Making maps in DOS editors

[QuotePilgrim]

So I just recorded myself making a very basic map in both DCK and DeeP, and since I know from one of his old videos @Doomkid would like to see old DOS editors being used, I'm sharing it here. Here's the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdjWFNkkis1GMEGjfETrIA7n4vv1CDPxy

 

These videos are completely unedited and uncut, and are as close as possible to my first ever experience with using such tools -- so they are pretty boring in nature, but may be of interest to anyone who wants to see what using these tools is like. I did mess with them for a few minutes before recording though, and I kind of made a full map in an older version of DCK without recording it. The DeeP video is more authentic in that sense, as I barely even touched it before recording, which may explain why it's twice as long. At one point in the video you'll see me failing to run the map and getting a segmentation error, and then trying again and it magically works. I paused the recording at that point to figure out what the issue was, and looking at it in DeeP I couldn't for the life of me figure it out, so I opened the map up on SLADE. Turns out I somehow fliped the sector references on the linedef that lowers the sector with the blue key. I might find the exact moment where I did it by watching the video carefully but eh, I don't care that much.

 

I'll be recording more of these, DETH is the next one. I might bump this thread whenever I upload a new video, depending on how much interest there is in that stuff.

Edited June 7, 2021 by QuotePilgrim

[Murdoch]

I remember DCK. Do not think I messed with Deep though I remember a Windows version... DeepSea or something?

 

Actively using the old DOS editors is bordering on masochism. We owe them a lot but I absolutely would not want to go back there. 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Murdoch

[Optimus]

Cool, I haven't ever tried any of those editors, but not too far ago I tried DEU in a DOS PC again, which I first used back in 1996. I should also try to make a video of me using it. Or maybe try to capture Doom editing on Acorn Archimedes, not long ago I loaded up DETH on my A7000+ and it works fine.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Optimus

[Pegleg]

@QuotePilgrim

 

This was nice to see. Thanks for doing it. I started out with DCK and DEU in DOS back in the mid-90's, so this was a blast from the past. It's always interesting to see people trying to use these older editors (Doomkid made maps in older editors in one of his videos a couple years ago). I look forward to seeing more of your efforts.

 

 

@Doomkid

 

You've probably already seen this, but if not, it seems right up your alley.

[QuotePilgrim]

Thank you everyone for the responses. A video of me doing it in DETH was added to the playlist, if anyone wants to check it out. Next notice will only be when I'm done with all of them.

 

I also have over 12 hours worth of footage of me using ReDoomEd, from when I was making the first map I ever uploaded (out of two so far, lol). I'm not sure if I'll upload the whole thing raw or speed it up like ten times before uploading, but it will be on YouTube at some point.

Edited June 8, 2021 by QuotePilgrim

[QuotePilgrim]

Okay, I said I'd bump this thread once I was done with all the DOS editors I had planned on recording, so here it is. The playlist is updated with all the remaining videos, which is three new ones since last time. A this point author of the largest (as in only, from what I can tell) collection of videos of multiple DOS-based DOOM editors on YouTube. Which I'm very well aware are probably not a super interesting thing to watch, I just wanted to do it for some reason. My channel now also has the ReDoomEd footage (condensed to about 90 minutes) I mentioned above.

 

I have no intention of recording any more of these, which means this is likely the last time I make a post on this thread, too.

[boris]

The ReDoomEd footage is missing from the playlist.

 

How would you sort the editors you tried in terms of ease of use, and how do they hold up against modern editors? Is there anything they have that modern editors are missing?

[QuotePilgrim]

On 6/21/2021 at 3:09 AM, boris said:

The ReDoomEd footage is missing from the playlist.

 

How would you sort the editors you tried in terms of ease of use, and how do they hold up against modern editors? Is there anything they have that modern editors are missing?

Easiest to use I would say DCK, best one overall DETH, although it has probably the steepest learning curve. The two I disliked the most were DMapEdit and Waded, the former being especially maddening to use -- I wrote a whole rant on that one's video. As for features, they can't really do anything that you can't do on a modern editor, but they do things in interesting ways that might make some things easier to accomplish.

 

In Waded, the way you tag a sector and linedef is by selecing the line and right clicking the sector you want associated with its action. In EdMap there's a keyboard shortcut for that (F7, I think) which behaves in a similar way (you select the line action, then the sector). Took me a while to figure out how to do that in either editor, but I do think it's a better approach than manually typing a number in a "tag" field. EdMap is also almost entirely sector-based, which does not equate to having something modern editors don't, but makes it a different beast than other editors in general. It's an interesting one.

 

DETH, which became my favorite even after crashing on me twice, lets you do everything with the keyboard, which is amazing. I haven't used it a lot, only messing with it for like half an hour outside of recording it, but I can imagine being able to make maps in it a lot faster than in a modern editor because of that feature. After performing the same action a few times you develop the muscle memory to press the correspoding string of letters in a blink of an eye, rather than having to navigate menus with a mouse, which is much slower. It probably takes quite some time before to build up the speed though. Also, even though the documentation that came with it states that DETH comes with zennode and is supposed to build nodes automatically, it doesn't. You have to install zennode or some other nodesbuilder which you'll have to use to manually build nodes for any maps you make with it. You can see me doing that in the video.

 

And, of course, none of them, at least as far as I'm aware, has 3D editing mode or 3D map preview of any kind. It doesn't bother me because the editor I have spent the most time with is probably ReDoomEd (which by the way is a lot better than every DOS editor out there), having been the one I used to make the first map I've ever uploaded; even after using modern editors, you don't miss that feature as much as you'd think you would, it's not that hard to build a mental model of what the map looks like in your mind, and you do also figure out for the most part how to align textures without having to see them. Knowing to use lower and upper unpegging instead of changing the y offset of a line for doors and windows helps a lot.

 

That's the best I can do right now, I can try to rank them at a later point. Bear in mind I'm much more familiar with SLADE than any flavor of DoomBuilder (I'm not unfamiliar with them either, mind you), so any comparison to modern editors is more of a comparison to SLADE than anything else.

 

As for the ReDoomEd video, it isn't in the playlist because it doesn't really belong. It's not a testing out an editor video, it's a timelapse of pretty much the whole process of making my first map, and I just mentioned it in case anyone was curious about it. It is in the same channel as the other videos, so you can easily find it.

Edited June 22, 2021 by QuotePilgrim