Official Tutorial Request Thread

[Kontra Kommando]

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/everything-else/85810-handmade-quake-guy-creates-a-quake-engine-from-scratch/

After looking at this thread, I thought to myself, "it would be great if they did a video series on editing doom".

Chubzdoomer had some really helpful videos.

Perhaps, someone should make videos to compliment each of these lesson threads.

[Angry Saint]

I would like to see a Dehacked tutorial, it is the only thing I still don't know how to do in Doom.

[scifista42]

http://www.aspectsweb.co.uk/dehacked/index.html - the same principles apply to DEHACKED editing in WhackEd editor and/or in BEX format too.

[Angry Saint]

Very useful, thank you!

[pming]

Hiya!

kermode said:

how could I make a new linedef action? all I want to do is change 'door open stay' to 'door open wait close'. is there an easy way to do that?

I believe that Doomsday Engine's.. "XG" scripting can do this: http://wiki.dengine.net/w/XG

^_^

Paul L. Ming

[VeritasQuo]

Hi, guys. I'm new here, and want to get started on Doom coding.
All of the jargon is difficult to navigate, so I was wondering if there is a beginner source I can head to straightaway that would give me the basic knowledge of coding terms I need before continuing. What sites could I visit?

Also, any spriting tutorials would be awesome as well. I'm an artist.

Thanks for the help. :)

[scifista42]

VeritasQuo said:

What sites could I visit?

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Entryway
http://zdoom.org/wiki/
http://slade.mancubus.net/
http://devbuilds.drdteam.org/doombuilder2-gzdb/

[erni94]

Hello all, I have all request and at the same time question , looking on the internet the full tutorial to doom builder but in the Polish language as medium of my English so I was able to learn how to use it and I would love to embrace , if there is someone able to help me in this topic ? , in advance thank you very much for your help (if I put on a bad division is very sorry and had no idea where to insert )

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

I'd like to see a guide on principles of good level design in general.

What makes for a good layout, proper use of elements like doors, windows, teleporters, environmental hazards, etc.

[scifista42]

^ The notion of "principles of good level design in general" is subjective (varies from person to person and from time to time), so instead of a guide, just read threads where mappers share their opinions on those topics, for example these:

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/84979-mapping-sins/
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/72098-small-mapping-decisions-that-you-appreciated/
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/71641-doom-mapping-tenets/
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/71336-how-do-i-stop-sucking-at-mapping/
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/70377-looking-for-mapping-advice/
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/67165-new-to-doom-mapping-have-some-questions/

[Guest Unregistered account]

I'd like to see a tutorial on how to make fake room-over-room functions in Vanilla Doom - I.E. where the floor and ceiling use instant-raise functions to change based on where the player is.

[scifista42]

CaptainManiac said:

How to make polyobjects appear?Every time i try to make polyobject stuff from sectors/linedefs they are always invisible,even when they are textured.How to fix the problem?

Since you didn't describe what exactly you really did, I can't possibly know what you did wrong, so unless you provide detailed description of what you've done or unless you post a link to your map, I can't give you any more specific advice than to pick a polyobject tutorial (or several) and follow it (them) as hard as you can.

Kapanyo said:

I'd like to see a tutorial on how to make fake room-over-room functions in Vanilla Doom - I.E. where the floor and ceiling use instant-raise functions to change based on where the player is.

http://www.doomworld.com/tutorials/fx7.php
http://www.doomworld.com/tutorials/fx8.php
http://www.doomworld.com/tutorials/fx9.php
http://www.doomworld.com/tutorials/fx10.php

[Koko Ricky]

I'd like to see one on the easiest way to create a 4-part multi-patch sky, preferably in XWE.

[Memfis]

Just to save time I'm gonna explain creating a 2-part sky. The process for the 4-part sky should be obvious from there.

1) Make sure that XWE knows where the main IWAD (doom2.wad, doom.wad or whatever you're mapping for) is. For that open the file XWE.INI and make sure there is a line like "MainWAD,C:\Andrey\dm\wads\,doom2.wad" (most likely on the very bottom). The line shouldn't begin with a ";" I think.
2) Open your wad, double click on the "Patches" button on bottom and select the parts of the sky.
3) A TEXTURE1 lump should appear in your wad, if it wasn't there already. Click on it and find SKY1 (or SKY2/SKY3 for map slots 12-20/21-32) in the texture browser. You can use the search to speed up the process (not "QuickFind" but the one above the texture list).
4) Change the width of SKY1 to whatever you need. Note that due to the way XWE works, you need to select another texture and then go back to SKY1 in order to see the change.
5) On the right, change the first patch from RSKY1 to the first part of your sky.
6) Now you need to add another patch. For that go to Textures->New Patch. Change that patch to the second part of the sky. Now you need to change its X position so that it doesn't overlap with the first patch. You should be able to immediately see the change in the preview window.

So for a 4-part sky you just need to repeat step 6 two more times. Hope this helps. :)

[Kappes Buur]

GoatLord said:

I'd like to see one on the easiest way to create a 4-part multi-patch sky, preferably in XWE.

Sorry, I gave up XWE a long time ago, but this very simple with Slade3.

I cut up a 1024 x 128 starry sky texture, which edge tiled perfectly, into 4 parts of 256 x 128 and imported those 4 textures into the map between P_ markers.

[Kappes Buur]

I know this is 6 month late, only today did I come across this post.
Hopefully this will help you and you are still interested.

VeritasQuo said:

Hi, guys. I'm new here, and want to get started on Doom coding.
All of the jargon is difficult to navigate, so I was wondering if there is a beginner source I can head to straightaway that would give me the basic knowledge of coding terms I need before continuing. What sites could I visit?

Hmmm, for jargon you have to do some reading, for example

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/docs/editing/
all docs

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/docs/editing/dmspec16
the original doom guide

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/docs/editing/handbk21
An excellent guide providing basis information

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/docs/editing/dbguide
While this was written for the first Doombuilder, it is still applicable to Doombuilder2 and also to GZDoom Builder, although GZDB has many more features and plugins than mentioned in the guide.

VeritasQuo said:

Also, any spriting tutorials would be awesome as well. I'm an artist.

The ZDoom forum has been and still is a hotbed for new creations of sprites, so much so that a topic specific to spriting had been set up
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15080

[Tutorial] Monster Spriting for Amatuers by Phobus » Sat Oct 11, 2008 11:33 am
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19406&p=378003&hilit=+tutorial+creating+sprites#p378003

[brainstorm, all contributions welcome] Total Newbie Guide by Vaecrius » Fri Dec 07, 2007 9:51 pm
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=15472&p=310575&hilit=+tutorial+creating+sprites#p310575

How Do I Edit Monsters And Weapons? by HotWax » Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:27 pm
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?p=310496#p310496

[EDIT 07/24/05] DECORATE Weapons Support Guide by chaoscentral » Sun Apr 24, 2005 5:10 pm
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5995&start=0&hilit=tutorial+creating+sprites

New Spriting Tutorial - Angled Weapons Up! (P. 1) by Eriance » Thu Feb 05, 2009 11:35 am
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20793&hilit=tutorial

[Tutorial] Monster Spriting for Amatuers by Phobus » Sat Oct 11, 2008 11:33 am
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19406&p=378141&hilit=+tutorial#p378141

The Custom Sprites Tutorial Thread by Eriance » Sat Jun 16, 2007 12:13 pm
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13992&p=284700&hilit=+tutorial#p284700

Not specific to just sprites but also textures
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewforum.php?f=37

[Memfis]

I want someone to make a video of their whole thing placement process with explanations. How the hell does one approach something like this?

[40oz]

Who do you want to hear from? I could make one but I don't know if you consider my thing placement to be any good. There isn't really a one-size-fits-all solution for every mapper.

[Ribbiks]

as an unhelpful aside: It's strange to me that many authors seem to describe thing placement as being separate from general layout design (e.g. you'll hear tales of mappers passing off mostly-unpopulated wads off to another who'll flood fill it with ammo/mobs/etc). Is author A really drawing geometry without specific ideas of how monsters will traverse it? Or is it a fun process to twist and coerce decent gameplay out of a nice looking pre-designed space?

No idea what Memfis is looking for, but here are some discussion questions whose deliberation might be interesting:

- Under what conditions should resources be positioned such that grabbing them requires a trade-off between player safety and having comfortable health/ammo pools? (think ammo caches behind clusters of mobs)
- How should open areas be populated such that there is persistent pressure from particular directions that the player can't afford to immediately deal with? (skepland is a masterclass for this one)
- If placing a berserk pack, what is a reasonable expectation of how much it will be used? Should the player be forced to do so?
- Should encounters be designed such that stocking resources from earlier in the map largely reduces difficulty?
- Should things be used as carrots-on-a-stick to convey where the player is supposed to go (e.g. a sexy pedestal with a key just out of reach)? Or should they be strewn about in a quasi-realist fashion?
- Under what conditions is health/armor/ammo-attrition the most effective at creating difficulty?
- Should barrels/visamp/blurspheres/invul be designed around in deliberate (possibly gimmicky) ways, or should they feel like part of the scenery?
- When do you feel thing-based detailing (e.g. decorations, corpses, torches, whatever) should be used instead of sector-based?
- Meta: Am I sufficiently varying the ways I approach all of the above? If not, am I content with that particular trait being a staple trope of the map/wad/whatever?
- Meta: Is over-engineering thing placement (e.g. you always have just enough health/ammo to beat something an intended way) a positive or negative? Is it unavoidable given a particular layout and gameplay style the author is eliciting?

I feel like I'm rambling at this point so I'll stop. The obvious disclaimer of not associating value judgements with any of the above holds, yada yada, no one-size-fits-all, as 40 said.

[Memfis]

I just think it would be interesting to see someone describing what is going through their head while they are placing things. Like, explaining why they are doing the things they are doing in a very literal way. Because I'm usually completely lost when I begin placing things. I don't really know how to even approach thinking about it. So I first place the obvious stuff, like if I have a column then a sniper goes there. If I made an enclosed space then there will be some spatial pressure of whatever. If I made a door that is opened by a switch, maybe some monsters will come out of there. Then I just put kinda random groups here and there to fill the space, probably rather inefficiently.

Ribbiks said:

Is author A really drawing geometry without specific ideas of how monsters will traverse it?

More or less, yeah... Some people play Minecraft. I play GZDoom Builder. (I actually don't know what the process is like in Minecraft so maybe this is a completely wrong comparison, but I've heard it's kinda like playing with Legos? Just building stuff for the sake of building.) Maybe you're right and this will always be a problem if I approach map building like this.

Also I find it difficult to plan far ahead. When I place a monster, I usually think about him in the context of this exact place and don't really take into account the fact that he might go somewhere else, approach the player from the other side or whatever. And I tend to make nonlinear stuff where there are a lot of situations like this, but I don't even know how to think about them on the bigger scale.

And yeah, I guess you also need to have an idea of what you actually want to get. And I don't know that either. :D I can play Requiem Map04 and enjoy it, but it's not like I can write you a list of things that I love in it and want to have in my levels as well. I'm not so smart and analytical. I just "feel" that map... My mapping process starts with "I wanna create something cool!1 xD", not "I wanna do these specifis things" lol. I guess that's bad.

[baja blast rd.]

I can probably write some paragraphs on the thought processes I used with my speedmap for Joy of Mapping 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odDSMsL9uvE

It's an easy conventional map for once :D, so it might have some kinship with your "diegetic" monster placement. All encounters and placements were thought out, however.

[Powerhouse Willington]

Is there a tutorial for creating arches? A really good example would be S.M.IV's Hell On Earth campaign MAP20. It's a recreation of the E2M8 Cyberdemon encounter. In the beginning, there are very smooth, arched hallways that lead to the outside. I don't have much mapping experience, but I'm assuming one would use slope manipulation with sectors at different heights, but I'm making a complete guess. If anyone can explain it better or in more detail so I can follow a guide, I'd be very grateful for it.

Also, apologies if this is the wrong place for this question. I didn't want to pollute the tutorial section with a question when there's a thread made for questions.

[scifista42]

LuridRequiem said:

I'm assuming one would use slope manipulation with sectors at different heights,

Exactly. You create a blocky arch out of sectors like this, then use the Slope linedef action on each of the step-boundary linedefs (1-6 below) to affect the ceiling on its side with the lower ceiling.

               FRONT VIEW

               +--------+
               |        |
        +------+        +------+
        |      .        .      |
        |      .        .      |
   +----+      .        .      +----+                    TOP-DOWN VIEW
   |    .      .        .      .    |
   |    .      .        .      .    |       +--+----+------+--------+------+----+--+
   |    .      .        .      .    |       |  |    |      |        |      |    |  |
+--+    .      .        .      .    +--+    |  |    |      |        |      |    |  |
|  .    .      .        .      .    .  |    |  |    |      |        |      |    |  |
|  .    .      .        .      .    .  |    |  |    |      |        |      |    |  |
|  .    .      .        .      .    .  |    |  |    |      |        |      |    |  |
|  .    .      .        .      .    .  |    |  |    |      |        |      |    |  |
+--+----+------+--------+------+----+--+    +--+----+------+--------+------+----+--+
   1    2      3        4      5    6          1    2      3        4      5    6

[Powerhouse Willington]

scifista42 said:

Exactly. You create a blocky arch out of sectors like this, then use the Slope linedef action on each of the step-boundary linedefs (1-6 below) to affect the ceiling on its side with the lower ceiling.

               FRONT VIEW

               +--------+
               |        |
        +------+        +------+
        |      .        .      |
        |      .        .      |
   +----+      .        .      +----+                    TOP-DOWN VIEW
   |    .      .        .      .    |
   |    .      .        .      .    |       +--+----+------+--------+------+----+--+
   |    .      .        .      .    |       |  |    |      |        |      |    |  |
+--+    .      .        .      .    +--+    |  |    |      |        |      |    |  |
|  .    .      .        .      .    .  |    |  |    |      |        |      |    |  |
|  .    .      .        .      .    .  |    |  |    |      |        |      |    |  |
|  .    .      .        .      .    .  |    |  |    |      |        |      |    |  |
|  .    .      .        .      .    .  |    |  |    |      |        |      |    |  |
+--+----+------+--------+------+----+--+    +--+----+------+--------+------+----+--+
   1    2      3        4      5    6          1    2      3        4      5    6

Would you happen to have a good suggestion for knowing front and back when it comes to manipulating the linedefs? I was doing exactly as your diagram says, but when I would change the linedefs to slope manipulation, I was getting triangular shapes, rather than the arch I was looking for.

As a secondary question, is there a reference manual or place online I can read where it will go into specifics like why a linedef needs to be facing outwards in order for slope manipulation to work? I don't want to be that dude who builds maps just knowing that that's how it works without knowing why it works that way. Sorry if this is worded horribly. I do appreciate the confirming reply.

[scifista42]

In pretty much all Doom map editors, every linedef has a little short line in its middle. The direction in which this short line points into is where the linedef's front side is. Editors also give you an option to flip selected 2-sided linedefs arbitrarily, in DB2 and GZDB it's action "Flip Linedefs" (with keyboard shortcut "F") in the Linedefs menu that appears when you're in linedef mode. For sloped arches, give each of the linedefs an action called "Plane Align (Slope)" with the argument "Ceiling" set to either "Front" or "Back", depending on whether your linedefs are facing inward or outward the arch. Note that the action takes effect on the entire sector on the respective side of the linedef, so make sure the sector's shape is just the rectangle belonging to the arch, not joined with other sectors elsewhere or split into multiple sectors by decorative linedefs in its middle.

[everennui]

On 1/4/2016 at 8:23 PM, Fonze said:

I'd like to see Xaser's tune-up tutorial for Joe Ilya turned into a tutorial thread here. Lotta great information in there!

What's this?

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

Can someone please do a tutorial giving a more complete understanding of how the raised-sky-tall-building effect works?

[40oz]

4 hours ago, Marnetstapler said:

Can someone please do a tutorial giving a more complete understanding of how the raised-sky-tall-building effect works?

Example?

[Scotty]

On 01/04/2017 at 5:18 AM, everennui said:

What's this?

Here you go!

[Tingsing]

I would like to see a tutorial on making a large, open area (maybe a "platforming" section) inaccessible to rocket jumping, any ideas I come up with seem to have a work around to shortcut through the level or through a section.