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[Guest Luci the Brave]

Long time DooMer, first time editor.

I am having HUGE problems making levels. I made my first level, which was very nice, I think, using WADED. I had some trouble, but I finished in about 16 hours. Since I started on a second level, things have gotten worse. My computer would freeze every time I tried to use Make Sector, so I started learning how to use sector define. Then, finally, WADED started rendering a level unplayable every time I built the nodes. Even levels that had been working before would crash doom as soon as I put them in WADED. So I started using DoomCad. I can't get it to work well either, not to mention the fact that there is no Make Sector, so it seems like you spend too much time remaking sectors each time you want to ad an elevator to a hall or whatever. I have tried every editor I can find, and nothing seems to be able to salvage my destroyed levels, (half of them won't even run.) I even cleared WADED from my computer and reinstalled it. It somehow continued the same problem. I read the Tricks of the Doom Gurus book and I am doing everything right.

My question is, what is a good editor? What is the best editor? What does everyone use? Any suggestions on finding a moderately userfriendly editor that doesn't have you spending more time ctrl+alt+del-ing and renaming backup files that actually creating? Any advice would be appriciated.

[Guest Lurmy]

I think I had problems sorta like that with Waded once. Take my advice, Waded is a very inconvenient editor, in fact, it kinda sux. I always use wadauthor, it is very easy to use and very convenient. When wadauthor starts to give you shit about it's thirty day shareware period being up, just unzip the files into your WA folder again.

[Guest Fanatic]

Check out WAD Author, if you want a good sector based editor.

DOOMCad is good (I love it), but it's a line based editor (you draw everything). It gives a lot more control over the layout of the map, but WAD Author is easier to use.

[ReX]

"Check out WAD Author, if you want a good sector based editor."
"I always use wadauthor, it is very easy to use and very convenient."

Do you see a trend here? As a matter of fact I use WadAuthor too, and I'd have to agree that it's one of the easier-to-use and relatively bug-free editors available. I have used Windeu, DeeP97 (which is now DeePSea), and WinTex (which is really better known for graphics editing than map editing). People learn the ropes of a particular editor, and then swear by that editor, and perhaps I'm no different. WadAuthor does have some ideosyncracies, but once you learn them and get used to them you ought to be OK. (For instance, WadAuthor will crash if you select a part of a map that accidentally contains stray vertices, copy it, and then try to paste it. To avoid this, you just have to be careful not to select vertices that are not attached to sectors being copied.)

So. The overwhelming choice until now appears to be WadAuthor. Until others read this and tout their own choice. Good luck.

[Espi]

WadEd "make sector" crashes when there is something odd in the would-be sector, like a line with it's both vertexes in the same place, and when you manually define a sector, the line remains undefined and causes problems. Try dragging some vertexes around in a sector that crashes "make sector", you might find a linedef that's hiding under a vertex or something. Also WadEd won't load a huge level right, It's linedefs explode all over the screen.

[Jayextee]

Also a long time DOOMer, first time editor.

If you wish to continue using WadEd (It can be hard to adapt to something new) then I found workarounds for the problem. It sounds like you are starting to hit WadEd`s limits. Like, when you have over 900-ish linedefs, you start getting the nodes not built correctly. Use WARM for nodebuilding, straight after saving, before playing.

Secondly, if the MAKE SECTOR screws up, I found the following:

1; A sector is too large - CRASH
Workaround: Make large areas out of smaller sectors, joined together.

2; A sector has too many linedefs on the outside - CRASH
Workaround: Same again

3; Sectors within sectors, like a lake with small islands (example) - Sector isn`t defined properly
Workaround: Do it yourself with SEC DEFINE. The downside to this is it seems to randomly flip the linedefs the wrong way. No problem. Use the `F` key to flip any selected linedef in LINES mode (NOT DRAWING, Lines mode)

Alternatively, try WADAuthor. I haven`t yet, but it`s getting like I can`t move for good press, so I will... ;)

Hope I`ve helped SOMEONE...