Widescreen console stretched

[Scuba Steve]

https://github.com/nashmuhandes/WidePix ... master.zip

When bringing down the console while using widescreen images, GZDoom squeezes the fullscreen image to fit the current resolution instead of cropping at the edges.

[Graf Zahl]

It has always done that for the console background. Just look what it does to the titlepic.

[Scuba Steve]

I see... so it's just making it ugly in a different way.

[Graf Zahl]

I've been thinking about this for some time now. The entire console background handling is just awful with the fallback on the titlepic which often is a poor choice for the console background, even disregarding the stretching issue. So what can we do here to make this work better? A quick look over user mods that use a CONBACK replacements show they all have 4:3 images that stretch quite well.

Titlepics don't, though, so I think this option should be retired. Is anyone willing to make a set of CONPICs in 4:3, 16:9 and 21:9 that can be used as defaults here? These should use some fairly neutral colors and some sort of engine identifying mark, somewhat similar to how Quake did it.

[Rachael]

I'll work on something.

[Scuba Steve]

If you had something in mind, I'd gladly throw something together...

[Rachael]

I was thinking of those blue computer tiles, except a) not actually those, b) look like those, but more gray or a neutral color, possibly blue-gray, and c) not actually tiled, but generated to cover an entire 320x200 area.

I had experimented with something in Photoshop to try and make that but I was not so far successful, at least inasmuch I would have been happy with the result.

[Scuba Steve]

Interesting, I was thinking of something similar.

[Nash]

Whatever ends up being done, my suggestion here is that the text over the console MUST be clearly readable. Please avoid noisy designs.

[Graf Zahl]

Whatever gets done here needs some graphics work. My suggestion would be to provide default CONBACK images for all supported games and just dim the screen if none is found but remove the fallback to the title pic.

[Enjay]

I was thinking of those blue computer tiles, except a) not actually those, b) look like those, but more gray or a neutral color, possibly blue-gray, and c) not actually tiled, but generated to cover an entire 320x200 area.

Extending that to the other games, a similar "not too noisy but game-characteristic" graphic for each game could be identified and used as an inspiration for each background. How many would be needed? Doom (all variants), Heretic, Hexen, Strife? Beyond that, I think they might be "nice to have" grapics, but less essential.

Perhaps, instead of Graf's idea of dimming the screen, an utterly generic graphic could be made as a non-specific fallback.

[edit]By "Doom (all variants)" I meant that, as a minimum, we'd only need one graphic for all Doom games - one for each would be nice, but not essential.[/edit]

[Graf Zahl]

Doom 1, Doom 2, Plutonia, TNT, Heretic, Hexen, Strife, Chex Quest should be there. Hacx and Harmony would be nice - the rest is less important.
I think a single Doom graphic would be a bit lame. My idea would be something like Quake: The game's logo embossed into a mostly neutral background that could have different structure fitting the games - preferably at a somewhat higher resolution than 320x200 and of course fully widescreen compatible.

And it should be clear that these images go into the game_support.pk3 file so that they can use the games' original assets as a base.
Agreed about the generic fallback - it'd be better than dimming the screen with a solid color. This would go into gzdoom.pk3 then.

Now all we need is someone willing to create these things.

[Enjay]

My idea would be something like Quake: The game's logo embossed into a mostly neutral background that could have different structure fitting the games

For reference:

[Scuba Steve]

I was bored and started playing around with some ideas. Most likely nothing final and they'll need a lot more work to fit properly, but thought I would post before I go any farther.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[Rachael]

Those are actually pretty cool, I think those have a high chance of inclusion when they are completed.

What are you planning on licensing as? Seeing as how they seem to include some derivative assets, they will have to be distributed with the game support archive.