Very new- general question about ports/ WAD, pk3 behavior

[BubbleTrumps]

I'm an utter newcomer to this huge Doom modding scene- but after being driven away by the purely visual and unimaginative filth that is the game industry of today, going back to something of timeless challenge and substance like Doom is real refreshing.

I've been rummaging around the net for days trying out source ports, WADs and utilities to try and create my own, tastefully balanced modded scenario, to get some bearings. I've scoured this forum and others to glean a foundation in what ports embrace WAD support and other such advice, but my intense ignorance keeps contradicting my determination..

Anyway, I've begun by merging some monster and weapon skin WADs into one that fairly cleanly replaces all the defaults in the Doom1 campaign (with GZDoom).. then I found a hi-res texture collection (.pk3) that expressly supported GZDoom. GZDoom seems to automatically find my skin WAD without any kind of specific launcher or command line, which is nice. A drag n drop of the .pk3 over the .exe somehow launches the game with both pk3 and WAD- yet there seems to be no way to get GZdoom or a score of other ports to always automatically launch Doom with this pk3. What's more, XWE nor Slumped seem to straightforwardly merge a .pk3 pack with a WAD. I don't know the relationship between the two.

I tried putting the filename (jdtp-20081108.pk3) on an allotted line in GZDoom's cfg, a touted auto-launching strat, but it didn't work at all. Also, is it possible to launch, say, a campaign WAD such as Knee Deep in Zdoom simultaneously with a hi-res texture pack and a seperate monster/weapon replacer WAD? Cuz so far, I've had no luck merging these things together. Is it as simple as cut and paste in XWE? Also, GZDoom won't even run KDIZD a second w/o crashing. What port should I use if my main concerns are aesthetic quality and WAD support/ stability?

I would love it if anyone could specify errors in how I am looking at this situation, or just anything really.

[Jodwin]

To run multiple wads or pk3s at the same time either:
1) Select each of them together and drag and drop them to the source port exe (works only in ports which support drag and dropping)
2) Use a launcher/frontend such as ZDL or CDL (CDL requires .Net 2.0)
3) Use the command line
4) Create shortcuts that use command line arguments


Pk3s are actually zip files with simply a different file extension. Not all ports support them, and only some OpenGL ports support hi-res textures. I wouldn't be surprised if either XWE or Slumped has problems with merging wads and pk3s since they are completely different.

For your own playing purposes, please don't go merging multiple wads into one. That's fertile ground for getting errors if the wad contents end up overwriting each other. Instead keep the wads separate and just run multiple files at once.

In theory you should be able to play any wads with any weapon and monster mods as long as the port you're using supports them, but with wads like KDIZD that have a lot of modified content on their own there might be problems. Those should be unrelated to what port you're using though.

[BubbleTrumps]

Thanks for answering.

Unfortunately, 3) and 4) escape me. The actual execution of a command line in regards to Doom files is beyond me. Could I get a brief example of each?

Also, why are so many final projects in .pk3 form instead of .wad? Is it to purposely discourage further lump modification? Or are there a few simple steps that can be taken in regards to making .pk3 content editable and movable for use in a .wad?

[Graf Zahl]

BubbleTrumps said:

Also, why are so many final projects in .pk3 form instead of .wad?

There's 2 reasons:

1. A Zip file has more structure
2. You don't need dedicated WAD tools to edit its contents

Is it to purposely discourage further lump modification?

It is much easier to get to a PK3/Zip's content than to a WAD's so this assumption is completely false.

Or are there a few simple steps that can be taken in regards to making .pk3 content editable and movable for use in a .wad?

Any lump in a PK3 has to be in a format that the port also can read from a WAD. Of course, if you get a ZDoom mod using PNGs for images you won't be able to use these PNGs with other ports that can't read them. But that'd be the same if it was using a WAD.

[wildweasel]

BubbleTrumps said:

Also, why are so many final projects in .pk3 form instead of .wad? Is it to purposely discourage further lump modification? Or are there a few simple steps that can be taken in regards to making .pk3 content editable and movable for use in a .wad?

Quite the opposite, actually. A PK3 is basically a renamed ZIP file; ports like Doomsday and ZDoom can read these as if they were WAD files. Some people prefer the directory structure of a PK3/ZIP file over the more awkward monolithic WAD file and one long list of lumps. It's much better organized, usually.

[BubbleTrumps]

Hm. So you're saying I can just edit or add onto the txt files in the pk3/zip (in proper wad-esque format that Doom can read) and don't need a tool? I can take a sprite/lump/texture/sound from a wad and the text or whatever file will translate into the pk3 (taking respective compatibilities into account) and vis-versa? Because even a rudimentary edit such as changing the damage on the pistol in KDIZD from 5 to 6 in the Weapon.txt causes strange errors, and upon reentry the edits are promptly reset.

The same happens on Slumped, an apparent pk3 editor.