Doom Construction Kit (c) Copyright 1994 Zerius Development Code and documentation by Ben Morris (bmorris@amtsgi.bc.ca) --- This documentation and the software described herein is in no way affiliated with ID software, its employees, or its contractors. ID has in no way endorsed or involved itself with DCK or Zerius Development, and will not provide tech support or answers to questions regarding this documentation and DCK. Please instead contact Ben Morris or Zerius Development at the address above or the BBS number below. Thanks! If you didn't get this file from the FTP server infant2.sphs.indiana.edu, it's probably out of date and I'd appreciate it if you didn't distribute it any further. Thanks again! --- The screenshots included in this archive are of the pre-beta release of DCK v1.0 (the final version 1.0 is expected in mid-end June). They provide some kind of insight into the program itself, its concepts, and the fact that it actually exists! :) DCK's requirements: - A 386+ compatible computer. DCK runs in real mode but it uses 386 instructions for speed. - VGA or EGA 16-color video. - A mouse. - About 200k of disk space. Some of the features of DCK are: - "Preview" of drag-and-drop operations: Objects aren't *actually* moved until you release the mouse button, but an outline moves with the cursor. Invaluable for lining things up properly without having the screen redrawn every time you move the mouse. - The ability to mark and drag a series of vertices, lines, sectors OR things. Things can be _copied_ very easily by performing a "double-click and drag" mouse action. - A clipboard with all four edit-modes supported, and the ability to save the clipboard to disk for later retrieval. - A button-bar! I've always liked them :) - Easy access to sector attributes for simple creation of things like staircases: All you have to do is click on a button to raise or lower the ceiling or floor height, or change the textures, or whatever else. - "Auto-Join" mode. When ON, automatically combines "close" vertices with other vertices, and automatically splits and copies linedefs when a vertex is created or moved "near" the line. - Rotate/Scale things, lines, vertices, sectors .. you name it! With a movable origin point. - Motif mode. Allows you to select from a series of user-defined "motifs" that describe things like default wall and door textures, default switch types, etc. - ALL known linedef types are supported. - Quick keyboard access to all commands. Keyboard macros will be supported in the future, allowing you to assign simple operations to whatever keys you want; for example, you could set "CTRL-I" to toggle a linedef's "impassable" bit. - WADassist! -- As you edit your map, DCK analyzes each change you make and "intelligently" decides which steps it can take, if any, to aid you in the creation process. For example, one feature of WADassist will automatically align textures on a series of similar sidedefs when you make modifications to their linedefs. At the moment, there are only three "parts" to WADassist with many more in design. Let me have your ideas! - Edit state restoration: When you exit DCK, the current loaded WADs, the current map being edited, all zoom factors and all toggles are saved in a "status" file which is restored when you next load DCK .. so you can return to your map immediately after testing it in DOOM. - On-disk (approx. 13k) wall texture lookup tables are created to speed up texture selection while in DCK. The table needs to be created once and only once (and then when you get new textures, which haven't really appeared on the scene yet) and is then loaded every time DCK is run. The result? Well, I can hold the down arrow key on my 486 and have about 15 textures displayed every second :) - The very next thing I plan to do after releasing version 1.0 (besides fix bugs :) is add an interactive (ie: the ability to move around in) 3D preview. It'll probably be pretty simple at first (like, using lines only) but .. maybe polygons in the future! At this very moment (9:00pm PST, May 28, 1994), DCK is 95% functional. The only things it doesn't do are: - Features like "create stairs" or "create polygon" are not implemented yet. They'll go in after the pre-beta is released and tested. - Everything works! Everything else! Wow! Other Notes: That number at the bottom-right of the screenshots is the amount of memory free. And yes, all 3095 sidedefs of CROSST.WAD are in memory (not to mention all of its things, vertices, linedefs... etc etc :) Conecption: May 1st, 1994. Author: Ben Morris/Zerius Development Contact me via internet email (address at top) or through the Revelation Station BBS at 604-477-5337. The reason I've released these screenshots is so you can tell me what you'd like to see in a map editor, or what you wouldn't like to see, or whatever. *please* send me your comments and suggestions. Thanks! -- Ben Morris Victoria, BC May 28. PS: I need beta testers.. any volunteers? :)