DoomED-The Real Thing Tutorial by David Bruni CIS 74353,357 INDEX ---------------------------------------------- I-----------Introduction II----------Installation III---------Getting Started IV----------Sectors V-----------LineDefs VI----------Things VII---------Platforms VIII--------DOOM Limits IX-----------Running WAD files X----------Acknowledgments ---------------------------------------------- I. Introduction Hello fellow DOOM fans and thanks for downloading this tutorial. I've made a few minor revisions to the original tutorial. That's why I've uploaded this file again. You'll also notice that the sections are now better arranged and separated into sections and in a more readable format. This is thanks to Patrick Murphy, who did a great job. Thanks Patrick! This tutorial is designed to help you get started using DoomED-The Real Thing version 2.60b4. I'll show you how to do everything from installing the program and getting it running. To making elevators and transporters. I'll also talk about LineDefs and how to set them up. Basically, I'll try to touch on everything to help launch you on your WAD file making career with DoomED. This file is easiest to read if you call it up in Microsoft Write. The main revisions that I've made are as follows: 1) On the "X" texture offset, a positive number moves the texture to the LEFT. A negitive number moves it to the RIGHT. 2) When making a tripwire, after changing the action of the door from a std door, be sure to click in the bottom dialog box and assign the platform to the door lines. I failed to mention this. 3) When checking to see if the lines of the tripwire are associated with the door, clicking the door lines DO NOT highlight the tripwire as stated. II. Installation After downloading DMREAL.ZIP, you can move it to a temporary directory, if you want. The installation program will ask you for a permanent directory location. Now unzip the file. After unzipping DMREAL.ZIP, go to Program Manager. Under FILE, chose RUN and type in c:\?\setup.exe. Where ? is the sub-directory that you just unzipped the file in. I'm assuming your drive letter is C. If it's different, then change it to the drive you need. After hitting ENTER, you'll be presented with the Installation Window. On the drop down menu, pick CONFIGURE. This brings up the Setup Configuration window. It shows the Source Directory and the Destination Directory. The default directory is C:\DoomED. You can accept this or change it to something else. Just make sure that you don't overwrite an existing sub-directory. Once you decide on a location, click OK. Now pick INSTALL from the drop down menu. This brings up the Install DoomED window. It should point to the sub-directory that you just made. You can't change anything in this window, so make sure everything is correct before hitting install. If everything is correct, then hit "All Right, Install It!" The installation only takes a few moments. If there were no problems, then you should see a window that says DoomED was installed. Click OK. Now you can exit the Setup Window. You'll need to create a Group Window for DoomED. In Program Manager, pick FILE. Then pick NEW. Then pick Program Group. Click OK. Add your own description. Now you should have a new group window. Go back to FILE and pick NEW, again. Pick Program Item. Fill in all the Program Item Properties, then click OK. You should now be ready to run DoomED. Double click on the DoomED icon to start. If you get no error messages, go to the next section. If the program fails to initialize, then you probably need to edit the DOOMED.INI file. If you get an error message about a file called CTL3DV2.DLL not being correctly installed here's what you need to do. Go back to File Manager and look in your \windows\system sub-directory. The installation program should have moved CTL3DV2.DLL into this sub-directory. If it's not there, then move it there and delete it from your DoomED directory. If DoomED failed to initialize do this. Call up Notepad. Open the file called DOOMED.INI. It should be located in your \windows sub-directory. Once you've opened the DOOMED.INI file, look at the first line under [Files]. It should say: DoomWad=C:\Doom\Doom.wad. This is assuming DOOM is on your C drive in the sub-directory DOOM. If DOOM is in another location, then put the path to where it's located. The next line should say: Things=C:\?\Things.def. Where ? is the sub-directory where you installed DoomED. Make sure this points to the correct sub-directory. Under [Directories] the GAME & EXPORT lines should point to your DOOM directory. Usually C:\DOOM. If DOOM is in another directory, then change these lines to point to where DOOM is. Save it and exit. Try restarting DoomED. It should work correctly. If not...well...contact me on CompuServe and describe the error message that you get and I'll see what I can do. These 2 errors that I've just described are the 2 most common ones. OK we're ready to make our first map. III. Getting Started Configuration Double click on your new DoomED icon. Once the program successfully starts, maximize the window. Now we can setup the default colors for the editor. On the drop down menu, pick FILE. Now pick CONFIGURATION. You can change the colors of the editor thru this dialog box. I prefer a black background with green map lines. I use red for selected and marked. White for dialogs and cyan for the grid. The colors are up to you. Pick ones you like and that show up well because you'll probably be spending a lot of time in the editor. Create Your First Map Go back to FILE and pick NEW MAP. This brings up a dialog box that says "This will erase all data and create a new map. Are you sure?" Click YES. You should now see a big rectangle and a small square. The big rectangle is a sector and the small square is a player one start position. At this point it's VERY IMPORTANT that you DO NOT try to save the map for play, yet. You'll need to add at least one more sector and connect it to the other sector to be able to save the map. If you do try to save the map without adding another sector, it will probably crash the program and cause a GPF (General Protection Fault) in windows, which is BAD. So, we need to add another sector. On the toolbar, you'll see an X and a Y, a zoom with 2 arrows next to it, an ALL, THG, SEC, LIN and VTX buttons. I'll describe each as we come to them. First we need to click on the SEC button. This will switch us into Sector mode. Click on the left pointing arrow on the toolbar. This will zoom out the map. Do this twice. You'll notice a bunch of small crosses. This is the grid. The distance between the crosses is 64 units. This is very handy for making lines at certain lengths and keeping things square with the grid. The floor and ceiling patterns remain square with the grid. This is something you'll need to keep in mind when designing levels. Now, locate your cursor above the big rectangle, not inside of it. About one grid line above it. Right click your mouse. This brings up the New Sector dialog box. We'll get into what everything in this dialog box means in a little bit. For now, click OK. This should have inserted a square into the map centered on the cursor. This is a Sector. Complete with lines, vertices, sidedefs, floor and ceiling heights and wall textures already assigned. For now, we won't worry about changing textures or anything. We'll get into that later. All we want to do is connect the 2 sectors and save the map for play. To do this, switch to VTX mode by clicking the VTX button on the toolbar. Your 2 sectors should now have small squares on each corner. These are the vertices. Go back to the drop down menu under MAP. Pick Grid Settings. Change it to 8. This is the amount in units that the vertices will move when you click and drag them. A large number is hard to work with and will be jerky. It's also hard to connect the vertices this way. Vertices Must Align You have to be careful when you're connecting the vertices. You need to make sure they land on top of each other and not off to the side of one another. You can zoom in to make it easier by using the zoom controls on the toolbar or by using the keyboard. I find the keyboard to be faster. All you have to do is type ALT+Z (that's pressing the ALT key and the Z key at the same time) to zoom in and ALT+X to zoom out. Position your cursor where you want to zoom at, then type the key combinations. Click on one of the vertices in the new sector you added. This is VERY IMPORTANT. You must maintain the integrity of the sectors. In other words, the sectors have to stay closed polygons. Be it squares, rectangles, octagons or similar. You CAN'T turn a square into an "L" shape or straight line. If you do and try to save the map, it will crash the program and cause a GPF. Basically, the way you build maps in DoomED, is by connecting a bunch of squares and rectangles together. Sounds pretty simple, huh? It is! DoomED is a very easy editor to use. To connect the 2 sectors together, we just have to connect 2 of the corners together so you'll end up with what looks like 2 rectangles stacked on top of one another. If you already clicked on one of the vertices in the new sector, then drag it on top of one of the vertices in the other sector. Do the same for the other corner. DoomED will automatically merge the vertices together. It will also merge the lines together. Now adjust the vertices until you have what looks like 2 rectangles stacked on top of each other. You should now be able to successfully save the map without any problems. Under FILE, pick "Save Single Map for Play". In the dialog box, hit the save button. This will save the map as E1M1 which is fine for now. You can accept the name NEW.WAD or change it to something else. Keep in mind the name can only be 8 characters long, not including the extension. Hit OK. Your map is saved now and ready to play. Exit DoomED. Exit Windows. At the DOS prompt, change to your DOOM directory. Type DOOM -FILE ?.WAD. Where ? is either NEW or whatever name you made the WAD file. Hit ENTER. The startup screen will say something about DOOM being modified, just hit ENTER. Go thru the normal procedure in starting DOOM. Pick episode 1. The skill level doesn't matter. What you should see, once the game starts is a small room with marble walls and wood floor and ceiling. Hit ESC to quit DOOM. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! You've just made your first WAD file. Yes, it's simple, there's nobody to shoot or anything, but you're well on your way to bigger and better things. IV.Sectors What Is A Sector? Most of what you'll be doing in DoomED is inserting Sectors with different floor/ceiling heights. Different wall/floor/ceiling textures and different brightness settings. What is a Sector? A Sector can be a room, a stair, a window, an acid pit, an elevator, etc. When you insert a new Sector, the vertices and lines are also inserted with it. You don't have to insert them separately. When you insert a Sector, it all goes in with it. This makes the map building process go quickly. What Can You Do To A Sector? So, let's go back into the editor and open the map we just made. Go to FILE and pick "Open Single Map File". Scroll thru the dialog box until you find your new map. Double click on it to open it up. Now, switch to SEC mode. Click on one or the other of the 2 sectors in your map. This will bring up the Sector dialog box. It tells you the ceiling height and texture. The floor elevation and texture. The Line Attributes. The Sector Brightness, and the Platforms. You change the floor and ceiling textures thru this dialog box. Along with the floor/ceiling heights. Just click the arrow next to the ceiling or floor textures to bring up a scrolling dialog box with the available textures. Wall, Floor and Ceiling Textures To find out what each texture looks like and how big it is, go to the drop down menu and pick RESOURCES. Then pick VIEWER. Pick either textures or floor/ceiling. Click on any of the texture names in the dialog box and it will display a picture of it. It will also tell you the size of the wall panel. Floor and ceiling patterns are always 64 x 64 square and oriented square with the grid. If you make a diagonal hallway, then the floor/ceiling pattern will appear skewed or at an angle to the walls. On some patterns, this won't matter because there's no pattern to them. Brightness Settings The brightness settings start at 0, total darkness, to 255, as bright as it gets. The default is 200. There are about 34 levels of brightness in DOOM. This means they increment by about 8 points. Line Attributes Thru the Line Attributes, you assign such things as pulsating sectors, health loss for acid pits or anywhere for that matter, secret designations, etc. Platforms or Line Specials are for things like making tripwires, elevators, crushing ceilings, etc. We'll talk about assigning these things later. Add Another Sector Let's insert some more Sectors. Switch to SEC mode, if you're not already. Right click somewhere near your existing Sectors. Don't get too close, though. You don't want the Sectors to overlap. After you right clicked, you'll see the New Sector dialog box. Sector Styles Click where it says STYLE. This brings up the Default Sector Style dialog box. You can pick one of the predefined styles if you like. There's 5 available. Most of the time, though, you'll be changing the textures manually. This is the only drawback about DoomED. The next release should allow you to make your own Sector styles without having to change them each time you insert a Sector. Or so I've heard. Usually, I'll look thru the viewer and pick wall patterns that look good with the floor/ceiling combination I've picked. This is your own choice. Plan Ahead On Heights You should decide on your floor/ceiling heights prior to inserting the Sectors. This way DoomED will automatically set the correct LineDefs. This is especially true when you have 2 connected Sectors with different floor/ceiling heights. If the LineDefs aren't set right, things will look weird. Change the patterns or leave them as is and click OK. Click OK in the next dialog box, also. Now you've got another Sector inserted. Connecting Sectors Switch to VTX mode, so you can connect the Sectors together. Remember not to collapse the Sector or try to connect across Sectors. The Sectors don't have to remain square or rectangular. You can drag the vertices into all sorts of weird shapes. Just remember to keep them as closed polygons. The grid setting always defaults to 16, so change it to 8, if you like. Now connect the vertices, again, being careful to make sure they land on top of each other. You should only have to connect 2 of the vertices. Adding Vertices To Existing Lines You can make new vertices in existing lines. Switch to LIN mode. Right click on one of the lines. This will break the line and add a new vertex. To see the new vertex, switch back to VTX mode. You should see the new vertex. If something goes wrong, you can drag the new vertex on top of the adjacent one to eliminate it. Create A Door Make at least 3 connected sectors in a line like a hallway. We're now going to create a door. It's easy to do because DoomED does it automatically. The things to watch out for are: (1) Make sure you have 3 connected Sectors, the door will be the middle one and (2) Keep the floor/ceiling heights the same, for now. We'll cover special situations later. For now, we just want to make a plain old door. Unless you want to make a thick door, drag the vertices so that the middle sector is about 16 or 24 wide. You can check the line length by switching to LIN mode and clicking on the line that will be the door jamb. You'll see the length in the Line Definition dialog box. Switch back to SEC mode. Click on the middle Sector. This brings up the Sector dialog box. Click on the DOOR button. It will tell you that it's going to convert this Sector into a door. Click YES. Door Sizes It will then tell you that you may wish to change the door texture. The default is Bigdoor2 which is 128x128. It's a good idea to make your door Sectors the same size as the door texture. You don't have to but if the texture is bigger than the opening, then the door texture will be chopped off and you won't see all of the door texture. You can achieve different effects with this method. It's up to you. So, I would suggest that if your door Sector isn't 128 wide, drag the vertices over some. When we created the map, we accepted the default Sector height of 128. This would make the door texture fit just right. Most of the Bigdoors are 128x128. Door 1 & 3 are small doors at 64x72. Door Textures If you want to change the door texture to something different, switch to LIN mode. Click on one of the door lines. Each door has 2 lines. When you click on the line, it brings up the LineDef dialog box. Click on the SideDef button. This expands the window and shows you all the information associated with the line. I'll go into this in more detail in the next section. For now, to change the texture, click the arrow where it says BIGDOOR2. There should only be one texture defined for the door. Where it says "Above a lower ceiling". Once you've clicked the arrow, a scrolling dialog box will pop up with all the available textures. Pick one. It doesn't have to be a door texture. That's it. Doors are easy to make. Add Some Stairs Stairs are the next thing we'll talk about because they're Sectors, also. DoomED will make stairs for you automatically. It will also stitch the wall textures to line up correctly. About all you have to do is supply a starting height and an ending height. You'll have to provide a direction that you want the stair to point. Let's go ahead and make a stair and connect it to an existing Sector. Switch to SEC mode. Right click near an existing sector. In the New Sector dialog box, click the STEPS button. This brings up the Step Creation dialog box. Change the end height to 64. We don't want the stair too high. Make sure the direction is pointing the way you want the stair to go. North is up, south down, east to the right and west to the left. Click OK. You should see the stair on the map. It should be outside of the other Sectors. You don't want it to overlap any Sectors or be inside any Sectors. This will cause problems. If you've made a mistake, you can delete the individual sectors one at a time. Just click on the offending sector and in the Sector dialog box, click the DELETE button. Now we need to connect the stair Sector with one of the other Sectors. To do this, switch to VTX mode. I've found it better to stretch a Sector other than the stair Sector. This keeps the steps even and the automatic wall texture stitching won't become misaligned. Connect the vertices of your stair with one of the other Sectors. DoomED will automatically adjust the ceiling heights on the stair if the ceiling height in the Sector dialog box is not high enough for the editor. This will make the ceiling look like a stair on the roof. Plan Ahead On Stair Ceiling Heights To avoid this, and make the ceiling one constant height, before you click the STEPS button, click the STYLE button. Change the ceiling height to be at least 88 units taller than your final step. 88 is the number that DoomED uses. Although, the lowest ceiling that you can pass under is 56. You can also adjust the length and width on each step before you insert the stair. It's a good idea not to change the stairs once you insert them. Otherwise the wall texture can get messed up, SideDefs can get weird and all sorts of little things. So, if you change your mind about how you want your stair to look, it's better to delete the whole stair and start over. If you want to make a stair that rises in an existing Sector and is not a stand alone stair, then you have to "wrap" the other Sectors around the stair. This is tricky because you have to keep breaking the lines to add more vertices and work your way up the stair. The DoomED helpfile has some good illustrations of this technique. I'd suggest starting with a small stair that has a few steps and working your way up to taller stairs. It takes a little practice to do this correctly. The bad thing here is that it's easy to screw up the integrity of the Sectors. So be careful or you could get another GPF. Always Make A Backup Of You WAD This brings me to another important point. It's a good idea to keep a running backup copy of your map. Get into the habit of doing this. It will save you a lot of time and grief. You see when the editor crashes, it destroys your WAD file and renders it useless. Just copy your WAD file to a new name like NEW.BAK or something. Make a new copy everytime you add to your WAD file and have play tested the level. You'll thank me for this later after you've spent 30 or more hours on a level, then have something go wrong and you loose everything you've made. Adding Sectors Within Sectors The final thing you need to know about Sectors is, Sectors within Sectors. You make them like any other Sector, only you right click inside an existing Sector. Let's try it. Locate the cursor inside an existing Sector. Right click the mouse. In the New Sector dialog box, you'll see the dot next to where it says "Sector Within Sector" is now marked. On the right side of the dialog box you'll see different options for the floor and ceiling. They can be either raised, flush or lowered. This is how you make certain acid pits or skylights or lots of other interesting things. For now, we can accept the defaults and have a raised floor and a lowered ceiling. If you want to change any of the walls, you can do so now by clicking the Style button and changing the textures like I described earlier. Once you get everything set, click OK. If you click on the new Sector, you'll notice that the floor is now 8 and the ceiling is now 120 for the new Sector. Even if you set the floor and ceiling heights in the STYLE dialog box to different heights, DoomED will change them. You'll have to go back and manually change them back to the heights you want. DoomED though, will set the SideDefs correctly for you. I think that's about it for Sectors. The Line Attributes I'll cover in the next section. And Platforms I'll cover a little later. I'm saving them for last to help you become accustomed to the editor and how it works before tackling Platforms. V. LineDefs. What Are Line Definitions Line Definitions or LineDefs for short, are merely groups of information pertaining to all the lines in a level. All lines have some sort of information associated with them. Some lines have more information than others. For example: when you make a hallway by connecting 2 sectors together, the line where the 2 sectors connect will be transparent and you can walk thru it. But it's still a line. Call up the map that we've been working on. Switch to LIN mode by clicking the LIN button on the toolbar. Now pick a line that is in a hallway or a line that you know you can walk thru. In the Line Definition dialog box, click the SideDefs>> button. This will expand the dialog box and show you more information about the line. The left side of the dialog box shows you the vertex #'s that the line goes in between. It gives you the LineDef # and the length. It lists the Attributes of the line. Which are special things you can assign the line to do. Line Attributes Most Attributes are self-explanatory. The ones that aren't are: (1) Two sided. If you've clicked on a line in a hallway or corridor that is perpendicular to the wall and is transparent and can be walked thru, then the 2 sided attribute will be set for this line. So, 2 sided lines are usually found in hallways, corridors, passageways, windows, stairs, on top of columns that you can or could stand on, just about anywhere that you can walk thru a line or see thru it and shoot thru it. This is VERY IMPORTANT. The 2 sided attribute must be set for lines in the places I just mentioned. If not, then you'll get the Hall of Mirrors effect (HOM). You can set the Attribute "Nothing can cross" or "Enemies cannot cross" along with the 2 sided Attribute. This would be the only 2 sided lines that you couldn't cross. (2) Upper and Lower texture not "pegged". These Attributes have to do with whether or not the door jambs or walls of a corridor move when the door is opened. A good example of the walls of a corridor moving as the door opens is in the original DOOM level E1M3. When the walkway over the acid pit comes up and you open the secret door, the walls move as the door opens. (3) Secret (can't map behind) is so that the area behind the line won't show up on the map when you hit TAB. This is not the same as the percentage of secrets you get at the end of the game. You set those in Sector mode by clicking the Secret Attribute in the Sector dialog box. Line Actions The last thing on the left side of the Line Definition dialog box is Action. These are all the trick things that DOOM can do. Like tripwires that open doors or lower columns. Crushing ceilings. Setting up elevators and key doors. These all pertain to Platforms, so I'll cover them in the Platform Section. For now, I'll concentrate on lines. It's important to understand lines and SideDefs before attempting to make maps. Or at least have some idea of what they do. On the right side of the Line Definition dialog box, you'll see such things as Front SideDef or 1st SideDef, Back SideDef or 2nd SideDef. The Sector # is given along with the height. Line Textures The X/Y texture offset is for fine tuning the texture location on the walls. DoomED does this automatically on such things as stairs and walls where there is a floor/ceiling height difference. Sometimes it's necessary for you to adjust this manually. Basically, the X is the horizontal movement. A positive number moves the texture to the left. A negative number moves it to the right. The Y number moves the texture vertically or up and down. A positive number moves it up. A negative number moves it down. The core of the lines is controlled by the textures you assign where you see "Main", "Above a lower ceiling" and "Below a higher floor". Usually, if you set your Sector floor/ceiling height prior to inserting them, you won't have to change these. But that's not always the case. It's important to know what each of these terms means and how to adjust them. Failing to set one or more of the SideDefs correctly can make the map look weird when played. It's not the HOM, but it doesn't look right. More On SideDefs OK. I'm going to attempt to explain SideDefs without the aid of any illustrations. ASCII art isn't easy to do. First thing you need to do is switch to LIN mode by clicking the LIN button on the toolbar. You'll notice that all the lines now have another line that is perpendicular to them. This is for reference and doesn't appear in the game. What is does is show you the direction that you are looking at the line. Or in other words, the Front or 1st SideDef. In a big room that has walls that you can't walk thru or otherwise be on the other side, the 1st SideDef designating line should point towards the center of the room. This line will only have a 1st SideDef. A 2nd SideDef is not needed because you aren't able to view the line from the other side. These lines will also have the Attribute "Nothing can cross". Lines that are in hallways or corridors will have a 1st and 2nd SideDef because you can look at the line from either direction. These lines will also have the 2 sided Attribute set. Lines that connect 2 Sectors of different floor/ceiling heights will have a 1st and 2nd SideDef also. The trick is to set the portion of the line that can be seen from the different directions. Which brings me to the fact that all lines have at least 3 parts. Lines that have a 1st and 2nd SideDef have 6 parts. 3 for each SideDef. The lines don't have to have a texture defined for each part of the line. For instance: Pick a 2 sided line in a corridor that you can walk thru. When you look at the SideDefs, you'll see that there is no texture defined for this line at all. The designation for this is "-". The reason for this is because you can walk thru it. SideDef Exceptions There are special exceptions. Some of the wall textures are see-thru and walk-thru. I'm sure you've seen the textures that look like cages or bars. These are MIDBRN1 and MIDGRATE. You can use these textures and a few others in hallways. As long as you don't assign the Attributes can't cross, you are able to walk thru them. Now pick a line that is a wall that you can't cross. You'll see that the only texture defined is for "Main". This is because you don't need an above or below texture. As long as there's no change in floor/ceiling heights, you won't need to set the textures for this area. To try and explain the 3 parts of a line I'll use examples from my house. The 3 parts of the line, "Main", "Above a lower ceiling" and "Below a higher floor" are in terms of the plane that the line makes in relation to the floor. If you look at a door in your house, it's 90 degrees to the floor or perpendicular. This is the plane that lines in DOOM are in. So, the "Main" texture would be the actual door itself. The "Above a lower ceiling" would be the part of the wall above the door. The "Below a higher floor" would only be set if there was a step you had to step on to cross thru the door. My front door is like that. The pavement outside is lower than inside the house. You have to step up to come in. You can see this on stairs. Direction Indicators The important thing is to determine the direction that you are looking at the line to know which SideDef to set. The hallway that leads out of our living room has a lower ceiling than the living room and no door or step. If the 1st SideDef is pointing away from the hallway and into the living room, then the SideDefs would be: 1st: Nothing for the Main part because you can walk thru this part, the Above a lower ceiling would have a texture defined for it because from the living room, you can see the wall above the hallway. The Below a higher floor would have no texture because there is no step. Now, if you walk out of the living room into the hallway and turn around and look back into the living room, the 2nd SideDef would not have anything defined because the Main part of the line you can walk thru, you can't see the wall above the hallway and there is no step. Elevator SideDefs In the case of elevators, you'll have to set the SideDefs manually because DoomED doesn't make them automatically. It's important to remember that when setting the SideDefs on elevators, that you have to set the SideDefs for the up and down position. Otherwise, you'll get the HOM effect again. Swapping Ends of Lines In the Line Definition dialog box you'll also notice a button that has a line with an arrowhead on each end. It's right above the SideDefs<< button and next to the Close button. This is for swapping ends of lines. Or rotating them 180 degrees. This is very useful in certain situations. But here again, if you swap ends of lines, it switches the direction that the 1st SideDef designating line is pointing. Or the direction that you are looking at a line gets moved to the other side. When you switch ends of lines, you'll usually have to zoom in and out to get the screen to redraw. Then you can see that the line was flipped around. So when you do this, be aware that you'll have to change the SideDefs manually, to make everything look right. Summarizing SideDefs To summarize SideDefs: Try to set your Sector floor/ceiling heights prior to inserting them, and stick with these heights. This way DoomED will assign the SideDefs automatically and correctly. Don't change up the SideDefs until you're more familiar with how they work. DoomED will do a lot of the work for you and is pretty good about setting the SideDefs. So, let the program do it's thing and do most of the hard work for you. Until you become comfortable with Sectors and SideDefs, play your map after every time you add something new. This way if you get the HOM effect and can't get rid of it, you can go back into the editor and just delete this whole Sector instead of trying to fix it. VI. Things Now For The Fun Stuff Things are one of the easiest operations to do in DoomED. Open your map and switch to THG mode by clicking the THG button on the toolbar. The only Thing that should be in your map is a player 1 start position. It was the small square we talked about earlier. Once in THG mode, click on the player 1 start position. This will bring up the Edit A Thing dialog box. What you'll see in this is a TYPE, which is the actual object. Objects are monsters, ammo, health, weapons, decorations such as columns, guys impaled on spears, lights. Mainly, everything that isn't a wall. If you click the arrow beside TYPE, it will show you all the available objects you can use. You can preview them before inserting them by clicking the button on the bottom that looks like ">>". This is handy because you don't have to call up the viewer. Facing Directions Where it says Facing, this is the direction that the object will face in the game. North being up. Under Levels, this determines which skill level that the objects will appear in. If 1, 2, 3 & 4 all are picked, then the objects, whether they're monsters or weapons, will appear in every skill level. So, There won't be any difference between the easy skill level and the hardest skill level. But that's OK. This is DOOM after all. Deaf is for making monsters that don't react until they see you. Multi is for multi-player games by modem or network. Starting Positions To make your level for use in a modem or network deathmatch, you have to insert at least 4 starts. In the dialog box, they're numbered Start 1, Start 2, etc. If you want your map to be used for deathmatchs, make sure you don't put a start position that the player can't get out of. This is important because during a deathmatch you don't want to have to ask your opponent to "Please come open a door for me, I'm stuck and can't get out." This is embarrassing. So, keep that in mind when inserting deathmatch starts. Teleporter Destination The only other Thing that has something special about it is "Teleporter dest". You'll find it in the Edit a Thing dialog box under TYPE. You use this to make Transporters work. I'll explain these more in the Platforms section. Don't Over Do It The only other point to keep in mind about Things is, If you load up a HUGE room with 30 or 40 monsters, 2 Cyber Demons, the Spider Demon and lots of other objects, chances are the game will slow down. Or worse. Things will start to disappear or you'll get the HOM effect. So, don't go overboard on your monsters. Add a few, then play your level. If everything looks OK, add some more and test it again. I'll covers this and some other things to look out for in the DOOM Limits Section. VII. Platforms Platforms in DoomED is the term used to describe all the trick things that DOOM can do. Such as tripwires, crushing ceilings, key doors, the end level switch, making elevators go up and down, etc. Basically, what you do is, tag a line with one of the line specials, such as cross and door(s) open, then you associate that line with the door sector, for example. There's about 100 things that you can do, I haven't tried them all. I will tell you how to setup tripwires, elevators, transporters and the end level switch. You'll have to experiment some with all the specials. They're all setup in a similar fashion. End Level Switch The first Platform we'll talk about is the End Level Switch. You'll probably use one in all your maps. It's really easy to do. Open your map and switch to LIN mode. Pick a line that you can use for the switch. In the LineDef dialog box, look on the bottom of the window where it says ACTION. There's 2 scrolling dialog boxes. Click on the arrow in the top one. This will open the dialog box with all the line specials or Platforms listed. Scroll down until you find the one that says "Switch:End level go to next level". Click on this to assign it to the line. I look for a switch in the viewer that will fit the wall I want the switch to go on. If the wall is bigger than the switch texture, then the textures will tile on top of each other. You'll have one switch on top of another. You'll also notice in the viewer that there are 2 kinds of switches, SW1xx and SW2xx. These are for the on/off positions. DOOM will automatically switch textures when you throw the switch or push the button. Tripwires To make a tripwire, that when crossed opens a door(s), you do this: Create the door(s) you want opened. Go to SEC mode. Pick the Sector of the door you want opened. This calls up the Sector dialog box. Click the ADD button. This brings up the Platform Information dialog box. Under NAME, you can put something like "Tripwire". This will help you to keep track of the Platforms that you are creating. Under COMMENTS, it says "undefined", you can change this to something like "Tripwire:opens door". Click OK and close this dialog box. Back in the Sector dialog box, under PLATFORMS, click the arrow. You should see the Tripwire Platform that we just made. Click on it to assign it to the Sector. Close this window. Switch to LIN mode. Pick one of the 2 lines of the door you want opened. In the LineDef dialog box, under ACTION, it should say "Door-std door-closes after 5 secs.". Click the arrow next to this and scroll down until you see "Cross:Open door-stays open". Click on it to assign it to the door line. You have to do both lines that make up the door to have it work correctly. Click the arrow in the bottom box and pick the Tripwire Platform you created earlier to assign it to the door. Pick the line that you've chosen to be the Tripwire. In the LineDef dialog box, under ACTION, click the arrow in the top box and scroll down until you see "Cross:Open door-stays open". Click on this to assign it to the line. In the bottom box, click the arrow and click on the Tripwire Platform you created earlier. To find out if the Tripwire is associated with the door, click off the Tripwire, then click on it again. The Tripwire and door lines should both be selected when you click on the Tripwire. Transporters To make a Transporter you first need to decide upon a starting location and an ending location. Where you want to transport to and from. Most transporter pads are 64 square. They can be just about any place. They don't even have to look like Transporters. It's just a line you assign a line special to. Switch to SEC mode. Click on the Sector that you want to transport from. Under Platforms in the Sector dialog box, click ADD. This will call up the Platform Information dialog box. Do like you did when you set up the Tripwire. Under NAME, put Transporter, under COMMENTS do the same thing. Click OK. In the Sector dialog box, under PLATFORM, click the arrow and click on your Transporter Platform you just created. Click on your Transporter destination Sector. Do the same thing as you did to setup the Transporter starting Sector. Switch into LIN mode by clicking on the LIN button on the toolbar. Pick the line that you would have to cross to enter the transporter. Under ACTION in the LineDef dialog box, click the arrow in the top box. Scroll down until you see "Cross:Teleport to another platform". Click on this to assign it to the line. Go to the bottom box and click the arrow next to it. Click on your Transporter Platform you created earlier. Close this dialog box and switch to THG mode. Right click in the center of your Transporter Destination Sector to insert a Thing. This will bring up the Edit a Thing dialog box. Under TYPE, scroll down until you see "Teleporter dest" and click on this to insert it. The only thing left, is to set the facing direction when you come out of the Transporter. You should check to see which way the SideDefs for the Transporter line is facing. You want the 1st SideDef to point at you as you cross the line. Otherwise, you'll go into the Transporter and have to back over the line again to transport. Elevators Making Elevators is where you need to have an understanding of SideDefs and how to assign them. DoomED won't make Elevators automatically. So, 9 times out of 10, you'll have to set the SideDefs manually after you've connected the Sectors. The tricky part is making sure that textures are set for the walls when the elevator is down and when it's up. To create an Elevator, you'll need to setup 3 connected Sectors. The middle sector will act as the actual Elevator. The sector with the lower ceiling will have a Tripwire in it to bring the Elevator down. The Sector with the higher ceiling will also have a Tripwire to make the Elevator go back down. To make sure we're all on the same page, I'm going to set the floor/ceiling heights as follow: The Sector that we want to start from will have a floor height of 0 and a ceiling height of 128. The middle Sector, which is the Elevator, will be set with a floor height of 128 and a ceiling height of 256. The last Sector will be the same as the Elevator Sector at 128 and 256. Click the middle or Elevator Sector. In the Sector dialog box, under PLATFORM, click ADD. In the Platform Information dialog box, we'll do the same as for the other Platforms we setup. So, under NAME, change it to "Elevator". Same thing under COMMENTS. Click OK. In the Sector dialog box, under PLATFORMS, click the arrow and click on your Elevator Platform you just created. Close this dialog box. Switch to LIN mode by clicking the LIN button on the toolbar. Pick a line in the Sector with the lower ceiling to act as the Tripwire to bring the Elevator down. In the LineDef dialog box, under ACTION, click the arrow in the top box. Scroll down until you see "Cross:Lower elevator-rises after 3 seconds". Click on this to select it. In the bottom dialog box, click the arrow and click on your Elevator Platform that you created. Setup a Tripwire in the Sector with the higher ceiling the same way to make the Elevator go back down. Now when you click on either of the Tripwires the Elevator should be selected, also. The line that is the front edge of the Elevator should have it's 1st SideDef pointing towards you or the Sector with the lower ceiling. Check the SideDefs. The 1st SideDef should have a texture defined for the part of the line that says "Below a higher floor". The 2nd SideDef should have a texture defined for the part of the line that says "Above a lower ceiling". The line that is the back or rear of the Elevator, should have it's 1st SideDef pointing the same way as the front line of the Elevator. Towards the Sector with the lower ceiling. The only texture that should be defined is the 1st SideDef where it says "Below a higher floor". If you orient your SideDefs this way, you shouldn't get the HOM effect or the other weird looking effect that comes from having an incorrect SideDef. You may have to play around with the SideDefs to get them just right. VIII. DOOM Limits I'd like to say a few words about the limitations of what you can and probably shouldn't do when designing DOOM levels. But Wouldn't This Be Fun? DOOM is not true 3D. You can't have rooms on top of each other. You can't make a bridge or walkway that you could walk under and walk on top of. The highest step that you can cross is 24. Ceiling Heights The lowest ceiling you can pass under is 56. The players, therefore are about 55 tall, along with the imps and guys with rifles and shotguns. The Baron of Hell is about 70 tall. The Cyber Demon and the Spider Demon are about 110 tall. Keep this in mind when using these monsters. If you use them in rooms that aren't tall enough, you might get undesirable results. A lot of the wall textures are 128x128, some are smaller. Doors are the same way. You'll have to browse thru the Viewer to get a feel for the walls and their sizes and names. You should avoid making rooms that have a total height that is greater than 512. You should also try to avoid making rooms that are gigantic in size and have a lot of monsters in it. This tends to slow down the game and sometimes overloads the graphics all together and kicks you out to a DOS prompt. This has happened to me when I made too many Sectors in one area, then filled it up with imps. It just wouldn't play. So, don't go overboard. Start out small and work your way up. One thing I don't think I mentioned about ceiling textures, is that there's only 3 sky patterns one for each episode. Keep this in mind when designing levels. IX.Running WAD files Typically, to run a WAD file you type: doom -file ?.wad at the DOS prompt. Where ? is the name of the WAD file you want to play. If it's E1M1, then you start the game as always. If it's E2M1, you can do the same thing then after the game starts, type IDCLEV 2 1 to warp to the second episode. Or you can warp directly to the floor you want to get to from the DOS prompt by typing:doom -devparm -file ?.wad -warp 2 1 -skill 4. The ?.wad stands for the WAD file name. The -warp 2 1 is the episode and mission numbers that match the WAD file that you're trying to run. The skill level is optional. Or the easiest way is to download the WADRUNNER program by Blackfist. This is a great way to manage large numbers of WAD files. X. Acknowledgments First of all, I'd like to give special thanks to my wife, Kathy. She watched our 2 kids while I worked on this tutorial. I would also like to thank Geoff Allan, author and creator of DoomED-The Real Thing editor for DOOM. Thanks also go to the guys at id, for making DOOM one of the most popular and fun games ever. I'd also like to thank the many nice people on CompuServe that I've had the pleasure to talk to. A very special thank you to Patrick Murphy, 76150,703, who took it upon himself to reorganize this tutorial into a more readable and professional looking format. Thanks Patrick! Finally, if anyone finds mistakes or omissions, please let me know. The last thing I want to do is tell everybody how to do something wrong. Good luck in your WAD making endeavors! David Bruni 74353,357 6/19/94