SRB2 Level Editing Made Easy

Setting Up a Wad File

Select New from the File menu, then maximise the new window that comes up so you have more space to work with. You should see something like this:



The titlebar probably says "WadAuthor - [Wad1]" instead of "WadAuthor - [Wad5]," but don't worry about that.1

See where it says 100% near the lower-right of the screen? That's how far zoomed-in you are to the map. WadAuthor is made for Doom, where all the rooms are generally small, but SRB2 has big rooms, so you won't be able to see much zoomed in at 100%. Also, if you're on Windows 95 or 98, you'll find that WadAuthor is very unstable and likely to crash when you're zoomed in this far.

Either way, zoom out by right-clicking on an empty area in the map and selecting Zoom Out. (Yes, the whole map is an empty area right now, but later it will make a difference whether you right-click on an empty area or somewhere where something's under the mouse cursor.) Keep zooming out until you're zoomed at something from 20% to 30% — preferably as far out as you can possibly get while still being able to see the blue things as distinct dots instead of just lines. Now you should see something like this:



Now double-click on an empty area in the map (since your map is empty right now, that would be anywhere):



Select "Include any images present in an external wadfile," then use the three-dot button to select graphics.wad. If you'll remember, graphics.wad was the wad file that came along with the wcf you downloaded.

Now you should see this or something similar:



Select OK. Now you're done setting things up. You'll have to do the stuff in this section every time you make a new wad.

  1. You will probably notice occasional inconsistencies in my screenshots. This is because I took some of them when I was first writing the guide, and some later when I was updating it. From screenshot to screenshot, Wad5 may become Wad1, or the blue title bar may become green. There won't be any substantive inconsistencies. Everything that matters is consistent.