This section will show you how to store your textures in .wad files so you can use them with the game. For tips on how to make textures, click Making Original Textures. This tutorial is by me, Rellik_jmd.
If when reading these, you find what you know to be an error, send mail to us at DER.
COMING SOON:
- ZDOOM and JDOOMS High Resolution textures.
First of all download Wintex. If you don't already have a copy, it is available here. At the top where it says Main IWAD file click the type of game you'll be working with and locate your main IWAD file. Now to put your textures in a new wad file, go to FILE, then New Wad and open the wad into whatever directory you want it saved in. To save the textures into an existing wad, find the wad in the lower window and double click it. Either way you'll end up in a window similiar to this:
In the left side window will be any data already in the wadfile. If you've created a new wad the window will be empty. Go tot he bottom row of buttons and click the 2nd from the right. A descripting of what the button does will appear in the box to the right of the buttons. When the mouse button is over it Select patches should appear in the box.
Now the left side window will list any texture patches that may be in the wadfile. Before you can make your texture, you must put your patch into the wad. Click EDIT, then Load Entry from a file. Now select a name for your patch, then load the bitmap image you want to use as your patch. Now the patch is loaded, lets make a texture. For this example I'll use a patch named PATCH1.
Click Advanced, then Edit Texture. That will bring up a window like this one:
Now you can see all the textures available in the game, all of which can be freely edited, renamed, or even deleted. Keep in mind that if you delete or rename a texture so that it isn't available under it's original name DOOM will crash if it tries to use that texture. We'll avoid that by just making a new texture.
First go up to Texture, then New Texture. Now type in a name for your new texture, I'll call mine NEW1. Now the window will look like this:
The big cyan colored square is where our texture goes. If you click on any of the other textures listed in the lower left window you'll see the texture up top. Textures can be anywhere from 1 to 128 pixels tall, use the vertical slider to change the textures height. Textures can be 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, or 2048 pixels wide. Alright now lets load in the patch. Select the texture that you just created. Now go to the lower right Patches window and click on your patch. In my case it's PATCH1. Though the patch appears in the window, we aren't done yet. Move your mouse arrow over the upper cyan texture window and you'll see that the patch sticks to the arrow. Move the patch to the left side until the numbers in the Patches in Texture window read 0,0. If it doesn't read 0,0 that's fine. Click on your patch in the Patches in Texture window, then use the directional buttons to move the patch into position. Now in my case my patch is 128 pixels tall and 64 wide so I'll move the horizontal slider above the viewing window till it says 64 x 128 in the upper right corner. Now the texture is done and can be used in DOOM.
An important thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn't be able to see any cyan outside your texture. For example if I left the texture as 128 x 128 but only had a single 64 x 128 patch on it, the other half would be open and would case all kinds of nasty errors. So What do you do if the patch you're using doesn't fit? It's pretty simple, say my patch is 48 wide by 64 tall. I won't be able to use it as is, so I'll need to add another patch to fill up the space. You can either add another texture underneath it and make sure my texture is over top of it or if your patch has transparent holes in it you can put the filler patch off to the side. It's okay if you slide the patch out of the side of the visible area. All those bits are clipped off and not displayed.
A quick note:
If you want your texture to 'tile' or be pasted on a wall repeatedly to cover it vertically the texture should be 128 units tall. Some source ports can handle pasting a 32 unit tall texture on a 128 tall wall, but most ports and the original engine can't. It's a good idea to always make textures 128 units tall, even if it's just a step. You never know when you'll run into a situation where it might look good covering a bit of wall, but because it's a short texture there are all kinds of graphical glitches and other nastiness in the game.Of course there are situations where you wouldn't want the texture to be tall. If you want to put a 64 tall texture in the middle texture slot of a one sided line you won't want it 128 tall. Then whatever you used to fill up the space would be visible too. Just remember it's very important that all the horizontal visible space in the texture window be filled up.