I cannot find DECORATE

I looked at the article for it on ZDOOM Wiki but cannot find Decorate to download anywhere...this is really frustrating. I have WhackEd and looked in all its directories in case DECORATE is in there, but no it isn't.

Please help, I have no idea where it is and want to create my own weapons, monsters, obituary messages and more!

DECORATE is just a text-based format. There is no official tool to edit it. Use any text editor you want for it.

Graf Zahl said:

DECORATE is just a text-based format. There is no official tool to edit it. Use any text editor you want for it.

Oh so it's like a mini-programming language? Cool! In that case it's more along the lines of where to find tutorials on how to write and script it using DECORATE?

One more question and sorry to linger, but how does one integrate DECORATE into XWE/WhackEd/DeHacked/etc?

I don't now about XWE, but as long as it lets you insert and edit a text lump, it should be okay. I know Slumped has syntax highlighting for DECORATE lumps.

As for documentation, nothing is more complete than the ZDoom wiki.
http://www.zdoom.org/wiki/

It contains verbatim copy of the DECORATE code for all Doom/Heretic/Hexen and Strife actors; and most DECORATE code pointers -- certainly all the most commonly-used ones -- have articles explaining them, usually with examples of how they're used.

The easiest way in XWE is just to create a new entry, rename it DECORATE, and begin typing the code into the text window. (It will not color the syntax or anything cool like that though.) XWE will automatically recognize anything called DECORATE as a ZDoom file.

Thank you, I will move on to my next stage...one last question is, how do you get the WAD to know to execute that DECORATE text? I mean, it's one thing to put it in the huge list of entries, it's another thing to actually get the WAD to realize it's there and to actually use it for the purpose it was intended to do.

Dash said:

Thank you, I will move on to my next stage...one last question is, how do you get the WAD to know to execute that DECORATE text? I mean, it's one thing to put it in the huge list of entries, it's another thing to actually get the WAD to realize it's there and to actually use it for the purpose it was intended to do.

No, it's the same thing, actually.

Unless you put it somewhere dumb (like between P, PP, F, FF, S, SS, or TX markers), it'll be automatically detected when ZDoom (or whatever ZDoom-compatible port you use) load it. ZDoom (and its friends) keep of tally of every lump in every wad they load, and know how to handle certain lumps.

By the way, you can have several DECORATE lumps. They'll all be loaded and parsed correctly. For example, if you have a lot of actors, the lump could become too long and unwieldly, so you could instead break it into several parts, like this for example:

M_MONSTR (just a marker)
DECORATE (your DECORATE code for your monsters)
M_WEAPON (another marker)
DECORATE (the DECORATE lump for weapon codes)
M_CLUTTR (marker)
DECORATE (actor declarations for various objects like torches and barrels)
...

and so on. The interest of doing things this way is that the same markers can be used for other repeated text lumps. Let's say you define unique sounds as well (SNDINFO lumps) and that you also want to attach dynamic lights (GLDEFS lumps) to your new actors (for when playing with GZDoom or Skulltag):

M_MONSTR
SNDINFO
DECORATE
GLDEFS
M_WEAPON
SNDINFO
DECORATE
GLDEFS
M_CLUTTR
SNDINFO
DECORATE
GLDEFS

Of course, such an organisation is probably not going to be very useful for your first attempt, but keep that in mind if and when you attempt a large-scale mod with a lot of new resources.

Gez said:

M_MONSTR (just a marker)
DECORATE (your DECORATE code for your monsters)
M_WEAPON (another marker)
DECORATE (the DECORATE lump for weapon codes)
M_CLUTTR (marker)
DECORATE (actor declarations for various objects like torches and barrels)
...

and so on. The interest of doing things this way is that the same markers can be used for other repeated text lumps. Let's say you define unique sounds as well (SNDINFO lumps) and that you also want to attach dynamic lights (GLDEFS lumps) to your new actors (for when playing with GZDoom or Skulltag):

M_MONSTR
SNDINFO
DECORATE
GLDEFS
M_WEAPON
SNDINFO
DECORATE
GLDEFS
M_CLUTTR
SNDINFO
DECORATE
GLDEFS

Of course, such an organisation is probably not going to be very useful for your first attempt, but keep that in mind if and when you attempt a large-scale mod with a lot of new resources.

Using includes is certainly better than such a mess.

You name it "DECORATE". Most lumps are recognized by their name. If it involves new monsters or weapons, you will have to insert those things into your map. Also, if things haven't changed since I messed with them, a "KEYCONF" lump is required to assign new weapons to keys. By the way, never insert a lump between map-related lumps (e.g. between SECTORS and LINEDEFS). Those lumps have to be in sequential order for a map to work.

Thanks so much for all this, and I apologize for being such a n00b.

One last question is how does the code within DECORATE interact with the WAD correctly? I copied into Slumped the code for a "seeker missile" I found at the Zdoom wiki and seemingly nothing happened...I assumed the seekers would replace your normal rockets but they did not...I am confused.

Does your script declare what the seeker missile replaces?

Actor MagicMissile : Rocket replaces Rocket

You'll also need to rename the sprites to match what's in the wad.

    Spawn:
      MISL A 2 bright A_SeekerMissile (0,2) //MISL is the sprite used for the missile.
      loop
    Death:
      MISL BCD 5 bright
      stop

Hope this helps.

Thanks, I will try it out as soon as I get the chance :)

I feel I'm hogging the questions too much...is there any way I can help out other posters as well? I want to contribute to the forums too...