How to: Make compilation megawads out of singular wads?

[Delacroix]

Greetings. I'd like to do some sorting of my private collection of wads and I'm interested in turning some of them into megawads. What is the best way to go about it? Which applications should I use and in what manner? Thank you very much in advance.

[volumetricsteve]

I smell an ethical issue, but I guess if it's just own your own machine, NOT for distribution...you might be in the clear.

The dumbest laziest way I can think to go about it is to open them all in Doom Builder and just start saving them into the same wad.

[Gez]

Use SLADE 3 to copy/paste them into the same file and rename map headers as appropriate. You may run into resource conflicts, and you'll have to fix them yourself, something that using Doom Builder "save map into..." feature will not help you do.

[Delacroix]

volumetricsteve said:

I smell an ethical issue

You would be correct if this were a public release. Thanks for your suggestion, I'll try that!

[scifista42]

If the wads contained other resources than solely maps (custom textures, music, etc.), it won't suffice to save them all into the same wad via a map editor. You will need to use a proper wad content editor - the only modern one is SLADE3. Compiling maps goes as putting them into a single wad and changing their map markers from MAP01 to other mapslots in order to distribute them to all possible mapslots instead of overriding each other if they were all in MAP01 slot. Compiling other (non-map) resources is more complicated, and so I won't address it at the moment, but feel free to ask when you come to that point.

[Delacroix]

I have another question: how to make sure map titles display properly instead of using stock Doom or Doom II level names? Thanks in advance.

[scifista42]

Depends how the map titles were defined in the first place: Via a DEHACKED patch for automap names + CWILV** graphics for intermission names, or via ZDoom's MAPINFO for both. Either way, without going into further detail for now, you need to compile these and change the respective texts or names of the graphics.

[Delacroix]

I'd go with ZDoom MAPINFO since I'm playing everything on Zandronum anyways.

[scifista42]

Then you'll need to create a text lump named "MAPINFO" in the compilation wad, and the MAPINFO should contain map definition entries for every map in the compilation.

[40oz]

I had an idea once but hadn't had the patience to play enough stuff to give it much serious thought. You could avoid the legal mumbo-jumbo if you could perhaps make an unofficial 30-level "maplist" using a forum thread.

For example:

If you can find and play 30 individual single level pwads, and find /idgames links to all of them, you could arrange them in an order from easiest to hardest and write some sort of silly narrative that connects all the levels together. (I.e. The doom guy goes to an airport, flies a plane that crash lands near a hell castle, exits through a tunnel into someone's house etc.) and even create a serious title like "Doom: Reanimated" or "Endless Doom" or something corny like that, coupled with a splash graphic to put at the top of the thread. You could even make a graphics wad that displays all the map names or even gives an original titlepic, interpic, music, and status bar and stuff.

The idea of course would be not to tamper with the existing wads by compiling them into an entire wad megawad, but to link the individual wads here for convenience and creating a simple storyline which gives these maps reason to be played in that particular order. The catch of course is like Master Levels, each map must be played from a pistol start.

Just talking about it is actually getting me kind of excited about it. If you like this idea and want to seriously consider working on it, let me know and ill gladly help you put it all together. I'd love to discuss some rare underrated wads that are a lot of fun and help piece together a storyline with them. Especially since DW Megawad Club is rife with new members each month, the source of new megawads, however, will eventually be depleted (although that may be several years from now, I still think the club would appreciate it)