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dt_

'Newbie' in need of a couple of questions answered

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Hi all

Am just returning to doom mapping after a 13 year break (last maps I released were part of CC1) and a lot has changed, with all these different source ports and amazing total conversions and megawads still being released, I want to get back on it.

Basically, I'm currently working my way through several wads, with CC4 being one of them, and I'm loving the CC4 texture pack, which i would like to use in my maps. That's fine, DB can find and use the textures no problem; but when I run the maps I've made through an Iwad that does not contain the CC4 textures (final doom), the textures show up as grey and white chequerplate. How do I get theses textures to run? It must be pretty simple seeing as there's loads of wads with custom textures that run fine, however i haven't the first idea how to compile a wad that includes textures, please can you give me a point in the right direction

Also, I appreciate the limits of the doom engine, but having mapped for various quakes, Half life and even duke nukem, I really miss slopes (and brushes, dynamic lighting, ambient sounds etc. but never mind), and have seen them used in some custom wads and peoples screenshots. how does this work?

Thanks for your help, just need to sort this out, especially the textures, not too fussed for the slopes, just would be interesting for outdoor areas, sewer pipes etc. am looking to release a map soon!

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To answer your first question, you need to either run the texture wad alongside your map or import the textures you're using into your wad using SLADE. As for your second, slopes are a feature you can find in ZDoom derived maps. If you want to make a map using those, then make your map in Doom(Doom in Hexen format) or Doom(Doom in UDMF format). Here's a tutorial if you wanna give it a crack. :)

On a side note, which map in CC1 is yours?

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Maps 4, 8 and 9, made using DEU back in the day. Also released a 6 map wad called "redux" that used those maps in that order as the first three. Slade, is that pretty straightforward to use?

How do I run a texture wad alongside my map?

Cheers for getting back to me

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So you're Bad Bob then? Cool stuff.

SLADE is fairly simple to use as long as you know the general rules of setting up your wad(start and end markers and so forth). If you need to know anything about it then you can easily search for an answer here, as most people will have stumbled into the same problems. Quite a few of the members loitering around actually work on it, so asking around yourself if you can't find an answer is also a viable option.

Concerning texture packs, you run them alongside your wad either by dragging both the map and the texture set over the exe(ZDoom and it's derivatives) or by using command lines(PrBoom, among other older ports), which I admit I'm still not quite sure about. Like I said, feel free to ask around.

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Cool, well cheers for that, as long as I know it's possible I'll just texture away and worry about the consequences later. Was considering mapping for quake 2 again but doom beats it for gameplay and variety of enemies- don't think I've played a game with so much bad guy choice. Will reply back when I get stuck again!

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Hey, cheers for the help, have managed (with the use of slade) to get the textures in my wad. Only trouble is, being a tad lazy, I've just imported the full cc4-tex wad into my own, ballooning my single map wad up to about 15mb. Is there an easy way to single out all the textures I need other than going into DB, writing down the texture names and searching for them in cc4-tex and importing them individually? My map is very near to completion if anyone's up for having a go, let me know (once I've managed to sort the file size out a bit)

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Well, you have two options:
1. Don't include the CC4 textures at all, just tell people to load your map along with the CC4 texture pack. This has been done before so it shouldn't be a problem.
2. Include all textures while making your map, but once you've finished development, use SLADE's maintenance tools (remove unused flats/textures/patches).

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dt_ said:

Only trouble is, being a tad lazy, I've just imported the full cc4-tex wad into my own, ballooning my single map wad up to about 15mb. Is there an easy way to single out all the textures I need other than going into DB, writing down the texture names and searching for them in cc4-tex and importing them individually?

You have multiple choices:

1. Remove TEXTURE1, PNAMES and all textures from your wad. Simply select cc4-tex as a resource for your wad in Doom Builder. You will be able to use cc4 textures in your map, but none of them will actually be added into the wad. Then, when you release the wad, say that it "needs cc4-tex". Players will know what to do: Load your wad along with cc4-tex.wad using -file parameter in source port. This is a common practice, no obscurity, just for your info.

2. Remove TEXTURE1, PNAMES and all textures from your wad. Open Doom2.wad, find TEXTURE1 and PNAMES lumps and copy-paste these lumps into your wad. Double-click TEXTURE1 to open it. Now open cc4-tex in a separate tab of the same instance of SLADE3. Open TEXTURE1 of cc4-tex. You will see a list of textures. Browse through them, and select the ones you want to use. Copy-paste them into TEXTURE1 in your wad. All graphic patches will be automatically added into your wad. Don't forget to save when closing TEXTURE1, then save your wad again. Make sure all patches are between P_START and P_END markers, if not, move them there. Now you should be able to use the textures in your map.

3. Keep the entire cc4 texture pack inside your wad. Make your map. When you finish the map, open the wad in SLADE3 and use a feature "Remove unused textures". This will delete textures not used anywhere in any map inside the wad, and save file space.

EDIT: Ninja'ed.

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Ahh cool, I didn't know it was possible to run 2 wads at the same time. Sorry about this, this is pretty much the first time I've played doom in over a decade. I've already added the entire wad so will leave it for now, but when I've finished the map ill remove all the existing textures like you guys said and release it. Will bear the multiple wad running in mind for any future maps. Thanks again guys

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The way I've removed custom textures before is really easy and really quick - I did exactly what you did - chucked the entire cc4tex wad into my own wad an ended up with a massive file. Anyway....

Using DoomBuilder create a new wad, don't do anything with it and and save it as something like blank.wad

Open your existing wad.

In doombuilder there is an option 'Save map into' - use this and then click on your blank map.

Your map will now be a clean texture free wad called blank.wad

Try it and see :)

Dave

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I agree with everyone else on this thread. I have only one precaution: Be careful of the map editor in SLADE3! It's...buggy.

When I changed compatibility settings in the Slade3 map editor, Slade stopped working entirely. I had to make a new personal account on my computer just to set up Slade again. Luckily, it worked.

As of now, I only use Slade for things like Decorate, Mapinfo, editing and creating textures, etc. I use Doombuilder2 to build maps, as it is much more reliable, or at least has been for me.

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Well, the map is complete, thanks again you guys. It's to be a map 1 of an episode, and is doom 2 compatible, but has a large open area that may stretch the original engine. The map is quite compact however.

I'm not looking to release it on its own, but set it out for people to play and feed back any errors/opinions/criticisms. How do I do it these days?

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If you don't want to release it to the public yet, just create a thread in the WADs&MODs subforum and ask for help/playtesting.
Providing some screenshots and eventually mentioning your CC1 involvement might help baiting folks.

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OR

Contact some people via PM (Private Messages on this forum) and ask them for playtesting your map / send them the map.

OR

Create a thread in Wads&Mods and post a public beta in it, people will post their demos and opinions, which you can take into consideration to improve the map before uploading final version to /idgames.

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It's here...







I need to host this file somewhere... where do you recommend?

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dt_ said:

where do you recommend?

Mediafire.com, Dropbox.com, or another free file hosting service that doesn't force people to register an account in order to download files.

Screenshots look great, by the way.

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Cheers scifista, I've posted this up with a link in the correct forum now for all you guys to have a blast at!

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Argh, I'm really struggling with a texturing issue now

I run the map through either of the final doom IWADs, and the map uses some textures from them (I do not possess doom2.wad)

I have previously added all of the CC4 textures to the wad in the hope of getting the map to run with all the CC4 textures that I have used in the map to appear. This worked, but ballooned the file size. I've tried to use slade to remove the unused textures, but it just crashes (it will remove unused flats no problem, oddly)

Have fixed a few issues in the map as pointed out in the wads/mods forum but am very confused with this. All the textures show up for me no problem.

Should I just edit the thread, saying that the map needs to be run through TNT/PLutonia IWAD with the CC4-TEX resource on top?

Any help appreciated, I see loads of ace maps with no missing textures regardless of which IWAD I run them through so it's just me being a noob somewhere...

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1. Your main mistake since the beginning is using cc4-tex with a non-Doom2 IWAD, because the pack was made for Doom 2 IWAD. I've tried to explain you the issue with stacked TEXTURE1's in your other thread. Doom 2, Plutonia and TNT all have incompatible stock PNAMES and texture sets. In classic (non-ZDoom, non-advanced) ports, the texture pack's PNAMES and TEXTURE1 will overwrite the IWAD ones. CC4-tex was fine-tuned for Doom2's PNAMES as a base. That's why nobody should run TNT/Plutonia IWAD with the CC4-TEX resource on top.

CC4-tex itself contains Plutonia and TNT specific textures. They have different names than in Plutonia and TNT themselves, though. Theoretically, you would merely use Doom 2 specific textures in your map, plus the cc4-Plutonia and cc4-TNT ones, and then tell people to run the wad with Doom 2 IWAD. But it would be much better if you were able to playtest the map in the intended way yourself.

A proper solution would be to use Doom 2 IWAD, but since you don't have it, here is a possible hacky solution: First, determine which exact IWAD you will use - then everybody who will want to play your map will have to use this IWAD too. Once you decide the IWAD, do the following: Open your wad in SLADE3 and delete all texture graphics, TEXTURE1 and PNAMES lumps. Now open the IWAD you're using to play the map. Copy TEXTURE1 and PNAMES lumps from the IWAD and paste them into your wad. Now open TEXTURE1 lump by double click. You will see a list of texture entries. Now open cc4-tex.wad in a new tab, double click its TEXTURE1 lump and see the list of cc4-tex textures. Select all cc4-tex-specific textures - not the IWAD ones at the beginning of the list, only the new custom ones. Copy them, then go back to the tab with your wad's TEXTURE1, and paste the textures in there. Close TEXTURE1 and confirm to save changes to TEXTURE1, then save the wad again. Now check the contents of your wad. All cc4-tex patches should be between P_START and P_END (or PP_START and PP_END) markers now. If some of them are not, move them so that they will be. Finally, copy the flats from cc4-tex into your wad, place them between FF_START and F_END markers (yes, double F in FF_START, single F in F_END). Save your wad and you're done. Now the wad contains your IWAD friendly version of cc4-tex, which you can use as the only resource for your mapping (and not the original cc4-tex anymore).

(Some textures in cc4-tex deliberately overwrite the stock ones (BIGDOOR1, SUPPORT2 etc.) - you would have to fine-tune those if you wanted to make them look exactly as in cc4-tex. You would also have to copy the _FIXED patches from cc4-tex into the patch section inside your wad.)

---

2. Removing unused textures: First remove unused textures, then remove unused patches - not the other way around. When removing unused textures via SLADE3, you must manually uncheck skies (SKY1-SKY3) and preferably also switches (I'm not sure if this is actually required, but I always do it for certainty).

---

By the way, you should get Doom 2 IWAD. Everybody in the community is basically assumed by the mappers, modders and texture pack makers to have Doom 2 IWAD.

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Thanks so much for the explanation, so from what you have said, ultimately the best and proper way will be to get hold of the doom2 iwad and this will make texturing much easier. I've underestimated the importance of this- I've run a fair few wads with final doom iwads and not had a problem so not even considered getting doom2.wad

Excuse my daftness, I've not so much as played a computer game in years and I've never been the best with computers despite my dad working in IT since the early nineties

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It's completely OK to run a Doom 2 wad with one of Final Doom IWADs. But if the wad has custom textures, it might not be OK, or you might need a source port that supports stacking TEXTURE1/PNAMES. For you as a user, it's no problem if you use such a port (like ZDoom). But it is a problem if you're a mapper and want to make your maps compatible with classic ports to get more people (and speedrunners) interested in playing it. PrBoom-plus is a very popular speedrunning port because of its limit-removing nature and "-complevel" support for various compatibilities ranging from vanilla over Boom to MBF and further. But it doesn't support stacked TEXTURE1s.

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Okay, loading it with TNT.wad as the IWAD and cc4-tex.wad results in the least amount of missing textures: only KS_CEM09 is still missing.

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Cheers for playing gez, had a look at those dodgy sectors, the one that wasn't rendering properly was a sector I made before I realised it was possible to delete sectors (I didn't dare incase it deleted all the linedefs and broke the surrounding sectors. The one In the corridor area that gave HOM effects was actually a redundant sector, and has been merged into a neighbouring one.

Have just bought a hard copy of doom2 off eBay (£2.49 posted). Will get on top of this texturing malarkey before releasing the fixed version of the map

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Deleting any sectors should always be OK (it only creates untextured walls in the worst case). But explicitly deleting 1-sided linedefs or 2-sided linedefs between 2 different sectors is wrong. It creates unclosed sectors. You should always "Join" or "Merge" sectors before deleting linedefs between them.

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Yeah, took me a while to get to grips with doom builder, but it's excellent when you get learn the key combinations and controlling the 3d mode, a lot like duke build used to be. Easier than DEU anyway, don't think I could map without a 3d mode after DB, I've been spoilt!

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scifista42 said:

But explicitly deleting 1-sided linedefs or 2-sided linedefs between 2 different sectors is wrong. It creates unclosed sectors.

It should be pointed out that the easiest way to fix the resulting mess in Doom Builder is to go into Make Sectors mode and click on the corrupted area(s). It'll turn them into valid sectors automagically.

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