Different Doom Standards and the like.

[mmiov]

Can someone to explain to me each modding standard and it's purpose? Being relatively new to the community, things can get pretty confusing pretty quickly for me in terms of what you can and can't do in what standard and whether or not it's gonna work on certain sourceports, I'm talking about things like ZScript versus Decorate and Dehacked and the like.

Edited November 22, 2023 by mmiov

[liPillON]

I'll try, but focusing only on the most popular and still used/mantained standards.

 

First of all you should keep in mind the distinction between: modding standards (used to change the characteristics of things in the game) and mapping formats (used A) to create the space in which those things exist, thus controlling how the gameplay flows; B) to add interactivity to the maps; C) to add visual flair to the environments )

 

 

### MODDING STANDARDS

 

vanilla: it mainly let modders manipulate built-in monsters/weapons, within original engine constraints

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/DeHackEd

 

dehacked extensions: they raise or remove the original engine limits

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/DEHEXTRA

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/DSDHacked

 

zdoom family features: they abstract the built-in monster/weapons/objects logic, letting modders replacing things or adding new by inheriting from the existing one or defining them from scratch (decorate is the old standard en vogue in the zdoom ways, zscript is more powerful since the gzdoom engine exposes more of its features to it) (the general consensus is that this abstraction has a performance penalty due to the overheads it introduces)

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/DECORATE

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/ZScript

 

others (specific to certain source ports):

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_Definition_File 

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/EDF

 

 

 

 

### MAPPING FORMATS

 

DOOM: as available in the OG engine by ID

 

limit removing: basically vanilla but with rasing/removing the OG static limits  

 

BOOM: basically vanilla, with access to additional features first implemented in the BOOM engine

 

MBF: basically boom, with access to additional features introduced with the MBF source port

 

HEXEN: extension to the DOOM format, developed by Raven while working on the game of the same name

 

UDMF: designed from scratch, to better leverage the features exposed by enhanced source ports (zdoom/gzdoom/eternity/edge/etc..)

 

[mmiov]

Alright, thanks! Where do you think something like ACE Engine could fit in?