15/06/2014 (version 2.0)
- Removed KSSC dependency and replaced it with ZSDF.
- Minor tweaks here and there to make use of new ZDoom features (long file names, named scripts, etc).
13/02/2010 (version 1.0)
- First release.
What is this?
WAD tools are so yesterday. For quite some time now, (G)ZDoom has supported loading files directly from disk. This is a blessing IMO because having to rely on WAD tools is very time-consuming as projects get larger and can generally slow down workflow a lot.
With this feature in mind, I've put together some scripts that'll speed up modding workflow. No more WAD tools or time wasted repackaging your PK3 - all of your mod's files can now be edited directly on disk, using your favourite programs. All of your ACS libraries and map scripts will be compiled - and your project can be ran - with just one batch file.
Happy modding!
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GitHub repository
Spoiler: Old posts
What is this?
WAD tools are so yesterday. For quite some time now, (G)ZDoom has supported loading files directly from disk. This is a blessing IMO because having to rely on WAD tools is very time-consuming as projects get larger and can generally slow down workflow a lot.
With this feature in mind, I've put together some scripts that'll speed up modding workflow. No more WAD tools or time wasted repackaging your PK3 - all of your mod's files can now be edited directly on disk, using your favourite programs. Any ACS libraries, map scripts and even KSSC3 dialogs will be automatically compiled with one click.
Please, please, please read the instructions carefully. I know it looks a little long and tedious to setup, but it really isn't. The most important thing is to properly setup the preqrequisite tools and setup your PATH environment variable properly. Follow all of the steps and you should be fine.
I've included the instructions here for convenience purposes.
Code: Select all
//=========================================================================== // // NASH'S (G)ZDOOM PROJECT TEMPLATE // Version 1.0 // Created by Nash Muhandes // You can reach me on the ZDoom and DRDTeam forums. But I'm more active // on the ZDoom forums. // //=========================================================================== Prerequisites (these tools MUST be installed or compile will fail): ACC 1.48 (and above): http://zdoom.org/Download The latest ACC headers Overwrite ACC 1.48's headers with these new files: http://svn.drdteam.org/ACC/ Kaiser's Strife Script Compiler 3 (KSSC3 only; any version other than version 3 will NOT work): http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=15139 FBInserter: http://files.drdteam.org/index.php/files/get/41_Kvhfnwj/fbinserter.zip 7-Zip: http://www.7-zip.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Optional tools: grabpng - for offsetting your PNGs. Also has some useful batch operations. Please read the README: http://baghead.drdteam.org/grabpng.xml Image2Textures - scans your patches/textures folder and automatically generates textures.txt: http://files.drdteam.org/index.php/files/get/k0YKKhOLAl/image2textures-32bit.zip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Misc tools: Doomcrap 0.1.4 - includes ZDoom Font Generator and some other useful ZDoom modding tools: http://baghead.drdteam.org/tools.xml DoomBuilder 2 - a full-featured map editor: http://www.doombuilder.com/ SLumpEd - a general lump manager. You might need this for some operations: http://slumped.mancubus.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INSTRUCTIONS: 1) Download all the tools listed in the "Prerequisites" section. These must be installed and configured properly, otherwise your project will not compile properly. 2) Extract all of the tools to any directory on your hard disk. I have mine setup in D:\Games\DOOM\UTILS, like so: D:\ Games\ DOOM\ UTILS\ ACC\ FBINSERTER\ image2textures\ KSSC3\ You can setup your stuff any way you like; this is just an example. Be sure to also properly install 7-Zip properly. 3) Add all of the tools to your PATH... 3A) If you're using Windows XP, right-click My Computer, Properties, then click on the "Advanced" tab. Look for the "Environment Variables" button. 3B) For Windows Vista, right-click My Computer, Properties, and under the "Tasks" sidebar on the left, choose "Advanced system settings". Now click the "Advanced" tab, then click the "Environment Variables" button. 4) Look under the "System variables" box, and look for the variable named "PATH". Now hit "Edit..." - you should see a long string of stuff in the "Variable value" text box. DO NOT modify this as it has important stuff that Windows has configured for you. Instead, move your text cursor to the end of the text box (left-click anywhere in the text box, then hit the "End" key on your keyboard). You are now going to add new directories to your PATH. For every new directory you add into this text box, you must end it with a semicolon (;). 5) Be sure your cursor is at the end of the text box. If there isn't any semi colon at the end of the last directory defined in the text box, add it in now. 6) Now add the directories of all the prerequisite tools into your PATH. For example, mine would look something like below. Modify the pathnames and stuff as you see fit. d:\games\doom\utils\acc;d:\games\doom\utils\image2textures;d:\games\doom\utils\fbinserter;C:\Program Files\7-Zip;D:\Games\DOOM\UTILS\KSSC3 REMEMBER, ADD TO THE PATH, DO NOT OVERWRITE YOUR EXISTING PATH ENTRIES OR YOU'LL RISK SCREWING UP YOUR WINDOWS INSTALLATION! IF YOU ARE NOT SURE WHAT YOU ARE DOING, HIT THE CANCEL BUTTON AND GET SOMEONE TO HELP YOU OR GOOGLE SEARCH FOR "WINDOWS ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES" AND READ UP ON IT! 7) Now that everything is setup, extract the project template anywhere on your hard disk. For example, D:\Games\DOOM\myproj\. 8) You may rename the "myproj" directory to whatever your project name is. I'm not sure what'll happen if the name contains more than 8 characters, but just to be safe, I'd recommend you limit your directory name to 8 characters. For example, "mynewmod". 9) Right-click compile.bat, go to line 20 and edit the path to your (G)ZDoom executable and also the EXE itself. 10) Go to line 24 and set the path to your mod. For example, D:\Games\DOOM\myproj\. If your mod is located elsewhere, for example E:\John\Projects\mynewmod - then make sure it is entered correctly. Now save the changes you made to compile.bat 11) Right-click make_pk3.bat, go to line 9 and change the name of your final PK3 here. make_pk3.bat is only used to compile and finalize everything and neatly package them all into a PK3 for release/distribution. Save your changes. 12) You are done! Navigate into the "src" directory. I have included commonly used lumps for your convenience, and created some example content for you. You are now basically working on your mod by editing the files directly on your hard disk. No more WAD tools needed! 13) Whenever you need to run your project, just double-click play.bat. If there were no errors in your ACS and you have correctly set the path to your (G)ZDoom executables, the game should run. I have added error checking for ACS scripts, so the game will not start if any ACS errors come up... BUT there isn't any error checking for Strife dialogs. It's up to you to figure out if KSSC3 properly compiled your dialogs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MISC TIPS You can use your favourite text editor to edit your ACS scripts and libraries. Your map scripts are now stored in the maps directory. If you are using Doom Builder, there is no need to use the built-in script editor. Just edit the ACS files directly in the maps directory. grabpng can be used to offset your PNG sprites. Associate your PNG files with grabpng, so that you can right-click your PNG, choose Open With -> grabpng. If you don't plan to use any Strife dialogs, just empty the dialogs directory. DO NOT DELETE THIS DIRECTORY, because the compile batch scripts rely on this directory's existence. It's easily fixable but I'm too lazy to figure it out right now so just do as I say. Oh and be sure to also delete the script01.lmp file in the src folder - this is the dialog's compiled lump. Inside the textures and patches directory, you can use _maketex.bat to automatically generate a TEXTURES lump. This is useful if you have tons of textures; it can be a pain to manually type up hundreds of texture definitions. If you're working with high resolution textures, you can use your text editor's "Seach and Replace" function to quickly change the scale values in your textures.txt. The compiler ignores directories named "src" - so how is this useful? If you're working with graphics, you can store your "master files" inside an src directory and it'll be ignored during runtime. For example, if you're a Photoshop user, then no doubt you'd want to keep your master PSD files around in case you need to change anything. So if you have a high resolution TITLEPIC that you created in Photoshop, you'd create an "src" directory inside the "graphics" directory. TITLEPIC.PSD would go into the "src" directory, and TITLEPIC.PNG (the lump that (G)ZDoom will show) will go into the "graphics" directory. See this example. D:\ Games\ DOOM\ myproj\ src\ graphics\ titlepic.png src\ titlepic.psd Hope this makes sense. It's done this way because you do not want to have both the PSD and the PNG file in the "graphics" directory - (G)ZDoom will complain about this.