Newbie question: Which map editor should I start with?

[Ophiolith]

Hi all, I guess the question is in the title, but for a bit of background, the last time I bothered with a Doom map editor was a good few years ago when Doom Builder was basically the only real show in town.  Fast forward to now and I really want to try getting back into Doom modding, but there are so many options now!  A lot of the tutorials I see seem to be written for GZDoomBuilder, which as far as I can tell is no longer updated, but still widely used.  There's also now Doom Builder X which looks neat, and I see mentions of new level formats like EE-UDMF, but I have no clue if that's something I should adopt as my default workflow or whether it's bleeding-edge stuff.  I see that SLADE 3 also has its own level editor now, but I'm unsure how it compares to the other ones in terms of what it can do.

 

If anybody would be willing to chime in with their thoughts, recommendations and/or explanations I'd be heckin' grateful.  I know a decent amount of the technical jargon re Doom editing, but I'm also rusty and out-of-the-loop and would definitely appreciate some insight.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

Personally I use GZDooM Builder Bug-Fix edition since that one is still supported (at least, from what I last checked). GZDB and GZDBBF both support vanilla, x in x format as well as the zdoom format. GZDBBF I know also has UDMF format (which is like GZDooM or some other highly advanced port in terms of what you can do with it). I can't say for GZDBX but my guess is its close to GZDBBF. So take either end of the coin. :)

 

Slad3 from what I can tell seems like a watered-down version of GZDB but can for the most part do what GZDBBF does (though I haven't tried anything advanced with it). I recommend having SLAD3 on hand anyways for WAD and PK3 Editing (and the extremely rare PK7).

[Nevander]

My suggestion is to use GZDBBF and or DBX. That covers all bases for editing needs.

 

Also, if you are interested in Doom 64 mapping for EX, there is Doom Builder 64.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Nevander

[Ophiolith]

Hey, thanks for the heads-up on GZDB-BF.  I didn't even know that was a thing!  Cheers for the pointers!

[Szuran]

As a newbie myself I find Doom Builder 2 to be perfectly fine, especially for the start. It's easy to learn, and certain limitations might actually be an advantage - you're not buried under tons and tons of options.