDB, then try Doom Builder X, or even Slade 3 and Eureka.

 

If you're on Linux, get Slade 3 or Eureka or build UDB yourself/run it with Wine.

 

On 4/22/2022 at 10:38 PM, PhobosLord6045 said:

what type of PC is best for creating, and so on.

Anything with 4-8 gigs of RAM and a decent processor (throw some old to decent graphics card too if you want). Doom is a pretty old game, that thing can run on anything with a CPU and a screen.

[Doomkid]

16 hours ago, HrnekBezucha said:

The first one was Hexen format map but the other was a strictly vanilla project with 3 maps in it. Only one of the maps got jumbled up, and some custom sounds and textures. Not all, that's the weird part.

I have permanent "corrupt map PTSD" from occasionally opening wads in both XWE and Doom Builder 1 at the same time, many moons ago. I can't comment on what SLADE and more modern DBs do in that instance, but what XWE and DB1 did when you opened a map in both at the same time was 100% corrupt every last lump in the wad, especially the maps.

 

I always remembered that the 2 ways to instantly get a cocaine spiderweb were either opening a Hexen format map in vanilla or vice/versa, or opening any format map in two editors at the same time. Did this far too many times in my teens, to the point where I physically can't make this mistake anymore even when running on 100% autopilot. I kinda hope this is what caused your maps to get scrambled, since it will make it (fairly) easy to avoid from here on out if so!

[Gez]

5 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I can't comment on what SLADE and more modern DBs do in that instance

Having the same file opened in two different editors is always a recipe for troubles. SLADE circumvents the problem by allowing to open a map in Doom Builder from inside SLADE. That way it locks the map (can't edit it in SLADE as long as DB is running), exports the map to a temp file that it tells DB to open, and monitors the DB process to know when it has finished running. At which point it imports the temp file as the update to the map.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

33 minutes ago, Gez said:

Having the same file opened in two different editors is always a recipe for troubles. SLADE circumvents the problem by allowing to open a map in Doom Builder from inside SLADE. That way it locks the map (can't edit it in SLADE as long as DB is running), exports the map to a temp file that it tells DB to open, and monitors the DB process to know when it has finished running. At which point it imports the temp file as the update to the map.

That's a really neat way around the problem.

 

6 hours ago, Doomkid said:

when you opened a map in both at the same time was 100% corrupt every last lump in the wad, especially the maps

Yeah, I think that's the problem there. Today I learned.

[PhobosLord6045]

Thank you all for the feed back! I'm starting to create again. I will say, for the moment, I will be making levels without the scripting and dehacked stuff and whatever else. I want to get back into the swing of it and fine tune my mapping skills. Also need to learn all the scripting tools and jargon so that I can create Awesome maps for you all to enjoy. I'm planning on completely revamping the first level I ever uploaded on here (possibly make it a little bigger). Once its complete, I will upload and see what everyone thinks, and take any and all suggestions to make it better.