Any way to add custom monsters in Doom 64?

[Quill]

Not sure if I should post this in Console Doom or Doom Editing, but is there a way to add custom monsters in Doom 64? Mayhaps a form of DECORATE, D64hacked? I asked this because I wanted to get into Doom 64 modding.

[Gez]

OG Doom 64: no.

Doom64 EX: technically yes -- the source code is available, you can program in your own monsters and get something that'll only work with your modified Doom64 EX fork.

Doom 64 Nightdive re-release: no.

Any of the Doom-64-but-on-GZDoom projects: yes.

[Immorpher]

Gez pretty much hit the nail on the head. There are quite a few ports and adaptations. Some are very restricted in modability, and others let you do almost anything you want. Here is a topic which lists some of them: 

I am also happy to recommend certain ports depending on what you want to do. :)

[ChopBlock223]

Some kind of ZDoom64 port which replicates Doom 64s specific behaviors natively, with just something like ACS and Decorate, etc, would be really cool. Something which could read that .wad constructed from the ROM and whatever the new PC port comes shipped with, and then just read a simple .wad which just include levels and an UMAPINFO lump.

 

I know you can already achieve similar results by building an addon for one of the Doom 64 conversions for GzDoom, but it's not as convenient or straightforward. It also I think doesn't do that one thing Doom 64 does by applying palettes to monochrome textures to color them, or its alternate sky rendering.

Edited April 28, 2022 by ChopBlock223

[Gez]

8 hours ago, ChopBlock223 said:

It also I think doesn't do that one thing Doom 64 does by applying palettes to monochrome textures to color them, or its alternate sky rendering.

The former doesn't accurately describe what Doom 64 does. The textures are not actually monochrome (though they tend to have very low saturation overall, but that's not a technical restriction or requirement) and what the engine does isn't applying a palette to it. It's closer to the idea of vertex coloring.

Spoiler

And GZDoom actually does feature that!

 

For the latter, however, that is indeed not the case. There's some weird system for sky projection in Doom 64, and it's not implemented in GZDoom -- not sure it'd work correctly when you can actually change your view pitch (and roll) like you can in GZDoom.