TexC, or the Doomsday Texture Compiler, is a program that can generate the pnames, texture1 and texture2 data from a texture definition source file. Texture sources (TX files) define a number of textures in the DOOM engine format, which means each texture is composed of one or more patches. TexC is also capable of reading existing texture data from a WAD file and producing a TX file out of it.

You will need TexC if you want to edit the existing textures or add your own ones. For instance, a map author can add any number of new textures by editing a TX source and then adding the compiled PNAMES and TEXTURE1/2 lumps into the map's WAD.

Note that some map editors (e.g. dee_psea) have an option to edit the texture data. When using such an editor, TexC is rendered somewhat useless. But due to the TX source files, managing different sets of textures is easy. Just compile the ones you need (combining different source files is simple) and use the produced texture data in your map.

Each texture has a name, the length of which is at most eight characters. The name of the texture is an identifier, used in a map editor to assign the texture to a given sidedef. In the Doomsday engine, no restrictions are placed on the width and height of the textures. It is perfectly legal to define textures with, for example, the size 320×264.

Each texture is composed of one or more patches. A patch is a picture in the normal Doom graphics format, the same one that is used with sprites, for instance.

It is important to note that the PNAMES and TEXTURE1/2 lumps only contain texture definitions. The actual graphics are in separate data lumps, the names of which are listed in PNAMES.

Texture definition source files have the extension “.TX”.

When compiling, TexC produces the files PNAMES.LMP, TEXTURE1.LMP and TEXTURE2.LMP into the current directory.

Compiling a single source file:

texc myfile.tx

Note that the .TX extension can be omitted.

Compiling multiple source files with combined output:

texc myfile1 myfile2 myfile3

Any number of source files can be combined this way. If some of the sources define textures with the same name, the latest definition will override the earlier ones.

Extracting a TX source out of a WAD file that contains PNAMES and TEXTURE1/2 lumps:

texc -i some.wad output.tx

The given WAD file will be searched for texture data and if it is found, a TX source with the specified name will be created. This time you can't omit the .TX extension.

The PNAMES and TEXTURE1/2 lumps contain some obsolete information that is currently ignored. If you want to include that when extracting texture data from a WAD file, use the -f option. It stands for 'full import' mode. Keywords representing the obsolete data will be added to the output TX file.

Comments begin with a hash character (#) and continue to the end of the line. Another way to mark comments is to begin the comment with a #> symbol and end it with a <#.

Everything in a TX file is case insensitive.

A formal description of the syntax follows (comments aren't included since they're just skipped):

Tx-Source           := Statement*

Statement           := Keyword-Statement | Texture-Statement

Keyword-Statement   := S* "%" S* (Syntax | Group) S 

S                   := " " | "\t" | "\n"

Syntax              := "syntax" S  "simple"

Group               := "group" S  ("1" | "2")

Texture-Statement   := S* Name Texture-Property* Patch* S* ";"

Name                := ("A"..."Z" | "0"..."9" | "-" | "_"){1,8}

    (Most other characters are allowed as well, but only these should
    be used. You'll get a warning if you try to use textures with very
    short names.)

Texture-Property    := S  (Vector | Flag | Misc)

    (The vector defines the size of the texture.)

Vector              := Integer S* "," S* Integer

Integer             := Hexadecimal-Integer | Signed-Integer

Flag                := "masked" | "flags" S  Integer

Misc                := "misc" S  Integer

Patch               := S* "@" S* Name Patch-Property*

Patch-Property      := S  (Vector | Argument1 | Argument2)

Argument1           := "arg1" S  Integer

Argument2           := "arg2" S  Integer

An example of this syntax:

    %Group 2

    FIREWALL 128,64         # Size of the texture.
        @ FIRE01 0,96       # Patch offset (bogus).
        @ FIRE02 0,0
    ;

Let's say you are working on a Doom II map and you want to add some textures of your own. You've drawn two patches, GRITTY1 and BLDSHOT, and they have been added to the PWAD that contains your map. Now you want to create a texture called MESSY_1 that is composed of the two patches.

The first thing you need is the texture definitions of Doom II. Extract them with the command:

texc -i \my-doom2-dir\doom2.wad doom2.tx

Now the texture definitions of Doom II have been written into the file doom2.tx.

Let's create a new TX source for the new texture. You could just append your new definition into doom2.tx, but if you don't modify doom2.tx you can easily use it with other projects/maps as well.

Using a text editor (e.g. Notepad) create a file called my.tx. Below are the contents of the file:

MESSY_1 64,128
    @ BLDSHOT 0,64
    @ GRITTY1;

This defines a texture called MESSY_1. The texture is 64 pixels wide and 128 pixels tall. It is composed of two patches: BLDSHOT has its left upper corner at (0,64) and GRITTY1 at (0,0). We assume the patches are both 64×64 in size.

Now we can compile the textures back into binary data. This is done with the command:

texc doom2 my

This will compile the sources doom2.tx and my.tx and generate the files PNAMES.LMP and TEXTURE1.LMP. The names of your patches were inserted in PNAMES and the texture itself in TEXTURE1. Since Doom II doesn't use a secondary texture group, TEXTURE2.LMP won't be generated.

Insert the generated PNAMES.LMP and TEXTURE1.LMP into your map's PWAD.

TexC source code is available from the deng git_repository, under GPL.