How to Use DOS Doom Editors in 2024

[InfinitePossiblities]

So, a while ago I made a post called "Why Android Sucks" that talked about how I couldn't make doom maps, and somebody suggested that I emulate one through DosBOX. Well, I did, and I can't figure out how to use it. The ones I tried were:

DEEP

DEU

DETH

WADED

DCK

WADED worked the best, but I need help making maps. I looked for tutorials online and couldn't find them. Could somebody walk me through one of them? (Preferably DCK or WADED)

[Jayextee]

I can't remember most of my time with WadEd way back when, but I can warn you not to save in 'draw' mode (affected my old version, v1.71 -- don't know if the crash and map corruption was fixed in v1.83 which is the normally available version) and to watch out for zero-length lines and resulting duplicated vertices when drawing 90-degree corners.

That's about all I remember, I'm kinda far from being able to 'walk you through' how to make maps. Sorry.

[InfinitePossiblities]

It's completely fine. Thanks for the tip, however!

[Pegleg]

7 hours ago, InfinitePossiblities said:

So, a while ago I made a post called "Why Android Sucks" that talked about how I couldn't make doom maps, and somebody suggested that I emulate one through DosBOX. Well, I did, and I can't figure out how to use it. The ones I tried were:

DEEP

DEU

DETH

WADED

DCK

WADED worked the best, but I need help making maps. I looked for tutorials online and couldn't find them. Could somebody walk me through one of them? (Preferably DCK or WADED)

 

DCK and DEU are the editors I used when I started mapping, back in late 1994/early 1995. Unfortunately for you, I can't offer any insight into how to get them working in DosBOX.

 

However, a few years ago, @QuotePilgrim made this post, which includes a link to a series of Youtube videos showing them making Doom maps in various older Doom editors, including videos specifically about DCK and WadEd.

 

@Doomkid also made this post, linking it to a Youtube video showing a mixed bag of setting up older editors. Supposedly, an updated version will be coming sometime, where he is more successfu in getting them running.

[Redneckerz]

WADED is notorious for its nodebuilder, being the only one so far done in QUICKBASIC. Which means its horrendously slow and buggy.

 

If you want to know more: I am currently compiling a list on these days for the wiki so i could tell you which combinations back in the day tended to work and what else is out there.

 

[redEYE]

3 hours ago, Pegleg said:

DCK and DEU are the editors I used when I started mapping, back in late 1994/early 1995. Unfortunately for you, I can't offer any insight into how to get them working in DosBOX.

 

@Doomkid also made this post, linking it to a Youtube video showing a mixed bag of setting up older editors. Supposedly, an updated version will be coming sometime, where he is more successfu in getting them running.

 

I remember seeing DoomKid's video attempt to use DETH. :D

 

First you add the iwad path into cfg file for the game you want to edit. By default DETH is set up to edit Doom2 but you can change that to Doom or Heretic in DETH.ini.

 

If you copy Doom2.wad into the same folder where DETH is, mount that as c, and doom2.cfg should have:

 

#Main IWAD
[wad]
c:\doom2.wad

 

Then run DosBox and DETH. The early DEUs play exactly like DETH.

 

Spoiler

 

 

The magical commands in the DETH's opening console are:

 

c

Create a new level. For example "c 01" for MAP01 in Doom2. If you edit Doom or Heretic it's "c 1 1" and such.

 

e

Edit a level. To edit MAP01 type "e 01", E1M1 type "e 1 1". If you write "e" and press enter you'll be able to preview all maps in memory with arrow up and down keys. A feature UDB unfortunately miss. :-(

 

r mywad.wad

Read a level. After that use "e 01" or something to edit it.

 

! - temporarily drop to DOS. To return back to DETH write "exit"
? - drop down a quick summary of these commands
q - quit

 

Notes: 

DETH doesn't have a nodebuilder. You must build the nodes by yourself. 

 

DETH has lines, sectors, vertices and things modes quite as UDB. But it doesn't have a "draw mode" in the same sense as UDB. Instead there there are two ways to create sectors and areas: 

 

The easy way: Press F9 to insert a rectangle or a polygon. Then edit it: 

 

 - Split sector into in new sectors: In lines mode select two opposite lines and press F8 and then 5. In vertices mode select two opposite vertices and press F8 and then 6.

 - Select lines and split them: In lines mode press F8 and then 6. Now move the vertices around in places you want. Split the lines again or split the sectors. Repeat until done.

 

The tricky way: Go to the vertices mode and press INS to add vertices. Select the vertices in the order you want the walls to go. Press INS and you'll have new walls without sidedefs. Press INS again and you'll have a new sector and one sided walls. Press INS again you'll have twosided walls. Luckily DETH does have an option to edit sector numbers for sidedefs.

 

Two killer features DETH has but UDB (afaik) doesn't: 

Renumber selected sectors, lines, things from the lowest. 
Change linedef starting and ending vertices.

 

 

[InfinitePossiblities]

Quick question: What are nodes?

Edit: I know about sectors and vertexex and stuff, but seriously, what are nodes?

Edited June 11 by InfinitePossiblities

[Edward850]

2 minutes ago, InfinitePossiblities said:

Quick question: What are nodes?

Edit: I know about sectors and vertexex and stuff, but seriously, what are nodes?

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Node

[InfinitePossiblities]

1 minute ago, Edward850 said:

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Node

what happens if I don't place nodes?

[Edward850]

4 minutes ago, InfinitePossiblities said:

what happens if I don't place nodes?

As the article explicitly tells you, you compile nodes from a node builder. You don't place them.

Without nodes, your map is physically unplayable as the engine needs them to do, well, anything.

[InfinitePossiblities]

Ah. On quick question, do you know the controls for DEU? I know that sounds dumb, but I simply cannot figue it out well. Also, i don't know how to place textures. Every time I load the map for testing, it just shows up as a HOM. How do I fix this?

[QuotePilgrim]

20 hours ago, Pegleg said:

However, a few years ago, @QuotePilgrim made this post, which includes a link to a series of Youtube videos showing them making Doom maps in various older Doom editors, including videos specifically about DCK and WadEd.

Hah, what a thing to be remembered for LOL. Yeah, I did do that, and most of the struggle was in terms of the usability. Getting them to work in and of itself was a non-issue to me, I suppose because I was already used to DOSBox from playing a lot of ancient games. And being Linux user who lives in the terminal has probably helped to some extent.

I don't know of how much assistance I can be. I don't remember exactly how to use any of these editors, I mostly figured it out as I went. Plus I did it on a laptop. Without a keyboard and mouse plugged into your device I can't imagine you'll get very far.
 

First things first, DETH is a an improved fork of DEU, so you should probably use that instead. You might need to get a node builder though; at least for me it didn't build the nodes automatically when saving a map even though I'm pretty sure it's supposed to. What worked for me is ZenNode v0.98a, with the 32RTM.EXE file that comes with v0.98. (And no, just getting v0.98 didn't work, why? that's beyond me). If using an external node builder is too complicated and DEU is in fact building the nodes for you then you can keep using it.

Anyway the basic workflow with DEU/DETH is, in vertices mode, hover the mouse where you want to add vertices and press Insert. Then select the vertices in the order you want to draw the lines (you need to go clockwise around a room so all lines point inwards) and then press Insert again to add lines connecting the vertices, this will put you in lines mode, but will not fully enclose the room so go back to vertices mode (V) and select the two vertices that belong to the last line you need and press Insert again. Select all the lines that enclose the sector you want to create, then press insert. This should create a sector. Go to things mode (T), hover somewhere inside the sector and press insert to add a player 1 start thing. Save the map and check that it works.

 

To add textures to a line, you need to select it in lines mode and press Enter, this will bring up a menu you can navigate to edit all of the properties of the line. If you want to know what shortcuts are available to you, press F1 for general shortcuts and F6 for shortcuts associated with the current mode you're in. You'll need do to that a lot before you actually learn all the shortcuts.

Also, consider using DMapEdit instead. As far as I recall that one is by far the most user-friendly DOS Doom map editor. I should know, I have used all of them. (EDIT: Apparently I have severly misremembered my experience with DMapEdit, I hated it for some reason back then. The one I actually really liked was DCK. Kind of ironic if you ask me.)

 

Also also, as someone who has used all of them: don't. And when I say this bear in mind I'm a weirdo who learned to map in ReDoomEd, a fork of the original DOOM level editor (with no changes made other than being able to run on Linux and Mac in modern hardware). My honest to god advice is get a cheap netbook or something and install UDB or SLADE or Eureka (that last one is Linux-only afaik). If you can't afford one, wait until you can. I'm on a 12 year old laptop and only now I'm getting a new machine because I can finally afford to. This laptop still servers me well though, even the latest version of GZDoom runs without any issues which is pretty impressive IMO. You are absolutely right, when it comes to making doom maps, Android sucks. Any smartphone/mobile device, running Android or otherwise, is completely unsuitable for the task. That's just the unfortunate reality.

EDIT 2: HOM is happening either because you're in a sector whose ceiling and floor are both at 0 or you have missing textures in your lines. To solve the former select the sector in sectors mode and press Enter to edit its properties. To solve the latter select the offending line(s) and press Enter to edit its properties. You'll need to think about the changes in height between floors and ceilings in adjacent sectors to figure out if the missing texture is an upper or lower texture; in case it's one-sided line it's the middle texture. DEU/DETH might also show you what textures are missing when you hover over a line in lines mode. I know at least some editors do, maybe it's all of them.

Edited June 12 by QuotePilgrim

[Pegleg]

On 6/11/2024 at 7:43 PM, QuotePilgrim said:

My honest to god advice is get a cheap netbook or something and install UDB or SLADE or Eureka (that last one is Linux-only afaik). If you can't afford one, wait until you can. I'm on a 12 year old laptop and only now I'm getting a new machine because I can finally afford to.

 

Eureka is cross-platform and very easy on hardware. I use it on a late 2014 Mac mini desktop as well as a 16-year old Windows laptop.

 

 

On 6/11/2024 at 7:43 PM, QuotePilgrim said:

The one I actually really liked was DCK.

 

I really liked DCK, too. I started mapping in very late 1994/very early 1995, and I vaguely remember my very first attempts at mapping being a combination of DEU and DCK. I would draw the map in DEU (like you said, draw the vertices and then connect them with lines), save the map, and then switch to DCK and do all the texturing, thing placement, etc. I fairly quickly switched to DCK full time, and I used it until it switched from freeware to shareware. At that point, I switched to DEU, and kept using it from 1996 to 2000. I think I used DETH (or maybe DeeP) once in 1996, but I don't remember much about it.

 

 

@InfinitePossiblities Sorry for the brief derail. If I had to recommend a DOS-based editor, it would be DCK. I would recommend version 2.2, which was freeware and, from what I remember, could do everything you could do in the later shareware versions. It even had an auto-align feature, which was unique in the mid-90's.