1. What is a wad?
- Let's let Wikipedia answer this: "Doom WAD is the default format of package files for the video game Doom and its sequel Doom II: Hell on Earth, that contain sprites, levels, and game data. WAD stands for Where's All the Data? Immediately after its release in 1993, Doom attracted a sizeable following of players who created their own mods for WAD files—packages containing levels, graphics, and other game data—and played a vital part in spawning the mod-making culture which is now commonplace for first-person shooter games. Thousands of WADs have been created for Doom, ranging from single custom levels to full original games; most of these can be freely downloaded over the Internet. Several WADs have also been released commercially, and for some people the WAD-making hobby became a gateway to a professional career as a level designer.
2. Is this a source port, and are you going to make the game fully playable?
- No, this is not a source port, you will not be able to play Doom, or Heretic and so on using DopeFish. However, you will be able to explore the maps from those games should you choose to. But there will be no enemy AI, no multiplayer, and no beating of any levels to move on to another. All this system does is gives you a way to easily load and integrate complex 3D levels into your projects complete with fully operational map logic.
3. Why isn't this free, aren't source ports supposed to be free?
- DopeFish is not a source port, and as such does not contain the original Doom engine code which is available freely under a GPL license. I have coded most everything found in this engine from scratch over a long period of time. The roots of development on DF began in late 2015. I think a few dollars of your support is worth the ease of use you will get from this system, and will go a long way towards keeping me from going broke.
4. What are the drawbacks from using a system like this versus modelling my level geometry in something like Blender or Maya?
- Geometry in the wad format consists of essentially 2d polygonal shapes that are extruded at various heights. This means that things like sloped terrain, or overhangs are currently not possible. Also the system currently only works with GL wads, meaning that every time you change your level geometry, you have to process your wad file using a program called glbsp.exe. Luckily this particular issue will be removed in a future update, making this compatible with all "vanilla" Doom wads without any extra processing. And finally, textures have to be indexed. Meaning that true color png's are currently not possible to load from a wad file, and instead textures must be converted to use the palette saved in the wad. This issue will be negatable using the texture override feature coming in a future update.
5. Are you going to add stuff like sloped floors and overhangs?
- In the recent years additions have been created for the wad format that allow for features like slopes, overhangs, dynamic lighting, and more. I would love to have these features in DF, however there is much work to be done first. But you can rest assured knowing that's exactly what I want to do!