Unix Doom editing

Here are some useful pointers for people who want to hack Doom levels and graphics under Unix. Most of this applies to Heretic, Hexen and Strife as well.

This document is by no means complete. For instance, as I don't do any svgalib, svgalib programs are missing from the list. My apologies for any inaccuracies and omissions. Don't hesitate to contact me so that I can fix whatever needs to be fixed.

Editors for X

LDE: the screenshots suggest it runs in X but since I don't use GGI, I have never tried it. Sorry.
PFME: is interesting but it has not been updated since 1995 and it's a shareware (binary only, no source).
tkwadcad: is part of Xwadtools. Still relatively young but it's improving fast. Runs on many platforms including Windows because it's written in Tcl/Tk.
Xwad: is part of Dumb, the free Doom-compatible engine. It has some interesting features.
Yadex: by yours truly. Has room for improvement in the ergonomy but on the upside allows you to control fairly precisely what you are doing.

Nodes builders

BSP: is the nodes builder I use. Quite reliable. A certain propension to slime trails but I'm not sure whether it's BSP's or Doom's fault. BSP is trivial to port to Unix. Unfortunately, the makefile provided in the DOS distribution does not work out of the box on Unix (hint : replace all occurences of CR LF by LF). If you don't know how to do that, install Xwadtools and/or Yadex since both include a properly unixified version of BSP 2.3.
Other node builders: Xwadtools includes Idbsp, Reject and Warm.

Utilities

DeuTex: is a powerful and flexible utility with which you can make new textures, flats, patches and much more. The status of DeuTex on Unix is a bit unsatisfying. The Linux version is binary-only (no source) and requires a very old version of the C library. The Irix version, on the other hand, includes the source but does not compile on Linux without modifications and segfaults easily (at least on Linux). The good news is that I've got Olivier Montanuy's permission to release my own version, which remedies some of the problems. I'll put it on my page when I'm done.
Xwadtools: is a large collection of wad utilities. If you do Unix Doom editing, it's a must. It also includes tkwadcad.
DCC: Udo Munk and I would like to port it to Unix. I've asked Rand whether he'd be willing to release the source code and he replied that, yes, he plans to do so in the not-so-distant future. Stay tuned.
Patcher: Like Xwadtools, it's a collection of wad utilities. I've begun to port it to Unix but it's a lot of work. So don't expect anything soon. But if you want to tackle that beast, contact me and I'll give you what I've already done.

Doom-like engines for X

Note that, in spite of their names, most of these ports are in no way Linux-specific and work on many other flavours of Unix.

See also the list of Doom ports on Doomworld and the one in the r.g.c.d. FAQ. I've heard about a Linux port of DOSDoom but never looked into it.

Miscellaneous

Slige: is an automatic level generator. Though it is primarily a DOS program, it is quite straightforward to compile on Unix. An even easier solution would be to install Xwadtools, which includes it.

Graphics editors

If you want to do graphics for Doom, you'll need Deutex or an equivalent program and a graphics editors. I'd recommend The Gimp. I've successfully used it to make my own textures. It has obviously not been optimized for that kind of job so it can be tedious at times, but it does work.

You'll need Doom palette files. You can generate them easily with the program mkgipal from Xwadtools or from within Yadex with the command make_gimp_palette. And if you're really lazy, you can grab doom_palettes, a collection of ready-to-use palettes for Doom, Heretic, Hexen and Strife.

Documentation

The Linux Doom FAQ: has not been updated since 1995 so some parts of it are outdated or obsolete but it's still a good reading.
Colin Phipps' Unix Doom tools page: lists pointers on Unix Doom tools along with a very flattering comment on Yadex :-).
The r.g.c.d. FAQ: is not Unix-specific but does include some Unix information. It is also regularly posted on the rec.games.computer.doom.* newsgroups.
rec.games.computer.doom.editing: is a good place to talk to other Doom editing maniacs, though most of them don't use Unix (yet).

Legal

This is http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/doom/unix_doom_editing.html, last modified on 1999-03-07.