[Testing] A Flat to texture/texture to flat pack

[tomatoKetchup]

Howdy!

I'm currently working on a texture pack that proposes 64*128 wall texture versions of most of Doom1/2 flats, and vice-versa.

So far, I've finished the Flat -> Texture conversion, here's the link to the pack.

http://www.archive-host.com/lt/pqlmgee5foq7/F-T-F.zip

Password: doomworld

I am still working on the Texture -> Flat conversion, which takes a bit longer because I want to do it right (eg. seamless in all 4 sides, and also 4 different orientations for every flat).

Feel free to tell me if everything works fine (the pack is to load on top of every IWAD resources) and if you think it can be useful, just so I feel I'm not working for nothing. :)

One last thing: legally speaking, am I allowed to upload such a pack on /idgames db?


Original post:

I recently realized (damn ZDoom and it's very flexible capabilities!) that Boom/Vanilla doom formated map don't accept flats as wall textures and vice versa...

I was wondering if there is out there a texture pack that proposes flat versions of doom 1/2 textures, and vice-versa? I looked on idgames archives and googled it, without any success.

So I was thinking of doing it myself, but in order to spare me useless hassle I thought I'd check first here to see if somebody have come across such a thing already.

[scifista42]

Don't forget that Boom/vanilla flats must be exactly 64x64 units, and textures must be exactly 128 units tall to tile properly.

I believe cc4-tex has many flats converted to textures and textures reduced to flats, but probably not all of them. Same with NiGHTMARE's d2text pack. It's actually a common trait of texture pack based on stock textures, but I don't know if there's any pack to have them all, as much as possible with the dimension-related limits.

[tomatoKetchup]

Just had a look at that famous cc4 pack that everybody talks about. Pretty impressive choice of textures and flats... in fact, way too much in my opinion. But it doesn't have what I need.

[tomatoKetchup]

Hey, just made a flat to texture pack, converting almost every Doom/Doom2 flat to 64*128 textures.

It is to load on top of every IWAD resources (Doom1/2, Plutonia and TNT)

See link on first post.

Can someone tell me if he can download from this link and if the wad works fine on his side too?

[scifista42]

tomatoKetchup said:

It is to load on top of every IWAD resources (Doom1/2, Plutonia and TNT)

So it's prepared for the user to manually edit the TEXTURE1 according to his IWAD? It would be slightly more convenient if you've prepared ready-made versions for various IWAD, so that the user doesn't need to open a wad content editor at all, just load the wad as a resource. Your wad, as is, cannot be loaded as a resource with any IWAD, because the IWAD stock texture definitions would be overwritten in classic ports that don't support stacking TEXTURE1 entries, not to mention that the very first TEXTURE1 entry must always be dummy.

[tomatoKetchup]

scifista42 said:

So it's prepared for the user to manually edit the TEXTURE1 according to his IWAD? It would be slightly more convenient if you've prepared ready-made versions for various IWAD, so that the user doesn't need to open a wad content editor at all, just load the wad as a resource. Your wad, as is, cannot be loaded as a resource with any IWAD, because the IWAD stock texture definitions would be overwritten in classic ports that don't support stacking TEXTURE1 entries, not to mention that the very first TEXTURE1 entry must always be dummy.

Not sure I follow you. What should I do in order to prevent that? Should I just rename the TEXTURE lump?

[tomatoKetchup]

scifista42 said:

so that the user doesn't need to open a wad content editor at all, just load the wad as a resource.[/b].

On Doom Builder 2, I just need to make sure the resource pack is placed after every IWAD in the list of resources. You think it could not work the same in other editors?

[scifista42]

Editor is irrelevant. The source port is what matters. Vanilla Doom exe and standard ports (like PrBoom-plus or Chocolate Doom) will only load the very last TEXTURE lump they find in the queue of loaded resources. Therefore, you need to include all stock TEXTURE1 and PNAMES definitions within your own TEXTURE1 and PNAMES, along with the new definitions, of course.

Create a new empty wad in SLADE3. Now open Doom 2 IWAD in another tab of the same instance of SLADE3. Copy TEXTURE1 and PNAMES lumps from the IWAD into the new empty wad. Close Doom 2 IWAD. Double click TEXTURE1 to open it. Now open your FLAT2TEX.wad, and open its TEXTURE1 too. Copy-paste your FLAT2TEX texture definitions to the end of TEXTURE1 definitions in the new wad. Save changes when closing TEXTURE1, then save the wad again. Make sure all patches were added between P_START and P_END (or PP_START and PP_END) markers. Never put F_START marker into your wad (otherwise the source port will not find IWAD flats)! Replace it with FF_START if you want, or delete both F_START and F_END if you don't need any new flats.

This way, you've created Doom 2 compatible texture pack. Now you can do the same for Ultimate Doom, TNT and Plutonia, by repeating the same steps with these IWADs instead of Doom 2, and saving the results to different wads.

EDIT:

By the way, I like the textures you've made, they might be useful. Regarding /idgames, it should be OK to upload there, lots of stock-texture-based texture packs were accepted in there. Probably not 100% legally clear, but in practice, nobody seems to care that much.

[tomatoKetchup]

scifista42 said:

Editor is irrelevant. The source port is what matters. Vanilla Doom exe and standard ports (like PrBoom-plus or Chocolate Doom) will only load the very last TEXTURE lump they find in the queue of loaded resources. Therefore, you need to include all stock TEXTURE1 and PNAMES definitions within your own TEXTURE1 and PNAMES, along with the new definitions, of course.

Create a new empty wad in SLADE3. Now open Doom 2 IWAD in another tab of the same instance of SLADE3. Copy TEXTURE1 and PNAMES lumps from the IWAD into the new empty wad. Close Doom 2 IWAD. Double click TEXTURE1 to open it. Now open your FLAT2TEX.wad, and open its TEXTURE1 too. Copy-paste your FLAT2TEX texture definitions to the end of TEXTURE1 definitions in the new wad. Save changes when closing TEXTURE1, then save the wad again. Make sure all patches were added between P_START and P_END (or PP_START and PP_END) markers. Never put F_START marker into your wad (otherwise the source port will not find IWAD flats)! Replace it with FF_START if you want, or delete both F_START and F_END if you don't need any new flats.

This way, you've created Doom 2 compatible texture pack. Now you can do the same for Ultimate Doom, TNT and Plutonia, by repeating the same steps with these IWADs instead of Doom 2, and saving the results to different wads.

EDIT:

By the way, I like the textures you've made, they might be useful. Regarding /idgames, it should be OK to upload there, lots of stock-texture-based texture packs were accepted in there. Probably not 100% legally clear, but in practice, nobody seems to care that much.

Gotcha! I'll make sure the latest version of the pack is edited this way. Thanks for the clarification.

[Gez]

tomatoKetchup said:

Not sure I follow you. What should I do in order to prevent that? Should I just rename the TEXTURE lump?

For Doom II, that's about all that's needed: rename it as TEXTURE2 and there's no problem. :)

For Doom 1, there's the issue that it has its own TEXTURE2.

Also, for Plutonia and TNT, there's also the issue that the PNAMES lump are different (and also different from those of Doom II).

[scifista42]

Gez said:

For Doom II, that's about all that's needed: rename it as TEXTURE2 and there's no problem. :)

Will this indeed 100% work in all ports? I was under an impression that not really. For example, old version of D2INO had textures defined in TEXTURE2, and IIRC, they glitched somehow. I think I've tried setting a texture pack this way just once long time ago, and it wouldn't load even in PrBoom-plus (or I just did something wrong).

[tomatoKetchup]

Gez said:

For Doom 1, there's the issue that it has its own TEXTURE2.

What if I place them in a TEXTURE3 lump? Would vanilla ports recognize a TEXTURE3 lump?

[scifista42]

Pretty sure that no. http://doomwiki.org/wiki/TEXTURE1_and_TEXTURE2 But you can try it, to be 100% certain that I wasn't wrong.

Also keep in mind that you still have a problem with overridden PNAMES! IMO, the TEXTURE2 solution is worse than separate packs for different IWADs.

[tomatoKetchup]

Ok, I'm almost finished!

Now I have a little question before I start compiling the work in a wad.

I noticed when I open cc4-tex on Doom Builder 2, the textures are by default sorted in the different sections (Base, Brick, Blood...).

But I can't find anything inside the wad that tells DB2 to do that, so I was wondering how this works.

EDIT: I actually just found out DB2 uses filters for that. It looks at particular series of characters (for example "BRICK") in textures/flats names to sort them out.

[Gez]

scifista42 said:

Will this indeed 100% work in all ports? I was under an impression that not really. For example, old version of D2INO had textures defined in TEXTURE2, and IIRC, they glitched somehow. I think I've tried setting a texture pack this way just once long time ago, and it wouldn't load even in PrBoom-plus (or I just did something wrong).

They can still glitch if the PNAMES isn't compatible.

[tomatoKetchup]

Okay, the wad is ready for testing.

http://www.archive-host.com/lt/piyoejrq3bsk/F2T_T2F.zip

Password: doomworld

Please feel free to mess around with it and see if there is any problem.

I'm particularly interested in tests made on vanilla .exe/ports, because I have an issue running PrBoom and I don't have the original .exe.

If everything work fine I'll be uploading it on /idgames

Thanks for your help!

[scifista42]

Get Chocolate Doom. It faithfully emulates vanilla, to the point that testing wads in Chocolate Doom practically equals testing in vanilla.

The wad currently crashes Chocolate Doom, because:
1. There are custom flats, but no F_END marker. You must include F_END marker (with 1 F), but *not* F_START marker. That's why FF_START is used. Put flats between FF_START and F_END markers.
2. Put all flats before patches.
3. If you follow these steps, Chocolate Doom will run, but it will display flats a little oddly, possibly because some of your patch names collide with flat names.

[tomatoKetchup]

scifista42 said:

Get Chocolate Doom. It faithfully emulates vanilla, to the point that testing wads in Chocolate Doom practically equals testing in vanilla.

The wad currently crashes Chocolate Doom, because:
1. There are custom flats, but no F_END marker. You must include F_END marker (with 1 F), but *not* F_START marker. That's why FF_START is used. Put flats between FF_START and F_END markers.
2. Put all flats before patches.
3. If you follow these steps, Chocolate Doom will run, but it will display flats a little oddly, possibly because some of your patch names collide with flat names.

Changed all patch names to avoid conflicts, moved them on top and changed marker's names.

I'm gonna get chocolate Doom also. Thanks and let me know if you spot anything else.

[tomatoKetchup]

scifista42 said:

2. Put all flats before patches.

Oops, read the other way around, and actually moved patches on top of the flats... Is that a big issue?

[scifista42]

Nooo, I wrote it wrong. I've meant to put flats after patches. I'm not entirely sure why, but I did it to your wad and only then I was able to run it in Chocolate Doom without a fatal error.

[tomatoKetchup]

scifista42 said:

Nooo, I wrote it wrong. I've meant to put flats after patches. I'm not entirely sure why, but I did it to your wad and only then I was able to run it in Chocolate Doom without a fatal error.

Ahah, no worries, I didn't change anything. :)

[scifista42]

Will you provide a download for the updated pack?

EDIT: Oh, the link already contains the updated version.

Seems to run stock maps fine in Chocolate Doom, which is a good first indication of success. Now to test actually using the textures...

EDIT2: One more thing: Basically, it wasn't needed to make a separate version without animations. Vanilla Doom will simply not read the ANIMATED lump and the textures/flats will appear as static if used in the maps. But alright if you wanted to make it convenient for the mapper this way.

EDIT3: Works fine so far. This screenshot was taken in Chocolate Doom. The textures simply didn't animate (my point is that they didn't crash the game). When I launched the wads in PrBoom-plus, they animated correctly.

[tomatoKetchup]

scifista42 said:

[s]Basically, it wasn't needed to make a separate version without animations. Vanilla Doom will simply not read the ANIMATED lump and the textures/flats will appear as static if used in the maps. But alright if you wanted to make it convenient for the mapper this way.

Yes, the point was to have a clean and lighter texture pack for the vanilla mapper, without any useless assets. And they also don't appear in the list on textures in the editors, which could be annoying because there's a lot of them.

I'm glad everything works fine otherwise. Thanks for your help scifista.

Btw I put your name on the readme for all the help you gave me, hope you don't mind. ;)

[scifista42]

OK, thanks. I liked the flats as much as I liked the textures, by the way, they're stylish in a way, so thanks for making this.

[tomatoKetchup]

Glad to read this, let's hope mappers get to use it.

[tomatoKetchup]

Just added a Plutonia-compatible version: PlF2T2F1.wad/PlF2T2F2.wad

Tested on GZDoom and Chocolate Doom and it seems to work fine, but a second opinion is always welcome. ;)

Is it worth working on a tnt-version, are there many mappers actually basing their mod on tnt.wad?

[scifista42]

If you made versions for 2 IWADs (Doom 2, Plutonia), there is no reason not to add versions for the other 2 IWADs (Ultimate Doom, TNT) for flexibility. Flexibility is good, and worth it, IMO.

[tomatoKetchup]

Fair enough. It's just that it's a pain in the arse to do it because the patch table is different from a iwad to another and I have to go to every new texture one by one and manually change their patches.

But I'll do it, eventually. :)

[Gez]

tomatoKetchup said:

Fair enough. It's just that it's a pain in the arse to do it because the patch table is different from a iwad to another and I have to go to every new texture one by one and manually change their patches.

You can do that a lot more simply by using SLADE 3.

Create a PWAD with a copy of the PNAMES & TEXTUREx lumps from the IWAD. Open the texture editor. Now open your texture pack. Open the texture editor again. You now have two texture editor tabs, one for the new PWAD and one from the texture pack. Select and copy-paste the textures from the pack into the new pack. Done!

[tomatoKetchup]

Gez said:

You can do that a lot more simply by using SLADE 3.

Create a PWAD with a copy of the PNAMES & TEXTUREx lumps from the IWAD. Open the texture editor. Now open your texture pack. Open the texture editor again. You now have two texture editor tabs, one for the new PWAD and one from the texture pack. Select and copy-paste the textures from the pack into the new pack. Done!

That's what I did. But let's say in my texture pack for Doom2.wad, the custom patches start at position 200 (I give a random number) in the patch table.

Now if I copy-paste those patches in Plutonia.wad for example, because there is more patches than in doom2.wad, my custom patches will start at a higher number (230 for example).
Because the TEXTUREx lump uses the ids (ie positions) defined in the patch table, all my custom textures will be associated with the wrong patches.

That's what happened to me anyway, maybe I did something wrong and there's a way to tell Slade to properly match textures with patches names instead of their Ids.