ReX

Check out Wildman's ZDooM tutorials, which include a whole section on ACS scripting, including some sample scripts. Also, go to Tarin's site (www.doomhq.com/tarin) for a very cool example wad (acsstuff.zip) that uses excellent scripts. Scripting for ZDooM is entirely text-based (no C++ as far as I can tell). Plus, I use WadAuthor, which makes writing and compiling scripts really easy.

I completely agree with you on what a level should do (i.e., spook you and surprise you). Sometimes, however, it is fun to be in a situation where you're low on ammo or health and you have to overcome some obstacles to get some. Imagine being chased by a couple of revenants when all you have is a few bullets in your chaingun, scrambling to make it to safety through the next door before it closes, knowing that you'll have a few precious moments of respite to gather your wits! Classic thrills! I suppose the key is to always provide the player with a way out, however slim. The better the player, the slimmer should be the way out. I'm still learning the ropes of optimal enemy, ammo, weapons, and powerup placement, and I think I still have plenty to learn. Maps like Apocalypse provide excellent opportunities to learn what works. Keep 'em coming, friends.

Tarin & Rick: Thanks for the excellent tips. Tarin, I used your suggestion and Voila! I was able to take care of business right in WadAuthor. I was trying to get the deep water effect with colored lighting (described in Rick's ZDooM tutorial). Now I need to mess around with the RGB colors to get the desired effect. My water is lighter colored than the deep blue (0,0,203) of DooM. Curiously, when I use a lighter blue (0,192,224), the ceiling (water surface when viewed from below) is the right color, but the gun/hand sprite is green, and the underwater environment is not colored. I'll keep trying. But thank you both for your help.

I've been using WadAuthor for a year, and after building 15 levels with it I feel comfortable with using it for all my map building. I am currently learning the ropes of ZDooM editing and the basics of scripting using WadAuthor. However, I must point out that WadAuthor occasionally does inexplicable things to my maps, usually when they have grown large. (It could be something that I've done that's causing the problem, but I can't tell for sure.) Also, being a sector-based map editor, WadAuthor has some aspects that are not the most friendly. But on the other hand, it has plenty of user-friendly aspects. A really good way of learning how things work in DooM, is to use WadAuthor (or any other editor) to view a published map. Pick a map that you really enjoyed playing, or in which you had noticed some innovative ideas. Use your map editor to view that map and learn what the author did. Good luck.

Elviele, I misunderstood your question about "ceiling to wall" sky textures. AndrewB has explained how to do it, and I just wanted to mention one of the applications he refers to. Say you're on an island, and you want the sky to meet the water (or lava, or whatever is surrounding the island) at the horizon. If the water floor height is 0, you create a sector around the water with floor and ceiling height = 0, and ceiling texture as F_SKY. This will create a sky that meets the water in a "ceiling to wall" effect.

>>how do you use the pther skys? DooM II is set up so that Levels 1-11 have the cloudy sky, Levels 12-20 have the city/buildings sky, and 21-30 have the mountain sky. If you want a different sky than the cloudy one, you can do it in two ways. The easy way is to set up WadAuthor so that you are creating a map other than Map01 - Map11 (when you open a new file in WadAuthor, right click your mouse, select Map Name, and change Mission number to a number between 12 and 30. If you have an existing map, right click on any part of the WadAuthor grid outside your map boundary and follow the same steps). Remember to specify the map number in your text file. The more difficult way to do it is to use a graphics editor (such as WinTex) and insert a new sky patch to replace R_SKY1. You can use your graphics editor to insert one of the other two skies (city or mountain) in place of the cloudy sky (but what would be the point, when it's so much easier to just rename the map). However, if you replace R_SKY1 with one of the other two DooM II skies, your wad will almost certainly be rejected by CDROM.com (their policy is that you can't include any of id Software's original graphics). >>And on some levels have the sky from cieling to wall, How do you do that?? When you say "ceiling to wall", I assume you mean having a wall texture be one of the skies. This one is easy. In WadAuthor, double click on the wall you want to look like a sky, click on the Main sidedef picture, scroll to SKY1, SKY2, or SKY3, click on the sky you want, click on OK and you're set.

What is the difference between the DooM pallette and the default pallette of MSPaint (i.e., does DooM use colors not available in MS Paint)? How do I make my default palette the DooM pallette, and what are the issues in converting palettes?

Is it possible to load an external wad file from ZDooM's console? I read the documentation (ZDooM.txt and commands.txt) and unfortunately, "-file" does not appear to be one of the commands that can be used. I've been using ZDLaunch, but lately it's been causing problems and occasionally causing my system to crash. I could always run ZDooM and an external wad from a DOS window, but I was wondering if I could do the same thing with less hassle via the console.

I'm looking for a graphic of a palm tree (coconut, date, etc.) to use in a DooM level. I've searched through cdrom.com levels and the graphics directory for related files (e.g., tropics, beach, etc.) but I've had no luck. I could draw a halfway decent tree, but it won't look as detailed as it should. Any suggestions?

Doing a general internet search is an excellent idea that I didn't even think of. I figured if someone had already created a palm tree sprite for DooM I could borrow it with the least amount of work. (In fact, I did find a very nice tree in Real.wad, which I plan to use.) The next time I will definitely consider down loading a graphic and converting it for use in DooM.

Thanks for the tips. I remember the tropical theme in Twilight Warrior, but I had not played Real. I checked out both, and it turns out that Joe Zona (who created Real) did Level 2 and the jungle graphics for Twilight Warrior (small world!) Zombies, while having very cool graphics, does not appear to have a palm tree. Thanks again.