Tricks of the DOOM Programming Gurus

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DCK - DOOM Construction Kit ---- Version 2.2 (386 Protected Mode) --- Code and design by Ben Morris / Zerius Development -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Release Information bmorris@islandnet.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Version: 2.2 Release (03/16/95). This file contains important details that you should look over before you get into designing with DCK. - What happened to 2.1 final release? Well, the beta's been out there for about three weeks, so I figured "2.2" would be better. - Docs! Docs are done! I hope they're good enough. - Wherever I say "DOOM" in the documentation, I really mean "DOOM, DOOM 2, or Heretic" - the game you're making a level for. - Press *F1* for a list of key functions while you're in DCK. There is also an online help section called "Designing Tips" - if you've never used DCK before, check this out or read the Docs. - Please contact me if you have any questions, suggestions or bug reports. I'll probably reply the same day unless I become rich and famous - in which case, I'll have my people contact your people and we'll uh .. do lunch. - Ben ------------------------------------------------------------------ Heretofore and notwithstanding the following nondisunsubclosure ------------------------------------------------------------------ Neither DCK, nor its author or contributors, are in any way affiliated with id Software. Please do not contact id regarding DCK. DOOM and DOOM 2 are trademarks of id Software. Heretic is a trademark of Raven Software and id Software. You may distribute DCK freely, but only in its original form (ie: the ZIP file containing the installer DCKnn.EXE, FILE_ID.DIZ, and DCKxx.TXT.) You may NOT include DCK in any other package or collection without my written permission. This includes CD-ROM collections. I am not opposed to such distribution; I just want to know about it before it happens. You may NOT sell DCK. Disk vendors may charge the nominal cost that such vendors do when distributing single programs, but no specific fee may be charged for DCK itself. You must use DCK at your own risk. Under no circumstances will anyone involved with DCK or its authors be in any way responsible for any damages or losses incurred by using DCK. By using the software, you agree to the above terms. -------------- Running DCK -------------- Just run "DCK" from the DOS prompt. (DCK is a batch file that enables running DOOM from within the program.) For a list of command-line parameters, run c:\dck> dck /? [enter] The first time you run DCK, it'll ask you to select a video driver to use - if you don't know what kind of card you have, select "Auto-Detect." I've not tested this feature with many cards, but it should work if your hardware is listed. If you don't see your card on the list and "Auto-Detect" doesn't work, load up the VESA driver that came with your video card (hopefully!) and select the "VESA" option. If you can't get DCK running at all, please get in touch with me. ------------------- The New Features ------------------- This section is useful for people who've used 1.x or are just interested in some of the major new features in 2.x. This section does not detail the changes between the minor versions - just between versions 1 and 2. Release details are further down. - The files DOOM1.GD, DOOM2.GD and HERETIC.GD contain the game data information that DCK requires. This information describes all the line types, thing types, sector specials, etc, that each game contains. - DCK now _requires_ a video card that's SVGA-capable. That means a minimum of 640x480 resolution in 256 colors, but DCK will use up to 1280x1024! When you run DCK for the first time, it will ask you which video card and video mode to use. If you don't see your hardware on the list, load up the VESA driver that came with your card (I hope) and choose "VESA". Note: If you want to reconfigure the video driver, type DCK /V. The SVGA requirement now means: - Texture display is now on the main screen. In the THING edit box, sprites for each thing are shown. In the sector edit box, the floor and ceiling textures are shown there. Textures are still displayed as quick as ever - even in the high res modes. - New Graphical Thing Display mode. In this mode, everything except for monsters and player starts are displayed as pictures from the games themselves. By default, DCK will only display things graphically if you press T while already in THING mode - pressing it again will return display to the standard boxes. You can tell DCK to always display things graphically by selecting "Primary" in the configuration dialog box. The first time DCK displays things graphically, it has to create a thing sprite file (DCK.TS) which it loads up the next time it is invoked. Please remember that this file is totally dependent on the current state of the GD files; if you change any of the THING tables in the GD files, you must delete DCK.TS so that DCK will rebuild it properly. - TEXTURE ALIGNMENT. Finally! Here's a quick rundown on how to use it: - In sector mode, move into the sector you want to align and press Ctrl+W. - In line mode, mark all the lines (in a series) that you want to align, and press Ctrl+W. If the lines are two-sided, both sides will be aligned. The texture alignment operation is ignorant of any alignment that has already been done, so use it with caution in areas where you've hand- tweaked the textures. It does recognize differences in textures along the series of lines, and will re-start the alignment at zero where it sees a difference. - I've added a lot of online help in DCK 2.x, so if you're stuck for clues, frustrated, or just enjoy reading text on your CRT, press F1 almost anywhere. - A new look, again! DCK is darker, cooler, and faster. The colors have been redone to take advantage of the 256-color palette, and the dialog boxes look better. - Copy to clipboard is now Ctrl+Ins, Cut is Ctrl+Del, and Paste is simply Ins. - Thanks to Colin Reed for making such an easy-to-port node builder! DCK now features version 1.2x of his BSP program, so you don't have to shell out to DOS to remake the NODES anymore. - I got rid of the button bar. - To stop DCK from highlighting objects under the cursor, hold down the SHIFT key. This is useful especially in sector mode, when you want to use the highlight box to mark a series of sectors within a larger sector. In previous versions, it was likely that you'd start off dragging the parent sector instead of starting the highlight box - now, just hold down the SHIFT key before clicking-and-dragging. - DCK's configuration file is no longer in text format, and can now be edited in the program itself. The first time you run DCK, the configuration dialog box will be displayed - after the first time, you'll need to go into the "Map" menu and choose "Configure DCK" to edit it again. - If you really really want it to, DCK will scroll the map when you put the mouse cursor at the sides of the screen :) - Saving to an existing file now preserves extra data. What this means is, if you save to the big ol' map collection that you're making, don't worry about all the other levels getting lost. DCK will automatically copy all the data from the .WAD *before* doing the save, including any graphics patches, sprites - anything! ---------- History ---------- This section details the history of version 2.x releases, including the betas. Since only two public betas were relased, many of the features listed are in their first public release. ASCII art key ---------------- + Vertex / \ | - Line At this point in time, I wonder that IBM didn't forsee the need for a more robust drawing character set. I mean, how could they NOT have forseen doom - savior of bored gamers worldwide? Version 2.2 Release (Mar 16) ---------------------------- + UNDO improved: - Works with stairs * I have removed the ADF files. The Sector Objects feature is no longer implemented. Motifs are still there, but now they're in a new format - you can design them from within DCK (using Alt+M.) You can also import motifs from a file your friend gives you, or whatever. So - if you make a file with lots of cool motifs in it, send it onto the internet and people will be able to integrate it with their own set of motifs. Sector Objects were removed because they were buggy and not very useful anyway. If you don't like that, tough noogies. + Texture alignment improved: You no longer have to highlight the "start line" in the alignment; DCK finds all the series of marked lines and aligns each automatically. This means you can do things like mark the lines that make up each side of a staircase, press Ctrl+W or choose alignment from the menu, and watch DCK do the rest. + Interface looks a little nicer. Some appearance taken from NeoPaint - what a neat program! Also new with the interface: - Listboxes can be typed in. Use any ASCII characters and the backspace key to have DCK search for what you've entered. - Listboxes have scrollbars on them. You can use the Up and Down buttons, but the Thumb doesn't do anything except display the current position. I'm probably not going to make it mouseable. - Dialog boxes have "close" and "help" buttons on the title bar. The help button will only appear if there IS any help. The close button mimicks the ESC key. + Mark boxes and rectangles and polygons now operate with map coordinates. So, you can use the zoom keys to move in and out while you're doing any of these things and keep the original coordinates of what you were doing. + While creating a polygon, the A and E keys can be used to change the angle of the polygon. If "fine mode" is on, the angle will be changed by 1 degree values, or 15 degree otherwise. + The nodebuilder can be cancelled with ESC. This renders all the node information obsolete, including existing nodes, so if you abort you'll HAVE to recreate them if you intend to save and use the level. + Deleting one double-sided line joins the two sectors it separates into one sector. The sector referenced by the line's second side's is effectively deleted and becomes the sector referenced by the first side. * Bugs fixed: - The "Unexpected DPMI error 8014 at 0000 0000" has been fixed. Microsoft has done it again - their specification for the mouse driver states that function 00, "reset mouse", also turns off the user mouse handler. Well, as of release 9.01 of their MOUSE.EXE, it doesn't. What was happening was people were exiting DCK by clicking on a button, and then moving the mouse around very slightly (maybe taking their hands off it.) MS-MOUSE would call DCK's mouse handler, which was no longer in valid memory; this caused the DPMI error. I tested this conclusively by making a small program that installed a handler, reset the mouse driver with function 00, and exited. Moving the mouse around afterward, with a Microsoft driver installed, caused the DPMI error. The Logitech driver did not. Function 0x21 resets the mouse properly in both Logitech and Microsoft drivers (as well it should, but so should function 00). I hope it works with other drivers, too. Other Bugs: - Would you believe that, since version 1.0, DCK was clearing the screen TWICE before it did a complete redraw? Taking out the extraneous clear command sped up map display considerably. How embarrasking.. uk uk uk! - The Thing Edit dialog box never allowed a "blank" thing name, even editing multiple objects. Fixed. The following bugs were unique to the 2.1 beta: - Adding a new vertex over an existing vertex (using double-click) would corrupt a map. Oops! - Sidedefs would sometimes have their sector references set to zero after editing them. - Drag-and-Drop of a line onto another line didn't combine the two properly. Version 2.1 Beta (Feb 25) ------------------------- LOTS of new features. + Added search facility for games. When you load DCK for the first time, it'll search for each game if it can't find it where specified in the GD files. It'll even rewrite the GD files to point to the right place. + UNDO feature. It's only one-level, but most of the time that's all you'll need (hopefully!). It only works immediately after the following operations: - Drag and Drop - Rotating and Scaling - Creating lines - Creating polygons/rectangles (see below) - Pasting - Deleting objects of any kind Use Alt+Backspace to activate it. Note that if you want to undo an operation, you MUST undo it immediately after doing it in the first place, or DCK will not let you. This is a safety precaution, since no prompting is done when you press Alt+Backspace. + Added a "Flats browser" - press F2 in either the floor or the ceiling texture fields in the sector dialog box, and a browser like the texture browser will pop up. + Added middle-button mouse zoom. Hold down the middle button on your mouse (if it has one), then: pull down to zoom out, and push up to zoom in. Neat! + The Sector Split function now handles sectors within sectors. + Far better support for textures in PWADs. + An option to unpeg upper/lower textures by default, and to unpeg upper/ lowers in texture alignment. This applies only to textures that will never move, ie: whose bordering sectors don't have a sector tag. This is kind of a "dumb" feature at the moment - maybe it'll be improved in the future. + The clipboard has been enhanced: Pasting sectors now works very well outside or inside a sector. For example: - If you draw a new sector outside of any existing sectors, and then cut-and-paste it into an existing sector, DCK will convert its external one-sided lines into two-sided lines to reference the new sector. - If you draw an area inside an existing (parent) sector, and then cut-and-paste it to the outside region, DCK will convert all the lines that referenced the parent sector into one-sided, impassable lines. + Rectangle and Polygon tools added: Press 'R' and 'N' to access them, respectively. In these modes, the left button-drag operation creates a rectangle or polygon instead of starting a mark-box, like in the other edit modes. The tools handle just about every situation - They'll split lines and make them two sided where necessary, and so on. The only rule, really, is that the object you draw is contained entirely within one sector (excluding overlapping lines - they're OK), or entirely outside of any sectors. There's an online help section for these tools. + Built-in WAD manager. Use Alt+W to activate; Press F1 for online help. The manager allows you to add, delete and rename entries in .WADs. You can add entries from existing wads, or using files on your disk. + Snap to Vertex mode is much nicer to use, even though the difference is subtle. + Dragging objects in vertex/line/sector mode now shows the length of all attached lines during the drag operation. * Fixed some bugs: - Floor and Ceiling textures were displayed in reverse on the status bar. - The THING dialog box no longer allows you to enter invalid thing names. - DCK used to cause "DPMI Unexpected Errors" on exit - I think this has been fixed, but I'm not positive. It was to do with the mouse driver not being shut down properly before returning to DOS, but it only happened on Microsoft drivers (and not my Logitech, for example.) - The closed sector check never worked before 2.1, and I didn't even realize it. It's fixed now. - Cut, copy and paste never worked from the menus - even in 1.x! They do now. - .WADfiles with Big Data (tm) in the NODES, SEGS, etc structures never saved the NODES, SEGS etc properly unless they were rebuilt before saving. Oooops! - Pasting sectors had a major bug: All two-sided lines would be converted into "impassable / not-2s" lines with two sidedefs. - Problems with loading wads like TRINITY.WAD (with all sorts of new textures, patches, references to patches from the IWAD, and other stuff) have all been fixed. All the textures in Trinity now display perfectly; I hope the same goes for other WADs. 01-29-95 01:12pm ---------------- + Graphical THING display added. Check above. + THING display mask feature added: Press D to toggle it. When it's on, only those things that match the "flags" entered will be shown and selected - this makes it much easier to add things for specific skill levels, for example. + TEXTURES IN EXTERNAL FILES: DCK now supports textures in .WAD files other than the IWAD. It's all automatic: when you load a level from a file that contains texture patches, DCK will update the textures with the info from the file. This works with the following methods: - Replacement of individual patches - Additions to the PNAMES list - Additions to either of the TEXTUREx lumps In addition, when you load a level that contains new texture names (in the sidedefs) but not new texture information, DCK will update its list of textures with the names - but you will not be able to view the textures, since DCK doesn't know where to find them. This differs from previous versions in that DCK used to complain if a level was loaded with texture names that didn't exist. + A new Texture menu has been added. Using the dialog box it displays, you can add and remove .WAD files from the list of active texture files, and display details about each file. + Consistency Checker: - Now checks for things (monsters/player starts) that collide with lines. - Also checks for things (monsters/player starts) that collide with other monsters, player starts, or objects that block movement. + Speed. On a 486dx2/66 this isn't much of an issue, but even DCK on a '33 was a little slow using the previous version. Anyway, map redrawing and line selection should be noticeably faster. * Fixed a bad bug with the three main edit dialog boxes and multiple games - if you edited a THING from a doom 1 level, and then went into doom 2 and edited a THING, parts of DCK would still be referencing the doom 1 THING list .. oops! The same went for line and sector types. + You can now use Alt+F, / and \ in the texture browser - just like 1.0. + You can also use the mouse to select a texture in the browser: A single click will change to the texture, and a double click will select it. + You can now add sectors from a line dialog box. For example, if you want to add a second sidedef to a bunch of one-sided lines and assign the new sides to a new sector, just enter an out-of-range sector number (-1 will work also.) DCK will ask you if you'd like to create a new sector, and you can even edit it from there! Oooo. Note: This feature was in 1.x, but this is the first 2.x release that has it. * Pressing DEL in Vertex mode now joins the lines the vertices separate. + Added lots more error checking to the gamedata (GD) file reader. * Finally fixed the region creation tool so that it works with regions of all shapes & sizes. Previous versions had problems with very odd- shaped regions, and especially regions whose centerpoint was not actually inside the region. Thanks to Scott Amspoker for the original fix idea. + There are several new features to the region creation tool: - Creating sector splits no longer requires that the "split line" be connected to existing vertices. Consider the following: (The broken line indicates the line to split the sector with) +----------+ In previous versions, DCK required that | | the "split line" start and end on existing -> + - - - - -+ <- vertices. The new version does not - | | it will automatically split the lines +----------+ where the "split line" touches them. You no longer have to enter Vertex mode or use Ctrl+C to make vertices beforehand. - The new split feature also works with extension regions: those regions that touch an existing line. For example: +-----------+ Where the stars (*) are, DCK will now create | | new vertices. Again, previous versions would | Existing | have required that vertices be at the starred | | locations prior to creating the region. +-*-------*-+ | | | New | | | + - - - + + Heretic support is almost finished. It's displaying colors and textures perfectly; the lines, things and sector types are all in - all I need now is info for the radii of the things, and a menu. 01-21-95 12:00 pm ----------------- + You can now use the following keys in "Message Boxes" (those boxes with just a message and buttons like "Yes, No, Cancel" : Y - Yes N - No C - Cancel O - Ok A - Always + Angles are now displayed in THING mode. * Fixed: Saving to an existing file on another disk didn't work. 01-18-95 12:01pm ----------------- * Consistency Checker: - Prior versions reported missing upper textures even if both sectors' ceiling texture was F_SKY1. This has been fixed. - Prior versions reported "sector's tag not shared by a linedef" on sectors whose tag was 666 or 999 (special tags used by doom and id). Changed. * ADF Files have changed: - For each .GD (gamedata) file, there is a corresponding ADF (automation definition) file. DCKADF.EXE is no longer included - the compiler is now within DCK32.EXE. If you change an ADF file (files for DOOM1 and DOOM2 are included), DCK will automatically recompile the files. This change allows for different motifs & sector objects based upon the game being edited (and furthers development of HERETIC support, which is a bigger PITA than i thought it'd be :) + Floor / ceiling textures can now be "searched for" with Alt+F, /, and \. (in the sector dialog box). + Progress bar for NODES builder (whee!) + More little features added and bugs fixed. * Sped up texture display considerably. * Super-annoying bug caused by Borland's DOS extender has been worked around. In previous versions, switching to sector mode would cause a general protection fault on some machines. Apparently this has something to do with functions that use huge amounts of stack and exactly where the stack pointer is positioned on entry to the functions. Such a function is fillellipse(), used to draw parts of the status bar - on switching to Sector Mode, the bug would pop up on some machines. I wrote a replacement function which simply calls line() to fill a circle, which is fine as a bandaid for the moment :) To Borland's credit, "R&D knows about the bug and is working on it." 01-07-95 09:19pm ----------------- + In help, the right mouse button now exits help. + New THINGS are no longer marked. * Fixed several bugs: - Listboxes crashed the system if you clicked on a "blank spot" in the listbox. - Vertices would be drawn in bad colors if some were marked and the screen was redrawn. - Levels with less than 10 sidedefs (!) would not load. - Couple crashes fixed. + You can now double-click in the load and save dialog boxes in the file and directory listboxes (saves/loads or changes directories, respectively.) ###