Can anyone explain to me what an .AED file in a GZDoom mod is and where a DECORATE.AED file would be loaded by the engine?

[Choronzon33]

I'm trying to mod some things in the Embers of Armageddon mod for GZDoom and have come across several .AED files. Googling this gives zero results for my purposes. I would be interested if someone could also explain the difference between standard DECORATE files and the .AED ones. I would believe they are an improved format of some type. Thanks in advance!

[Redneckerz]

1 hour ago, Choronzon33 said:

I'm trying to mod some things in the Embers of Armageddon mod for GZDoom and have come across several .AED files. Googling this gives zero results for my purposes.

I get this with Doom .aed.

 

I see it has references Decorate, so my next search is Decorate .aed doom.

 

Turns out it is used by the AeoD mod, so its definitely not a standard Decorate file but rather a text file with .aed extension. The data source for that is AEoDdat.pk3.

• Relevant question by Major Cooke in 2009. Its a standard Decorate lump, just with a different extension.
• Relevant answer by Major Cooke in 2017.

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Blame Michaelis and DBThanatos for that. They have special programming notepads which they use to highlight things and such, but I find it annoying since I use SLADE and it doesn't recognize the file name. 

• You can just open them in Notepad. Just rename them to .txt.
• Ichor confirms its just a standard text file with a different extension.
  • And so does the author DBThanatos himself in 2007.
• Why is it called AED? DBThanatos explains.

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It is a specific extension created by MS for the ÆOD. joke. Is just text with a diferent extention (aed: ae= Æons d=death), zdoom can read (almost?) any extention you give to a lump file. and i didnt wanted it to be .raw or something like that.

 

1 hour ago, Choronzon33 said:

 

I would be interested if someone could also explain the difference between standard DECORATE files and the .AED ones. I would believe they are an improved format of some type. Thanks in advance!

See above. Its just a coders habit :)

[SOF2Fragger]

Decorate files can have any extension, or none at all. That allows for multiple files without conflicts.

 

[Choronzon33]

Thanks guys I appreciate the clarification. I can't wait to add things to EoA. At least on my PC. :) I made it so the possessed, imps, cacodemons and pinkies have slightly higher health values. Definitely makes it more challenging for me anyways!! Maybe I release my addon sometime soon!!

[Gez]

The WAD format does not really allow extensions, as lumps can only have an 8-character name, not 8-character + dot + 3-character extension.

 

Therefore, ZDoom pretty much ignores extension when using short names (just the eight-characters-or-less name of a lump, such as DECORATE). This allows people to use whatever extension they want when these files are in a ZIP. Can be TXT, SRC, or DEC, whatever.

 

I say "when using short names" because you can also force the use of full names. If your DECORATE file contains an instruction such as #include "code/monsters/megademon.txt", then obviously that file will require looking by full name. Whereas if it was #include "MEGADEM" then it'd do a short name search too.