SLADE

SLADE
Author	SirJuddington (formerly known as "SlayeR")
Latest version	3.2.6
Release date	May 28, 2024
Operating system	Cross-platform
Website	slade.mancubus.net

SLADE (SlayeR's Leet-Ass Doom Editor) is an open-source WAD editor capable of managing the lumps of WAD and PK3 files and of editing maps. It allows the user to view and edit sprites, textures, flats, sounds, SOCs, Lua scripts, level headers, and any other type of lump. In previous versions, SLADE was a map editor only, while a lump editor called SLumpEd was developed by the same author. The current version, SLADE3, is a merger of the two with many additional features. A configuration file does exist for Sonic Robo Blast 2, however it is only available on Windows for the time being.

Setup

SLADE requires the 32-bit Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Runtime (choose VC_redist.x86.exe at the download page) to be installed. If you use the SLADE installer, it will automatically download and install the runtime for you, otherwise you will have to install it yourself.

After installing and opening SLADE, you will have to point SLADE to SRB2's base resource, which is srb2.pk3. In the menu bar, select "Editor → Select Base Resource Archive". Click on "Add Archive" and navigate to your SRB2 directory. Select srb2.pk3, then click OK, after which it should appear in the "Base Resource" dropdown box on the right side of the toolbar. Next to it, there is a box where you can choose your palette. The "Sonic Robo Blast 2" option is v2.2's palette, while "Sonic Robo Blast 2 (legacy)" is used for SRB2Kart. The "Existing/Global" option will also make SLADE use v2.2's palette, as long as srb2.pk3 is selected as the base resource.

When working on custom characters in WAD files, the following settings are recommended: select Editor → Preferences in the menu bar and uncheck the "Force uppercase entry names in Wad Archives" option in the Editing tab, which allows creating lowercase lumps. In the same tab, check the "Use percent encoding if needed outside of Wad Archives" option, which is necessary to create lumps with the ^ character in their names.

Features

General

• Support for PK3 files.
• Tabbed browsing for multiple files loaded at the same time. This allows for viewing and editing multiple lumps in multiple files and easy copying from one file to another.
• Archive manager that lists all opened files and the maps they include. Also features a file browser, a list of recently opened files and the ability to bookmark specific lumps for easy reference.
• Palette and IWAD quick-change.
• Filter function that filters lumps by type and/or name (including wildcards).
• Batch edit functions for most features (for example, mass conversion of graphics or mass exporting of lumps).
• Checking for lumps with identical content.

Lumps

• Creation of new lumps.
• Importing files into lumps and exporting lumps into files.
• Renaming and deleting lumps.
• Cut/copy/paste lumps, including between different files.
• Reverting of unsaved changes.
• Moving lumps up and down in the entry list.
• Loading and saving of lowercase lump names. This defaults to off, but can be toggled by the user.

Graphics

• Display, including zooming and panning.
• Basic graphic editing, including mirroring, flipping and rotating in 90° steps.
• Color remapping inside the chosen palette.
• Colorizing and tinting.
• Modifying offsets, including automatic addition of offsets.
• Preserving offsets upon importing a graphic.
• Conversion of images between formats and palettes, including conversion of a specific color to transparency.
• Exporting graphic lumps as PNG.
• Palette editing features, including automatic generation of the COLORMAP lump.

Textures

• Graphical texture editor for TEXTURES and TEXTUREx/PNAMES formats.
• Editing of individual textures to modify their size and scale and to manage the included patches.
• Saving composite textures as a single graphic.
• Removing unused textures and patches.
• Automatic conversion from TEXTUREx/PNAMES to TEXTURES.
• Automatic addition of lumps to TEXTUREx and PNAMES (only relevant for SRB2 v2.0 and earlier).
• Built-in editor for ANIMATED lumps and automatic conversion from and to SWANTBLS input format (only relevant for SRB2 v2.0 and earlier).
• Automatic conversion from ANIMATED to ANIMDEFS.

Audio

• Playback of many different music file formats, including MIDI and Ogg Vorbis.
• Conversion between Doom Sound Format and WAV.

Text

• Ability to view and edit miscellaneous lumps in text or hexadecimal.
• Find and Replace feature for text editing.
• Syntax highlighting for several scripting languages, including SRB2's Lua implementation.

Maps

• Map preview images which can be saved into a PNG file.

Differences to XWE

• SLADE doesn't automatically convert images to the palette upon importing them like XWE does. Instead, they must be converted to Doom Graphics Format by selecting all imported entries, right-clicking on one and selecting Gfx → Convert to.... Then select "Doom Gfx (Paletted)", set both palettes to "Sonic Robo Blast 2" or "Existing/Global" and click "Convert All".
• When importing a new sprite, SLADE doesn't automatically set image offsets like XWE. This can be done by right-clicking on the lump and selecting Gfx → Modify GFX Offsets. This menu allows to specify the type of sprite and automatically calculates the offsets based on that.
• SLADE does not correctly view flats that are not between the F_START and F_END markers. This is intentional behavior to prevent non-flat lumps from being read as flats.

Issues

• Some text lumps may be shown as "Unknown". To view their contents, right-click and select View As → Text or click the Edit as Text button above the lump display.
• From version 3.2.0 onwards, PK3 files can not contain duplicate file names within the same subfolder. When creating custom characters with super forms, the super form sprites should be placed in a subfolder, separated from the regular character sprites.

See also

• Custom textures tutorial (SLADE)

External links

• Official website
• Bug report, discussion and development forum
• Download
• Unofficial beta binaries