doombuilder questions and wadauthor

[ChrisC]

First for wadauthor users. I seem to have run into size limitation with maps useing wadauthor. At approximately 16380 linedefs, 27250 sidedefs and 1763 sectors wadauthor will no longer split linedefs. At this same point if i try to add in a sector the program crashes. I don't think it's a sector limit but something with the number of linedefs or sidedefs.

I know there is nothing wrong with the map. When this happened i lost an hour of work. I redid the work and stoped just short of where the crash occured and saved and ran level with no problem. Then continued and after 3 line splits the exact same thing happened. This sucks, so now i'm looking into doombuilder and trying to get used to that style of building. I'm hopeing to split my level in two and work on them seperatly in wadauthor and then copy and paste together in doombuilder and build the small area that connects the two and hope that doombuilder can handle this. I don't see why not.

Now a couple of doombuilder questions.

Does it have an error checker? I can't find it if it's there.

I can't figure out the whole nodebuilder setup, (quickbuild,export nodebuiulder, commandlines ect ect). Here's what i want.
Never automaticaly build nodes, only when i ask to.
When i do build nodes use deepbsp. How do i set this up? I need the command line. i screwed up the original example trying different things.
Maybe i'm better off useing deepbsp on it's own. A bit more work but not really a problem.

Now this might sound crazy. I use an external resource wad. No problems here except that when i browse textures it sounds like doombuilder is reading directly from the hard drive which is annoying, not the case with wadauthor. Anything i can do about this?

Thanks, Chris

[netnomad312]

...have you ever tried WadAuthor's external node builder option?

I honestly can't answer anything about your main problem, since I've never done anywhere near 16,380 linedefs on a single map. :-P

[DooMAD]

I've had problems with that too. WadAuthor insists on adding ".tmp" to the file extension in the command.

It's supposed to be "zennode.exe $_Wadfile", but it comes out in the command line as "c:\wads\zennode.exe wadname.tmp.wad", which doesn't exist.

[netnomad312]

Well... there are always tools. Set up a tool that runs a batch file you create, that runs the node builder with your wad (except I dunno how to do it with "the current wadfile")

[Jonathan]

Probably some value getting too large for its memory size and overflowing. I'd advise you to drop WA completely and just make the map in DoomBuilder from now on, it's a far better editor and with a bit of practice you'll be mapping quicker in it than you ever were in WA. Also you might want to try switching to ZDoom, ZDoom's nodesbuilder and ZDoom's "Hexen" level format if you're not using them already, you can find all the information you need about that at http://www.zdoom.org/.

[Sphagne]

All good advices, /me nodes his head. ;)

[ChrisC]

Jonathan,
Yes i'm useing zdoom and hexan format but i still like deepbsp. Doombuilder is very very nice but after 8 to 9 years of one editor it's very very hard to change, and trying to move from a sector based editor to one that draws is a challenge. I see the advantages and disadvantages. An editor that does both would be awesome. Still looking for an answer on whether or not doombuilder has an error checker. Can't live without one

Chris

[Jonathan]

Well if its the latest version of deepbsp, that comes with deepsea, then it'll probably be on a par with zdbsp, but if it's an older version it might well have bugs or limitations that could cause errors. As for DoomBuilder, I used WadAuthor for four years myself and switched to DoomBuilder as soon as it appeared, of course it's a bit of a change at first but it's well worth it. You might want to try pressing ctrl + insert in DoomBuilder, it'll bring up a sector creation dialog fairly similar to the one WadAuthor uses, although drawing sectors directly will be a lot quicker if you practice. It doesn't really have a proper error checker, although it does have options to "fix missing textures" and "fix zero-length linedefs" under the tools menu.

As for your other questions about setting up nodesbuilders using DoomBuilder, I suggest you go to it's configuration panel by pressing F5 and look at the Nodebuilder tab of that window. It's really all pretty self explanatory.