WAD AUTHORS > PROGRAMMERS
> SKINS specs
> SPRITES & FLATS in PWAD
> Test Legacy's water
> Create a 3d bridge!
> Tools

DOOM LEGACY SKINS SPECS

  If you want to create skins read the SKINS SPECS here.

 

HOW TO USE SPRITES & FLATS IN PWAD

  Doom Legacy has the most stable and most solid support for sprites and flats in pwad. No extra parameters, your wads will run the first time, just by adding them after -file. Pwads replacing sprites, flats and even adding new flats can be loaded at run-time using the 'addfile' console command.

Read EDITING.TXT for more.

 

HOW TO PUT WATER IN YOUR LEVELS

  You can put some water in your levels, by setting a sector's tag to a negative value. The absolute value will be the sector's water height. E.g.: sector floor 0, ceiling 128, tag: -64 : water height is 64. Legacy will say something like 'level uses dck-water hack', in the console.

When the water will be finished, it will not use the sector's tag anymore. But there will probably be an in-house program that allows editing some Legacy features in your level, it will check for negative tags and convert it to the latest specs, so you can use it now without having to re-do the water in your levels later.

Think of it: Legacy has a hell of a superb water effect that is very EASY to use, and is very simple in specs. We want to make map editing user friendly, whatever the time it takes.

Matt Martin has made a new map that uses the water effect. It's not too hard and really small, but you might want to take a look at it. The map's called > WATERLAB (14kb).

 

A BRIDGE THAT YOU CAN GO UNDER AND OVER AT THE SAME TIME !

  Chris has made a neat discovery, well, kind of. Using Legacy's enhanced Z height checking (read: the ability to walk above/below other objects), he has created a bridge that you can walk over, or below.

This one is a REAL bridge, not just an illusion, though it is a hack, it really allows monsters/objects to move below and above at the same moment.

How ? Basically, what Chris did, is create a flat object (1 unit height), that is invisible, still solid (of course), of radius 32 or larger. This object stands partly on the border of something above the floor, and the other half just stays in 'air'. Using such an object on each side of the bridge, you can safely walk from one side to the other, running above these invisible things, and reach the other side of the bridge. Legacy allows objects to move over or below others, so while you walk on the bridge, another buddy can pass under it (if it's high enough of course). To create the special object, use dehacked, and add the deh file with '-dehacked xxx.deh' on command line. Granted, this allows to create bridges not too long. Say about 32 units each side plus the centre can have 32 units with nothing (a hole), that is about 96 units of bridge.

Download > 3dbridge which demonstrates the bridge (wad + deh 5kb).

  To play it type:
doom3 -dehacked 3d.deh -file 3d.wad
NOTE: Chris did the map for Doom1/Ultimate Doom, not Doom2.

 

ALL THE SPECS THAT YOU HAVE EVER WANTED

  Almost.. if we forgot to document something or you find something isn't clear, mail to faB the editing doc writer !

View the > EDITING.TXT file.

 

EDITING TOOLS

  To edit around Legacy, you'll need some new tools that are provided in the 'editing' archive.

The editing archive contains:

  • 'lumpy' : a program to convert PCX graphics to raw resources to insert in wad files. This one handles graphics taller than 128 units which is needed for the new skies.
  • editing.doc : the documentation file covers what this page talks about with more details and also describes the new resources of doom3.wad that you may want to edit.

What is described on this page is more or less explained in the documentation file that comes with the editing archive. You may want however to save the current page (NetScape File menu /Save As..) as it completes the documentation.

You can download the editing archive from the > download section.

 

DEHACKED PATCHES : HACK YOUR LEGACY

NOTE : Dehacked support had some bugs in the versions up to 1.12, mainly with changing the code pointers, and the text changes was not supported. THIS IS NOW DONE! With ability of replacing texts by larger texts. We'd like to include some more serious stuff for the next update though, so please be patient.

Legacy supports the dehacked patches made for Doom and Doom2 v1.9. However it works a rather different way now : Legacy hacks itself at run time, using the .deh hack description file generated by dehacked.

Lets have an example, suppose you have a patch named 'gore' : the patch description file saved by dehacked is 'gore.deh'. To run it with Legacy just type:

Well, most probably you have a wad file with new graphics. You may even use 'sprite renaming' : it works :

That's okay, but what if you want to create NEW patches to run with Legacy ?

Here's an example work session with Dehacked :

You never write to the doom3.exe : the exe is of course different than the original Doom2 so Dehacked can't hack it right. Let Legacy hack itself like a big boy ! .

 

CREATING THE LARGER SKIES

Whole new horizons open to your eyes, as you look up and discover parts of the sky that you could never see before !

Problem is : the old sky textures don't cover the new areas revealed when looking up...

The old sky resources (RSKY1,RSKY2,RSKY3...) used to be 256x128 pixels.

Now they're 256x240 pixels. NWT (NewWadTools) won't convert a graphic to a patch taller than 128 lines. We didn't test Deutex since, but it probably won't do either.

In the editing archive (> download section), we have provided a utility called 'lumpy'. Lumpy will convert PCX graphics taller than 128 units to raw files, that you can insert in a wad in place of the RSKY resources.

How does Legacy handle the 'new' (taller) and the 'old' skies ?
...It simply checks the sky texture height, if it is over 128 pixels, it uses it as the taller skies, if they are up to 128 pixels but not higher, then they are stretched a little to cover all the range viewable with mouselook. It then looks a bit pixelated, but not so bad. .

 

MIDI MUSIC : NO MORE CONVERT TO MUS

You can now insert a .MID music file in place of the original MUS resources, without the need of any conversion. Legacy will recognise the MID file and play it directly. .