Tricks of the DOOM Programming Gurus

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Tricks of the DOOM Programming Gurus / Tricks_of_the_Doom_Programming_Gurus.iso / editors / deep / readme.doc < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1995-03-12 | 18.2 KB | 460 lines

DeeP and HeeP Documentation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ (c) 1995 Sensor Based Systems, Inc. │ │ DoomEnhancedEditorProgram │ │ HereticEnhancedEditorProgram │ │ █████████ █████████ │ │ ██ █ ██ █ │ │ ██ █ jackv56036@AOL.com ██ █ │ │ ██ █ ██ █ │ │ ██ █ ███████ ███████ ████████ │ │ ██ █ ██ ██ ██ │ │ ██ █ █████ █████ ██ │ │ ██ █ ██ ██ ██ │ │ █████████ ███████ ███████ ██ tm │ │ 75454.773@COMPUSERVE.COM │ │ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────┘ Sensor Based Systems, Inc. 17010 NE 190th St Woodinville, WA 98072 jackv56036@AOL.com 75454.773@COMPUSERVE.COM (206) 827-8794 >>> All references to DeeP also apply to HeeP <<< DEU users, please review the Help information. Although many things look the same, there's lot's more you can do (over 101)! Don't forget that clicking the Right Mouse button will edit an object. In addition, clicking the Right Mouse Button in any menu selection exits the menu (Esc also works). This is the quickest way to navigate the menus!! ┌───────────────────────┐ │ Table of Contents │ └───────────────────────┘ For Ordering Information see ORDER.FRM. 1. Machine Requirements/VESA video 2. Installation 3. How to start DeeP How to start HeeP 4. Command line options 5. The DeeP.INI file and defaults The HeeP.INI file and defaults 6. The DeeP Main Menu 7. The DeeP Map/Mission Editor 8. The commands 9. Tutorial 10. DeePbsp 11. DeePbsp and Windows << Be sure to view this 12. DeePbsp and QEMM << Be sure to view this 13. Future stuff 1. Machine Requirements / VESA video BIOS ────────────────────────────────────── a. A 386 and above b. A math co-processor is highly recommended. Speeds up DeePbsp about 4X. c. A VGA monitor. d. A VESA compatible video board with 512Kb. If you don't have a VESA board or other problems, UNIVBE may work (see below). e. 540kb (610kb recommended) free memory. f. DeeP requires approximately 1.4 MB of disk space. g. Enough additional disk space to save DOOM levels you make. h. A mouse (keyboard is a lot harder and some features are mouse only). i. DOS 6.2 is optional, but again makes everything else easier. j. If you can, Shadow the Video and System BIOS. DOOM just tells you not to, for the reasons listed below (shadowing exaggerates the problems). k. Overview of system considerations: DeeP and DeePbsp stress the DRAM refresh setting more than many programs. If you have problems with the video, check the wait states on your DRAM. If they are set too low, you will experience "lockups" or strange symptoms. (Windows should also be GP faulting a lot.) There is no "normal" system out there, but be careful if you have a ZERO wait setting and your memory is 70ns or higher. Some 60ns chips also do not work (on a 33Mhz system), depending on the DRAM and the board. We have not found "ram" check programs that bring out these flaws. Every- thing looks fine and stuff may even appear to work for a while. But if your system likes to act up at random, take a second look at the settings. Any system that has a "tweaked" speed (someone upped the clock speed) is asking for trouble. Use Smartdrive if you have enough memory, it helps speed up help and especially the display of textures and sprites!. DOOM works fine (in fact loads much faster) with Smartdrive (latest one anyway), but your system has to have more than 4MB. Smartdrive does take memory away from the DPMI program DeePbsp, so if you run out of memory, please reduce the size of the Smartdrive cache (how big did you make it?). If your system acts up with Smartdrive, then of course do not use it. DOS 6.2 is recommended to easily have 630KB available. Ask for advice for your configuration to achieve this goal. At the least use HIMEM.SYS and load DOS high. (OK to do with DOOM.) The default assumes a VESA compatible video board with 512Kb of memory. Look at the DeeP.INI file and reconfigure the video if it fails to start. The VGAONLY option should work for everyone (more video memory is OK). Some older boards are not VESA compatible, but they are SVGA with 512kb or more. In other cases, the VESA BIOS does not work correctly (ATI is one). VESA software drivers that you can load anytime may solve your problems. UNIVBE is such a driver and will probably work and be fast to boot. This product is NOT made by SBS, but SciTech Software. Unzip the file UVBE50BD.ZIP in the same directory as DeeP (or another if you like). Follow the instructions given, but they are fairly simple. Enter > UNIVBE /? to get a list of the options. For most, entering " > UNIVBE -l " works. This loads the driver high and autodetects your board. Even for VESA boards, this program may speed up your video for all your applications (DOOM works ok with it.) If you can play DOOM reliably, you will probably be able to run DeeP. 2. Installation ────────────────────────────────────── DeeP.ZIP is the shareware zipped distribution files for DeeP and HeeP. DeePreg.ZIP and HeePreg.ZIP are the zipped registered distribution files for DeeP and HeeP. In the examples below, the same directory is shown for DeeP and Heep. If you run both programs, it is more efficient to put them both in the same directory, so that the DPMI programs (discussed at end) are easily available. Also, since the same help file is used for both, it makes it easier to maintain. If you split them, support programs are either required in the ROOT directory or available via the DOS PATH. These are DeeProot.exe, HeeProot.exe and the DPMI programs discussed below in DeePbsp. If you get a new version of one program and not the other, be careful that you don't read newer instructions that don't apply to the older program!). In that case, you may wish to rename the help files and modify the .INI files as required and/or put them in their own directory. Use PKUNZIP (2.04 or later) to unzip DeeP.ZIP into any directory on your hard drive. PKUNZIP is available from many sources, probably including the one you obtained DeeP from. (Now this was probably in a zipped file so you already know how to do this, right?) Replace the DOOM2 directory with HERETIC if you have HERETIC and not DOOM. The name is for illustration, this is just one way to do it! Example for DOOM II (c:> prompt assumed): ------------------------ cd\DOOM2 [go to DOOM II directory ] mkdir DeeP [create a directory for DeeP] cd Deep [go to directory ] -- for the shareware version-- pkunzip a:DeeP.ZIP \doom\deep [unzip from your a: drive.] -- for the registered version-- pkunzip a:DeePreg.ZIP \doom\deep [unzip from your a: drive.] 3. How to start DeeP ────────────────────────────────────── DeeP is started by typing: DeeP <command line options> HeeP is started by typing: HeeP <command line options> If your video or mouse misbehaves, see the DeeP.INI or HeeP.INI for recommendations. DeeP, HeeP and DeePbsp create a temporary file name ~DeeP.tmp. This is used for memory overflow control. It may be deleted any time if you are short of space. It is created every time you run either DeeP program. The size of the file is usually 0, but for very large levels will be larger than this. The file ~DEEP.WAD is created when you rebuild Nodes from DeeP. The file ~HEEP.WAD is created when you rebuild Nodes from HeeP. This is a copy of your last saved level. You can use this to restore in case something goes wrong with the node building. You will get the message level "YOUR.WAD" (whatever you called it) not found. This can happen if you have a memory conflict with DeePbsp, you are running in WINDOWS and didn't modify SYSTEM.INI, you just ran out of memory or something else. When running from DeeP, the message will flash and you won't be able to tell what happened. But you never see the DeePbsp screen come up. That's your first clue that something is amiss. Then you might want to use the temporary file (or use the one named .BAK, although the .BAK is prior to your changes). >>> CAUTION << DO NOT USE the ~DEEP.WAD or ~HEEP.WAD as direct input. Copy it and give it a different name if you want to use it again. Failure to do this will result in the loss of all data in the level! A file called DeeP.CFG contains all the options you set in DeeP. A file called HEEP.CFG contains all the options you set in HeeP. If you mess up the setting, delete this file to restore it to the defaults. It is possible for this file to get corrupted due to "normal" DOS FAT table allocation errors. We suggest you delete the file and start over when any FAT error for this file is reported. Inexplicable behavior can sometimes be traced to a corrupted .CFG file. Each time you change the name of the DeeP.INI file, it is saved in DeeP.CFG. Thus if you start DeeP and do not override with a -config command, the last name you used is automatically read. Remember this when you use batch files to edit both DOOM and DOOM II levels and you then directly run DeeP, bypassing your batch files. This can be very confusing! The same comments for HeeP, but the files are name HeeP.INI and HeeP.CFG. 4. Command line options ────────────────────────────────────── The command line options are explained in DeeP by entering the H (help) usage command. 5. The DeeP.INI File The HeeP.INI File ────────────────────────────────────── The DeeP.INI file contains all commands but -config. All of these are commented out by use of a #, *, / or ; (whatever you like). To uncomment one of these commands, delete the comment character and change the parameter to what you want it to be. Help is included in the .INI file explaining what you need to do. Edit the DeeP.INI file to set DOOM file and video defaults to match your system and suit your taste. Edit the HeeP.INI file to set HERETIC file and video defaults to match your system and suit your taste. The largest complete path name for any file is 42 characters! This includes the drive specification "C:\". The largest default path (either explicit or implied by the directory you are in) is 27 characters. For example: C:\DOOM2\DeeP is 13 characters long. The default path is always added to any file you read or write, so don't forget to count it. 6. The DeeP Main Menu ────────────────────────────────────── DeeP has online documentation to help you run it. Type "?" and press enter. This brings up a help screen that explains what each option does in full detail. The complete documentation is listed here as well as in Edit, under "All Help". In Map edit mode, F1 brings up more help and even more help for the menu items on the top bar! You can print the documentation by selecting the Print button. 7. DeeP Map Level Editor ────────────────────────────────────── Type E to start the map editor. The map editor is an editor of the level. Select the level from the menu shown. This brings up a map of the level you have chosen to edit, for example, MAP10 (DOOM II) or E2M3 for DOOM and HERETIC. Once in the editor set all the options in the Edit pull-down menu to automatically restart, set colors and other working defaults. The editor has Four Editing Modes. In each edit mode you can Add, Delete or Change the type of object selected. The four editing modes are: a. Sector Mode b. Vertices Mode c. Thing Edit Modes d. Linedef and Sidedef Modes The online help has explanations for each of these functions. Registered DeeP will contain the latest explanations of these functions and more tutoring. 8. The Commands ────────────────────────────────────── Use the built-in F1 help to examine the commands. Start with ? at the DOS character mode commands and select the top sections by activating them and then pressing F1. For example, press Alt+S and then press F1 to see the help for Save. 9. Tutorial ────────────────────────────────────── Print the file TUTOR.DOC for beginning help on using DeeP to create and edit levels. It is also useful for persons new to DeeP, since it also show how to use the commands. The file textures are incorrect for HeeP, but can be quickly changed using the F10 fix missing textures feature. 10. DeePbsp ────────────────────────────────────── The DPMI version of DeePbsp requires that you have HIMEM.SYS installed in your CONFIG.SYS file. If you don't, it WON'T WORK. There are further notes below. We wish it was simpler, but this is out of our control, since we have to use the tools available at reasonable cost to us (Borland). Your CONFIG.SYS file also requires a FILES=20 ( or more ) statement. We do NOT have control when the program starts, so we can't tell you what to do in the opening screen! DeePbsp is an improved node builder that was derived from BSP 1.2. DeePbsp is about 2-10 times faster than BSP, can distinquish smaller vertex spacing and features a display to see how your level is progressing as it is being built. In addition, DeepBsp can build nodes from within a grouped PWAD, so DO NOT substitute another node builder, since it won't work right when run by DeeP!! DeePbsp is automatically run by selecting "Yes" when asked whether you want the nodes built or not. DeePbsp COPIES the reject map "as is", so be sure to clear the reject area with DeeP when requested. We have read the info on what the reject is, but have noticed behavior beyond what's been stated. Sometimes it appears to fix a level that otherwise would not work. Experiment with the clear REJECT to FF option (see File, Save with Build) to see if you need to work with the REJECT. You decide! (Let us know what you find out.) (DeePbsp formerly was called TBSP. TBSP does clear the reject map.) There is a check in DeePbsp for viruses or allocation errors. The message !!! Warning DEEPBSP size wrong? !!! appears if it detects an error. The program continues to execute. A change in the program size indicates a serious error in the FAT file allocation or a virus! So try to find out why it's complaining. If you get an ATAN2 error, you forgot to run the total check on the level and you have overlapping vertices or other errors in your level. YOU SHOULD TEST BUILDING NODES ON YOUR SYSTEM FIRST TO BE SURE IT WORKS! You can run DeePbsp by hand by entering C:\..DeePbsp INWAD.WAD OUTWAD.WAD Fill in the C:\.. path with yours and use your name for the wad files to test with. It's best to test with an original id level so that we have a level that we know is ok! Observe any errors (if there's a problem it will happen right away) and read below for how to fix it. 11. DeePbsp and Windows <<<<<<< be sure to read this >>>>>>>> ────────────────────────────────────── DeePbsp requires the programs 32RTM.EXE and DPMIVM.OVL in the directory where DeePbsp was installed or access via the DOS PATH statement. -------> WINDOWS Modifications <------- If you run DeePbsp from within windows, SYSTEM.INI must have the following line added (use DOS EDIT ) after the line [386Enh] (Change the c:\DOOM2\DeeP to reflect the location where you installed the program). device = c:\DOOM2\DeeP\WINDPMI.386 12. DeePbsp and QEMM <<<<<<< be sure to read this >>>>>>>> ────────────────────────────────────── If you use QEMM, the QDPMI.SYS driver and the Borland RTM.EXE used by DeePbsp do not work together. You will get an Exception = 000cH..etc., from QDPMI. We don't know at this time who should change their code. If anyone knows more about this, please let us know. Meanwhile, we'll try to find out too. DEVICE=QDPMI.SYS The program QDPMI.SYS appears to be installed if you used the default config when you installed QEMM. Remove the DEVICE=QDPMI.SYS from the CONFIG.SYS file or make an alternate boot setup that doesn't use this file. You may not need QDPMI.SYS at all! Refer to QHINTS.DOC for information. 13. Future stuff ────────────────────────────────────── There are some PWADs too large to edit and we are in to process of converting DeeP and HeeP also to DPMI. That means well have lots of memory of mess with. Getting all the pieces together is taking some time (and more money than I thought), but that is the goal. At that time, we will add more feature to the external PWAD function that let's you replace graphics and also replace ANYTHING. In addition, the new IWAD will also contain all the replacements. The memory overhead is too large for now and maximizing the level size came first. Some stuff to be done (in the DPMI version) : 1. Ability to merge in stuff from other WADs (cut and paste). 2. More complete Dir viewing box in the editor. 3. Add more prebuilt functions, rising stairs and rotating stairs are on the list for now. 4. And more...