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Stealthy Ivan

DETH...

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Remember that doom editor called DETH? I recently stumbled across this on a group of floppy's I have laying around. This editor sucked, I was actually laughing at it for a moment and wondering why I ever used it!? :P
Did any one here ever really take use of this shoddy program?
BTW what is the most unique/shitty editor you have ever used, mine was called REGMED and it came in the back of a book on a 1.5 (it was shareware).

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What?

DETH was created in the DOS days, and maybe except for DCK (and later also WadAuthor, as Windows developed) it was probably the most powerful level editing tool during a good period.

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@MYK Well it was better than REGMED but still was a pain in the ass to work with, but in a way, every editor back then was a time consuming feat. BTW what nodes builder did you use back in the day? I had a program called bsp.exe.

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leileilol said:

DCK 2.2 > *

I agree! DCK was a bit better, and I'm not knocking DETH, I'm just laughing at how old school it is and admiring the advances in editors.

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Stealthy Ivan said:

BTW what nodes builder did you use back in the day? I had a program called bsp.exe.



tbsp.exe!! If a map got around 300 or more sectors it failed, maybe less. Also made some strange blockmap errors randomly.

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@Use3d I remember sector limits, god I hated that, I think the first editor I found with "no limits" or at least less to a point was DeeP ver 8.70.

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Oh the nodebuilder itself had a problem with too many sectors. Just an old program.

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DETH is a maximum flexibility vanilla Doom & Boom editor, but I don't like its clumsy DOS interface and lack of built-in BSP. That's why I prefer WinDEU (despite its lacks) to both Deth and DeepSea. It's fast, still free, nearly crashproof and good for sketch-only editing (no 3d view). It has a rudimentary node-builder which is good for starters. It only lacks turbo engines and E4 in Doom1, new decorations in Doom2, and expansion pack and others in Heretic. These can be solved by briefly using another editor, though IIRC the Heretic problem is less funny.

Normally I use Doom Builder, but for nostalgia and low detail DOOM maps, I take WinDEU.

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I use deth for most of my mapping. I find it quick, logic and intuitive.

I use doombuilder only to align textures, because the 3D mode is a big plus for this. But for building structures from scratch (from vertexes), DB is clumsy as hell and doesnt have any logic on how to assign sector numbers to the sidedefs. It leaves a bunch of opened/screwy sectors I got to fix manually.

When you know DETH well and undertsand it's logic, it gives a lot of power to the user and makes mapping a breeze.

Last point, DETH has good error checkers and options to fix some of them automatically. DB let quite a few mistakes and bugs slip by unoticed. Bt I guess this is related to mappers making maps for newer ports that are more 'error' tolerant. Doom2.exe tends to be quite crashy if the maps arent made right.

The DOS thing is not a problem since I got old PCs with windows 98. Win98 runs DETH in command prompt real well.

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DETH gives you access to everything, so I guess if you're used to editors doing stuff for you it's a pain. But I love it. I still use it for my maps. :P

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CodeImp could introduce DETH's advantages into his editor anytime. Free work they both are.

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a "DETH" mode that would make doombuilder run just like DETH would really make my day as I really like the deep level of editing DETH offers.

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So I take it that you fellow mappers really like DETH, Hmm, very interesting indeed. As asked before, what editors did you hate? Oh, and by the way you talk about DETH you seem to say it was a base/foundation for future editing tools (which would make it cool piece of doom editing history)?!

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making a win32 (and even multiplatform) port of deth would be a great thing ... it's a great base to start with.

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Stealthy Ivan said:

As asked before, what editors did you hate?

I hate those editors which, unlike Doom, really require you to quit Windows to run them -- all while there's no mouse driver in DOS. DoSBoX doesn't suffice -- they'll run clumsily.

I also hate shareware editors, but oh fine that's ok damn you.

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VinceDSS said:

making a win32 (and even multiplatform) port of deth would be a great thing ... it's a great base to start with.

I was going to do exactly this and everybody jumped on my back howling that I was wasting my time with something nobody would use.

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Quasar said:
I was going to do exactly this and everybody jumped on my back howling that I was wasting my time with something nobody would use.

Unless there was a discussion on it other than this one, I don't really see anyone who was against porting DETH -- just a couple people who misunderstood the reasons for porting it to SDL...

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Quasar said:

I was going to do exactly this and everybody jumped on my back howling that I was wasting my time with something nobody would use.


I can betatest for you, and even have improvement suggestions :D

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Quasar said:

I was going to do exactly this and everybody jumped on my back howling that I was wasting my time with something nobody would use.


Playing Metroid Prime 3 is a waste of time. Making a cross platform deth is important :P

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CODOR said:

Unless there was a discussion on it other than this one, I don't really see anyone who was against porting DETH -- just a couple people who misunderstood the reasons for porting it to SDL...

There was one in #zdoom. It was like the day after we found out Assmaster was dead, and he was a supporter of the project, so it REALLY pissed me off at the time. In fact it still does.

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Stealthy Ivan said:

BTW what is the most unique/shitty editor you have ever used, mine was called REGMED and it came in the back of a book on a 1.5 (it was shareware).

DeePsee has the most awful user interface I saw in my life. I cry when I need to start it to get its unique powerful features like "Error Check"

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Some people seem to like deepsea, but I am not one of these :) I kinda despise it actually.

As for DETH, many great mappers use(d) it, Kim Malde and Anders Johnsen are great examples. So if it sucked I dont think great mappers like them would use it :D

Quasar > combining DETH with your doomport for a 3D mode should probably be your 1st step, then implementing 3rd party node builders.

anyhow..I got lots of suggestions to make DETH better :D

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Maybe I could resurrect the project but separate the UI from the editing logic so that I could throw away most of the former. It's all garbage code consisting of 3000-line functions that repeat the same operations over and over. Unbelievably bad design for a program that works so well.

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I remember using DETH for many years, especially after DETH and HETH became DETH 3.92.

Some years ago, Chris over on the ZDOOM forum worked on a windows version of ZETH, named WinZETH.
ZETH is Randy's rewrite of DETH to take advantage of the early ZDoom features.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=86578&package_id=133988
While I tried it out, I could not use it because of some video problems.

If you really want to go ahead with this, maybe, the source will come in handy.

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Kappes Buur said:

I remember using DETH for many years, especially after DETH and HETH became DETH 3.92.

Some years ago, Chris over on the ZDOOM forum worked on a windows version of ZETH, named WinZETH.
ZETH is Randy's rewrite of DETH to take advantage of the early ZDoom features.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=86578&package_id=133988
While I tried it out, I could not use it because of some video problems.

If you really want to go ahead with this, maybe, the source will come in handy.


Yes, I use this version, unfortunately it has some bugs which causes it to crash and force you to alt-tab to windows and kill it. Certianly keeps you on your toes and hitting save every few seconds :P

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Quasar said:

Maybe I could resurrect the project but separate the UI from the editing logic so that I could throw away most of the former. It's all garbage code consisting of 3000-line functions that repeat the same operations over and over. Unbelievably bad design for a program that works so well.

You seriously should do that. I was under the impression you were chucking out the UI from the start anyways, and tbh as long as the end result works like DETH does you can go hog wild.

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Heh. My impression was that you planned to do the exact opposite (emulate the existing drawing routines by drawing into an SDL_surface (probably)). Plan changed?

If it was me, I would throw out EVERYTHING other than the line editing logic (yes, I have spent some time looking at the source for DETH).

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