After all the trouble I went through (and put this community through) I feel its only necessary to help out here by posting what may be one of the most asked questions here. A one thing I recommend to all new mappers out there is to open up an IWAD like DOOM 2 (WARNING! BE VERY CAREFUL NOT TO EDIT OR ALTER YOUR IWAD IN ANY WAY OR IT WILL NOT FUNCTION PROPERLY!) and see how they replaced all the textures and such. Mapping at this level is very time consuming and wearing, don't get frustrated if it doesn't work the first time just keep trying.
Before we jump in though, make a copy of your wad before you edit anything in it so you won't ruin all your hard work.
PART 1 Music
In XWE you replace music, images and such by renaming them after loading them. I will post all those names and what the levels which they correspond to. This is one method that allows you to just add music without having to do anything extra.
Ex.
L1) D_RUNNIN is Level 1 and the name which you would use.
MUSIC REPLACEMENT NAMES
L1) D_RUNNIN | L15) D_RUNNI2 | L28) D_TENSE
L2) D_STALKS | L16) D_DEAD2 | L29) D_SHAWN3
L3) D_COUNTD | L17) D_STLKS3 | L30) D_OPENIN
L4) D_BETWEE | L18) D_ROMERO | L31) D_EVIL
L5) D_DOOM | L19) D_SHAWN2 | L32) D_ULTIMA
L6) D_THE_DA | L20) D_MESSAG
L7) D_SHAWN | L21) D_COUNT2
L8) D_DDTBLU | L22) D_DDTBL3 | Title Screen) D_DM2TTL
L9) D_IN_CIT | L23) D_AMPIE | Stat Screen) D_DM2INT
L10) D_DEAD | L24) D_THEDA3
L11) D_STLKS2 | L25) D_ADRIAN
L12) D_THEDA2 | L26) D_MESSG2
L13) D_DOOM2 | L27) D_ROMER2
L14) D_DDTBL2
PART 2 Screen image and sky replacement
In order to replace any screens in Doom 2 you simply load the image you wish to use, and rename it just like you would for the music.
IMAGE REPLACEMENT NAMES
CREDIT Replaces credit screen
M_DOOM Replaces Menu screen
TITLEPIC Replaces Title screen
INTERPIC Replaces status screen (end of level)
HELP Replaces the help screen
One of the biggest questions running around is, "How do I change the level name?" There are 2 methods I will show you both.
One technical note:
-CYAN is the color recognized by Doom as transparent, the HEX code for CYAN is 00ffff
Method 1
This way will allow you to make the end of level graphic look any way you want, rather than the Doom steel gray font. First, you type up the name of the level you want in your art program, I use the GiMP but any advanced program like Photoshop will work. You want to make sure that the background is CYAN so that way it won't cover up your stat screen. You can open up a transparent texture in the art program and "pick" the color to make sure. Simply go into XWE and save the image to your desktop and open it your art program.
For the example we will use the name Doomworld for you map. You go into your art program and type up the name, save it and load it into XWE. The next step is to rename it. You use the code CWILV##, the levels go anywhere from 00-31. 00 is level 1 ENTRYWAY and 31 is actually level 32.
Ex.
For this example we'll say you want to rename map 05 and that you saved your text as doomworld.img, here's what you would do.
doomworld.img > load it to your map in XWE > rename the file CWILV04.
On the status screen you will see your map renamed to what ever you want.
Method 2
This way allows you to have you level renamed in the Doom font, also it requires less artistic skills, and it also allows you to replace the sky textures to anything you want and even allow them to rotate.
Start by making a new entry by clicking up top on ENTRY and then by clicking on NEW and renaming it MAPINFO, you should now have an area to type in to the right. This is where you can change everything you need. Here is how it will look:
Ex.
map map01 "Skybase"
music skybase1
sky1 sky1 0.0
next map02
map map02 "Blood Pit"
music bloodpit
sky1 rsky4 0.0
next map03
map map03 "Artic Base"
music articbas
sky1 sky5 0.0
next map04
The header consists of the map and then the map # followed by the new name you have chosen. The music part can be no more than 8 characters, just like all things in Doom. In this example I chose to make the music names relate to the level names. Now the sky part is where you can change the sky to whatever you wish. In this example from my wad I have the single sky, I will show you how to create the double sky as seen in tlsxctf map01 later.
First and most important, the number 0 must be in all the parts that you see it in. The game recognizes it as a place holder and won't perform the action you want it to with out it being there. Lets say you want a starry sky to rotate around your map, you would place the sky texture you want there. For the example we will call that rsky4, you would then type a value for the speed. So it will be something like this:
sky1 rsky4 0.50
That would replace the sky and make it rotate, the value can be anything you want depending on how fast you want the sky to move. You have to play around with it to get it to where you want. Another important note is that you must do this for every map, even the ones you don't want to change or rotate. Again, the game needs to be told what to do for everything. You would just type like I did and leave the value at 0.0 and leave the sky1 as sky1. So you would type something like this:
sky1 sky1 0.0
Note that sky1 does NOT refer to the level number. Sky1 is simply a reference to the sky1 flat used to designate the sky effect in your map, the second part is simply the graphic you want used in the effect.
The next part will show you how to make a double-sky effect.
Ex.
map map01 "Canyon Compound"
music canyonco
doublesky
sky1 rsky11 0.25
sky2 rsky4 0.75
next map02
This is the first map in the excellent wad tlsxctf, and anyone who has played these map will instantly see this sky and remember it. Same thing as before except now you need the additional header of doublesky along with the sky2 header. Sky1 would be the background sky and sky2 would the things in front. The front part should be a texture you can see through, like the vines in Doom 2, this way the effect of the 2 skies won't be lost.
The last part of the level is the map you want to go to. It basically tells the game where to go from there.
PART 3 Working with textures and flats
This part is a little hard to understand without pictures, I will try to be as specific as possible. In this section I will tell you how to install patches and how make them textures, flats (floor textures), even how to animate your textures.
To start off easy open up an existing texture wad in XWE an familiarize yourself with the extensions and types. A basic explaination of what is being done he is this:
Patches are what make up the textures we are going to convert the patches into textures.
Before we begin though a few points and tips:
-Now the most important thing to remember is that XWE saves everything you, so DON'T CLOSE XWE AND EXPECT IT TO NOT SAVE. You can mess your wad up beyond repair if don't do things right. It also saves as you work especially with textures.
-Backup your wads before you work on them. Make 2 copies that way you can mess around with it till you get it right.
-When loading your images load them as a graphic file (.bit , .jpg)
thats how I was able to get them working.
-Also your floor textures won't work properly unless you click on the 'Image' file tab select the option 'Save as Doom Flat', you need to do this individually for every single floor texture you want in your wad.
-Floor textures, or 'FLATS' are only 64x64
-Animated textures may NOT contain more than 4 parts. Any more than that and it will not work.
-Patches go between a PP_START and a PP_END marker, Flats go between a FF_START and a FF_END marker.
Ok lets get started. First load the images you want to use. At this point you should find them in the patches section with their type set as image. MAKE SURE THEY ARE COMPATIBLE WITH DOOM RESOLUTION OR THEY WILL LOOK FUNKY. Name them what ever you wish, keeping it 8 characters. Then once everything is fine proceed to right click on the image and select Add to PATCH NAMES. This is so that when you go to build your textures it sees the new patch and you can use it. You may click the Add to TEXTURES, however, that image will be the texture. From there click on the Textures tab on the bottom of your screen. In this tab you select the TEXTURES tab up top and then select NEW. This will give you a blank texture to work with.
From here you can edit everything from the height and width to the position of the patches that will be used. You must have the texture you wish to edit selected, then click on the 'TEXTURES' tab up top and select 'NEW PATCH', this will add a new patch to your texture to fill in the new area you created. Type the name of the patch you wish to use in you texture, also you have to always select NEW PATCH for every new patch you want to include in your texture This applies to animated textures too and we'll cover that next.
Animated Textures are very easy you just need to have them numbered in the order you want them to go. One common animated texture is the waterfall. If you map and select it as a texture you will see it has 4 parts usually. They follow in order 1, 2, and so on. To make them work in your texture wad simply select the 'ALL' tab on the BOTTOM, then select the 'ENTRY' tab on TOP. You should see a list of options you want to select the first one, 'NEW'. This will add a blank entry in your list, you want to rename this entry "ANIMDEFS' and make sure it's type is set at 28. To change its type simply right-click and select 'CHANGE TYPE' you can then enter the corresponding number which in this case is 28. Don't mess with this too much because changing values here with out knowing what they do can cause XWE to crash and mess up your wad. Now select the new entry, you should see a blank typing space that you can type in. This is where you will tell the texture how to animate itself. I have some here that animates a 4 part waterfall.
Ex.
texture N_WFAL01
pic 1 tics 8
pic 2 tics 8
pic 3 tics 8
pic 4 tics 8
The header consists of 2 parts: The first part is what you want to animate. In this case it is a texture, this can be set to 'FLATS' to animate floor textures but for the example we will work on textures.
The second part is the first texture we want to start with. I had the water fall texture labeled in four parts in my TEXTURES. This is important to know, you MUST have all the parts you wish to animate in your textures. The reason being that the game can't animate a texture that isn't there. So the first texture of the water fall is N_WFAL01
the rest go as follows: N_WFAL02 N_WFAL03 N_WFAL04.
So 'pic 1 tic 8' is the first texture moving 8, 'pic 2 tic 8' is the second texture moving by 8, and so on. Thats it. Thats all you need to do to animate textures
To add floor textures the easiest way is to create a patch load it and then stick between a FF_START marker and a FF_END marker. Change its type to 32 and it will change from a patch image to a floor.
Your floor textures won't work properly unless you click on the 'Image' tab up top, you should see an option on the list 'Save as Doom Flat', you need to do this individually for every single floor texture you want in your wad or they won't load properly. Again, flats are 64x64.
That pretty much sums up how to use XWE. I would recommend getting the GiMP for any images you wish to create because it works just like Adobe Photoshop with having to pay for it. You can look on line for tutorials on how to do things in it. Hope this helps and have fun mapping.
If anyone has anything to add to this then by all means add something, however, I do request that you contribute and not troll or flame. Other than that all help will be appreciated.
Keep this thread up so people don't have to repost about this topic!
