Faspons [JULY 20 2023] - Now Monster Pack Compatible!

[faslrn]

Removed the old link and updated the download link. Improved the blood on some monsters and made the zombies bloodier:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/5xbjrjwy4 ... nsters.pk3

Back with some feedback!

I pushed a quick change strictly to the DEV branch to test out these new sprites. I did the Arachnotron first (as I like using him as my base) and I had a few comments:

• The amount of blood on the monster is quite high. I feel like the amount needs to be reduced by around half or so
• I think the blood needs to have opacity differences around the monster. ATM, it is all around the same opacity and it looks like it spread evenly across the monste'rs skin which looks a bit odd up close
• If possible, I think we need to group the blood particles instead of it being even. This may make the blood splatter seem a bit more realistic.

TLDR; I'm thinking more subtly

To give an example of what I mean:

Current:



What I think we could do:



Now, is it possible through Photoshop macros? Not 100% sure. I'm experimenting to see if it is because to get something that looks natural while still having this be automated at a large scale (talking 2K+ sprites), we need to give these macros a ton of guidelines. I think we can work together and make some kickass sprites if we get this right!

[Shadez12]

My game (GZDoom 3.2.4) keeps freezing when I use this mod shortly after after starting a game.

[Neccronixis]

Before I explain what I did, to make your life a thousand times easier when editing importing/exporting sprites, download this plugin for Photoshop: http://www.ardfry.com/png-plugin/
This plugin will allow you to preserve the essential metadata SLADE 3 embeds into a png upon exporting an image; Photoshop will intentionally erase this data if you just save as a png normally. This is important if you don't want to manually adjust sprite offsets in SLADE every time you import a new sprite.

Ok, so here is my process in Photoshop CS6 for anyone who is interested as to how I made these sprites:

- Open a sprite that is saved somewhere accessible in a folder called 'monster sprites' for example
-Create a new action (Window > Actions). Name it 'blood effect' for e.g and start recording
- Convert the image mode from indexed colour to RGB
- Duplicate monster sprite layer
- Convert the duplicate monster sprite layer to black and white (default)
-Make a new layer on top
- Fill that new layer - Edit > Fill... R 255 G 0 B 0 (Red) Use full red or a darker colour sampled from the Doom Palette.
- Set the fill colour layer blend mode to Dissolve
- Set the opacity of the dissolve layer to 20% or 50% - This is the IMPORTANT step. The blood amount for the monster is dependent on the opacity percentage. The dissolve effect will create a random pattern of pixels over the canvas.
-Create a clipping mask for the fill layer so that it masks around the black and white monster layer (alt +click the layer)
- Convert the fill layer to a smart object
-Set the fill layer blend mode to 'Multiply'
-Duplicate the fill layer
- Set the blend mode on the duplicate fill layer to 'Vivid Light'
-Set the opacity on the duplicate fill layer between 25% to 80%, depending on how bright you want the blood to be on the monster. I like to have at least some pixels full bright red as it coincides with the doom palette.
-Ctrl + click on the top fill layer so that you get a selection around the visible pixels
- While maintaining the selection, select all of the layers except for the bottom colour monster sprite and then merge them
-Select > Inverse
- Layer > Layer mask > Hide selection. This will temporarily mask the remaining black and white monster pixels.
-Now you've got two layers; one containing the blood fill + layer mask and the original monster colour sprite. Now merge these layers
- Save the file as a PNG. Save As > PNGOUT (not as a copy) overwriting any existing sprites with the same in the same location. A prompt will appear giving you extra options, click on Keep Chunks... click on keep all box then click ok and save. In the left hand panel, you should see the grAb chunk - this is the offset metadata. Make sure you have this otherwise the offsets will not be saved.
- Close the file and stop recording the action.
- Go to File > automate > Batch. Select the action to 'blood effect', the source as the 'monster sprites' folder and the destination to none and click OK. It should overwrite all of the existing sprites and commence a batch automation. If it all goes smoothly, all the sprites should now have a nice blood effect over them. The batch process might on occasion be interrupted by sporadic error messages asking you to continue or stop (for example, 'the command "Merge Layers" is not currently available). I am not 100% sure what causes these but from what I encountered:
1. Avoid selecting layers by using the magic brush tool; use ctrl + click on the layer instead.
2. Do not use the paint bucket tool to fill layers. Use Edit > fill instead.
3. Do not accidentally select layers you do not immediately intend to edit; make sure each step is planned ahead.

The amount of blood on the monster is quite high. I feel like the amount needs to be reduced by around half or so

Using my method, you can adjust the amount of blood by altering the opacity of the dissolve fill layer. Anything above 50% is excessive IMO. Be advised, the lower the opacity, the more speckled/smaller the blood becomes.

I think the blood needs to have opacity differences around the monster. ATM, it is all around the same opacity and it looks like it spread evenly across the monster's skin which looks a bit odd up close

I tried altering the blood opacity when I was experimenting with how to go about doing this whole thing, when I came up with the solution of creating a dummy black and white layer that can be used to blend full colour layers to get the blood to adhere to the lighting detail on each monster. By doing it this way, the blood will appear at it's brightest on lighter areas and darker on darker areas. Essentially, the blood should NOT have different OPACITY otherwise you will get a washed out look, but instead the dummy layer allows the blood to have lighter/darker VALUES. This is the reason why there is a secondary fill layer underneath that is set to 'multiply' blending.

You can actually mess around with the opacity settings for the fill layers to achieve brighter or darker blood, but I wanted to maintain the colours used in the doom palette as close as I could.

If possible, I think we need to group the blood particles instead of it being even. This may make the blood splatter seem a bit more realistic.

This is the crux of the problem and I don't have a solution other than manually painting blood splatters on each monster sprite, which is something I simply do not have time to do. I had to manually edit each Spider Mastermind sprite just to get the blood to appear on the head section. I did it this way because the sprites are very low resolution - Idk if this method would work for higher resolution sprites, I went with the speckled look because some monsters like the zombies and revenant are already covered in blood and it might be redundant to paint blood splatters on them as they won't be as visible. To have a consistent blood effect on all of the monsters was paramount. Also doing inflicting and drawing region specific wounds for monsters appears the logical thing to do, but you can't really do that sort of thing with 2d sprites in game anyway, so creating an effect where blood has sprayed all over the monster was the next step (kind of like in the DOOM 2016 trailers where blood sprays all over monsters when they get chainsawed) Besides bullets, monsters can also be injured from explosions and misc. fragmentation damage so it stands to reason that blood would be visible all over the monster.

If you can come up with a more efficient method of applying blood wounds to monsters, then more power to you! And I hope the instructions are somewhat easy to understand. What you could try though is drawing a blood splatter texture and save it as an image; import it during the action recording process and play around with it's blending options. This would be a good option, however you would still have to manually edit sprites as the imported image will be superimposed on the monster sprites in the exact location, which is problematic when dealing with sprite rotations.

EDIT: I just tried the test version with the arachnotron and I have to say, you've implemented it beautifully. It's such a simple cosmetic concept but actually makes a world of difference, making the monsters feel more organic (not even Brutal Doom implements a system like this). With these current sprites the effect is also visible at a distance which is a plus. Now it's up to you to decide to implement a mechanic that makes the monsters more bloody, more aggressive or passive once they reach low health.

[faslrn]

My game (GZDoom 3.2.4) keeps freezing when I use this mod shortly after after starting a game.

Not seeing freezes on 3.2.4 locally. Are there any map sets you are running along with Faspons or performing any certain actions in-game that you can see consistent freezes (other than starting a new game)?

Before I explain what I did, to make your life a thousand times easier when editing importing/exporting sprites, download this plugin for Photoshop: http://www.ardfry.com/png-plugin/
This plugin will allow you to preserve the essential metadata SLADE 3 embeds into a png upon exporting an image; Photoshop will intentionally erase this data if you just save as a png normally. This is important if you don't want to manually adjust sprite offsets in SLADE every time you import a new sprite.

Ah, this is excellent! Thank you for providing this. I'll try to get it installed on my PS.

Ok, so here is my process in Photoshop CS6 for anyone who is interested as to how I made these sprites:

- Open a sprite that is saved somewhere accessible in a folder called 'monster sprites' for example
-Create a new action (Window > Actions). Name it 'blood effect' for e.g and start recording
- Convert the image mode from indexed colour to RGB
- Duplicate monster sprite layer
- Convert the duplicate monster sprite layer to black and white (default)
-Make a new layer on top
- Fill that new layer - Edit > Fill... R 255 G 0 B 0 (Red) Use full red or a darker colour sampled from the Doom Palette.
- Set the fill colour layer blend mode to Dissolve
- Set the opacity of the dissolve layer to 20% or 50% - This is the IMPORTANT step. The blood amount for the monster is dependent on the opacity percentage. The dissolve effect will create a random pattern of pixels over the canvas.
-Create a clipping mask for the fill layer so that it masks around the black and white monster layer (alt +click the layer)
- Convert the fill layer to a smart object
-Set the fill layer blend mode to 'Multiply'
-Duplicate the fill layer
- Set the blend mode on the duplicate fill layer to 'Vivid Light'
-Set the opacity on the duplicate fill layer between 25% to 80%, depending on how bright you want the blood to be on the monster. I like to have at least some pixels full bright red as it coincides with the doom palette.
-Ctrl + click on the top fill layer so that you get a selection around the visible pixels
- While maintaining the selection, select all of the layers except for the bottom colour monster sprite and then merge them
-Select > Inverse
- Layer > Layer mask > Hide selection. This will temporarily mask the remaining black and white monster pixels.
-Now you've got two layers; one containing the blood fill + layer mask and the original monster colour sprite. Now merge these layers
- Save the file as a PNG. Save As > PNGOUT (not as a copy) overwriting any existing sprites with the same in the same location. A prompt will appear giving you extra options, click on Keep Chunks... click on keep all box then click ok and save. In the left hand panel, you should see the grAb chunk - this is the offset metadata. Make sure you have this otherwise the offsets will not be saved.
- Close the file and stop recording the action.
- Go to File > automate > Batch. Select the action to 'blood effect', the source as the 'monster sprites' folder and the destination to none and click OK. It should overwrite all of the existing sprites and commence a batch automation. If it all goes smoothly, all the sprites should now have a nice blood effect over them. The batch process might on occasion be interrupted by sporadic error messages asking you to continue or stop (for example, 'the command "Merge Layers" is not currently available). I am not 100% sure what causes these but from what I encountered:
1. Avoid selecting layers by using the magic brush tool; use ctrl + click on the layer instead.
2. Do not use the paint bucket tool to fill layers. Use Edit > fill instead.
3. Do not accidentally select layers you do not immediately intend to edit; make sure each step is planned ahead.

Tried the steps locally and they work as intended. Hopefully anyone else reading this finds some value in these steps as well! Thank you again for providing these!

The amount of blood on the monster is quite high. I feel like the amount needs to be reduced by around half or so

Using my method, you can adjust the amount of blood by altering the opacity of the dissolve fill layer. Anything above 50% is excessive IMO. Be advised, the lower the opacity, the more speckled/smaller the blood becomes.

Yeah, I was tweaking around with this and I agree with the 50%+ being excessive. Looks odd.

I think the blood needs to have opacity differences around the monster. ATM, it is all around the same opacity and it looks like it spread evenly across the monster's skin which looks a bit odd up close

I tried altering the blood opacity when I was experimenting with how to go about doing this whole thing, when I came up with the solution of creating a dummy black and white layer that can be used to blend full colour layers to get the blood to adhere to the lighting detail on each monster. By doing it this way, the blood will appear at it's brightest on lighter areas and darker on darker areas. Essentially, the blood should NOT have different OPACITY otherwise you will get a washed out look, but instead the dummy layer allows the blood to have lighter/darker VALUES. This is the reason why there is a secondary fill layer underneath that is set to 'multiply' blending.

You can actually mess around with the opacity settings for the fill layers to achieve brighter or darker blood, but I wanted to maintain the colours used in the doom palette as close as I could.

I think this is where we can tweak things: When we are doing dissolve on an image, it just applies the randomness to what is visible. In this case, the full red canvas. I think we need to add an extra step here where we are creating a clipping mask on a duplicate layer of the monster sprite where we hide most of it except for the parts we want to add blood. When we dissolve this layer, we can then change the opacity to add or remove more blood in those areas but the blood would only appear on the areas we wanted. Give you an example:

Clipping mask (you can see the white areas of where I'm making the blood appear):



Mainly the same steps however I did what I said above where I added a third duplicated layer which would be our "dissolve" layer but only had the parts of the sprite I wanted to add blood. Now, the above I used a blending options of Satin and modified it to be a soft light and changed the lighting direction. Modifying the contour also yelided some better results as I could adjust where the "white" appeared on the this clipping mask I was creating. Once I got something that kind of worked, I applied that new black and white photo to a clipping mask and then filled the sprite with red:



Final result:



This allowed me to only put the dissolve where I wanted it, guided it even since the dissolve is mostly hidden. There's only two problems with this approach:

• We are using a universal global light which may not work for all monsters. May get us 80% there though
• This depends on PS reading the sprite lighting correctly for every sprite and generating an even blood spltter

Thinking this might get us a bit closer!

If possible, I think we need to group the blood particles instead of it being even. This may make the blood splatter seem a bit more realistic.

This is the crux of the problem and I don't have a solution other than manually painting blood splatters on each monster sprite, which is something I simply do not have time to do. I had to manually edit each Spider Mastermind sprite just to get the blood to appear on the head section. I did it this way because the sprites are very low resolution - Idk if this method would work for higher resolution sprites, I went with the speckled look because some monsters like the zombies and revenant are already covered in blood and it might be redundant to paint blood splatters on them as they won't be as visible. To have a consistent blood effect on all of the monsters was paramount. Also doing inflicting and drawing region specific wounds for monsters appears the logical thing to do, but you can't really do that sort of thing with 2d sprites in game anyway, so creating an effect where blood has sprayed all over the monster was the next step (kind of like in the DOOM 2016 trailers where blood sprays all over monsters when they get chainsawed) Besides bullets, monsters can also be injured from explosions and misc. fragmentation damage so it stands to reason that blood would be visible all over the monster.

If you can come up with a more efficient method of applying blood wounds to monsters, then more power to you! And I hope the instructions are somewhat easy to understand. What you could try though is drawing a blood splatter texture and save it as an image; import it during the action recording process and play around with it's blending options. This would be a good option, however you would still have to manually edit sprites as the imported image will be superimposed on the monster sprites in the exact location, which is problematic when dealing with sprite rotations.

This was one thing I was thinking about as well. If I shoot a zombie in the leg, the blood appears everywhere, but the issue is that -as you said, fragmentation and other injuries could occur and it is difficult to get location damage sprites at all without doing some hacky things. A general splatter would work great! I think we just need to find a way to group the splatters a bit more to give them a bit more realism.

EDIT: I just tried the test version with the arachnotron and I have to say, you've implemented it beautifully. It's such a simple cosmetic concept but actually makes a world of difference, making the monsters feel more organic (not even Brutal Doom implements a system like this). With these current sprites the effect is also visible at a distance which is a plus. Now it's up to you to decide to implement a mechanic that makes the monsters more bloody, more aggressive or passive once they reach low health.

Thank you! I agree that this system will be great as it does add an organic element to the monsters. I'm going to keep working at this!

[Agitatio]

Status bar shows both reserve and current ammo, with reloading enabled.

[Shadez12]

Not seeing freezes on 3.2.4 locally. Are there any map sets you are running along with Faspons or performing any certain actions in-game that you can see consistent freezes (other than starting a new game)?

Seems to happen sometimes when I press Reload, I have Enable Reloading turned off and have been seeing this only with the Combat Rifle so far, possibly can trigger when there's low ammo in the current clip.

[faslrn]

Status bar shows both reserve and current ammo, with reloading enabled.

Fixed! I just show the current ammo loaded now so it looks much better. Good catch!

Not seeing freezes on 3.2.4 locally. Are there any map sets you are running along with Faspons or performing any certain actions in-game that you can see consistent freezes (other than starting a new game)?

Seems to happen sometimes when I press Reload, I have Enable Reloading turned off and have been seeing this only with the Combat Rifle so far, possibly can trigger when there's low ammo in the current clip.

Fixed! Issue was with the "RifleEmpty" inventory item that I did not remove since reloading was disabled causing an infinite loop.

Also, quick update to the bloody sprites: I was able to make a quick command similar to @Necc's but instead used a universal light-source with an inner shadow to guide the masking of the blood over the sprite from the top-right corner down to the bottom-left corner. Results look like this when it is generated:



With this method, I can tweak where I want the blood to appear! Bit exited as it means we are getting closer to getting these sprites all coated with ketchup and start integrating them faster!

[StroggVorbis]

I just noticed that the SSG single shot still has an issue, namely the recoil pitch is cut off abruptly. Also, I don't think the arachnotron is intended to strafe when vanilla monsters are chosen. It also attacks less frequently than the original. The cyberdemon seems to randomly jump between normal and Faspons rockets when it fires its volleys. And, what I think is actually not a bad idea, the pinky demon deals damage as soon as it touches you, unlike the original, probably to avoid the exploit of running into them to make them stop, preventing you from being cornered.

[StroggVorbis]

Sorry for the double post, but I have another idea regarding the clip/NATO problem. Basically, there could be three types of clip and clipbox pickups. Clips could be randomly replaced by either a rifle mag, a NATO belt, or both in one pickup, only that the combined pickup gives a lower amount than both different pickups combined. Same goes for the clipbox replacement. It could either spawn a classic clip box, a NATO box, or a combination of both. Similar to the blue and green mana of Hexen, only that the combined mana gives more of each type than a single blue and green mana together.

For example:
Mag Box = 60 rifle ammo.
NATO Box = 50 minigun ammo.
Mag & NATO Box = 30 rifle and 25 minigun ammo.

[faslrn]

I just noticed that the SSG single shot still has an issue, namely the recoil pitch is cut off abruptly. Also, I don't think the arachnotron is intended to strafe when vanilla monsters are chosen. It also attacks less frequently than the original. The cyberdemon seems to randomly jump between normal and Faspons rockets when it fires its volleys. And, what I think is actually not a bad idea, the pinky demon deals damage as soon as it touches you, unlike the original, probably to avoid the exploit of running into them to make them stop, preventing you from being cornered.

Thanks for the feedback! Fixed all the issues above You'll see them below in the changelog.

And yes, the Pinkie change is meant to stop the baiting of the bite and make it a bit more dangerous!

Sorry for the double post, but I have another idea regarding the clip/NATO problem. Basically, there could be three types of clip and clipbox pickups. Clips could be randomly replaced by either a rifle mag, a NATO belt, or both in one pickup, only that the combined pickup gives a lower amount than both different pickups combined. Same goes for the clipbox replacement. It could either spawn a classic clip box, a NATO box, or a combination of both. Similar to the blue and green mana of Hexen, only that the combined mana gives more of each type than a single blue and green mana together.

For example:
Mag Box = 60 rifle ammo.
NATO Box = 50 minigun ammo.
Mag & NATO Box = 30 rifle and 25 minigun ammo.

I'll have to look into this and test it out. Like the idea! Hopefully I can get some work in to fix the NATO and mag ammo balance once and for all!

LATEST UPDATES:

Code: Select all

- FIXES: Arachnotron:
     - FIX: Will no longer strafe when vanilla mode is active
     - FIX: Firing speed corrected
     - FIX: Will no longer pause when switching strafe directions
- FIX: Cyberdemon will no longer switch between remix and vanilla firing modes
- CHANGE: Arachnotron bloody sprites updated to be a little less bloody
- FIX: SSG single fire now feels consistent with the normal fire
- NEW: You can now drop-kick! Jump in the air and kick to use both of those sturdy legs to push back and damage demons! Just remember though, once you hit the ground, you will need some time to get back on your feet!

[RiboNucleic Asshat]

Oh wow, I'm surprised how many old sprites I made that you used. Thanks for that! I forgot I'd even made that imp headshot death.

Looking back on them now, they kinda stand out a bit. Maybe some day I'll redo them.

[StroggVorbis]

More bugs and suggestions

-After firing a single shot with the SSG, the view pitch is lower than before.
-Arachnotrons still strafe when vanilla monsters are enabled.
-The airborne drop kick makes no impact sound.
-I'm missing an option to disable the spawning of casings and mags.
-Sometimes the reloading script gets stuck, so any weapon will reload by itself whenever it is in the Ready state, until I press the reload key again.
Also, have you thought about changing to GZDoom's native reload function & key? This would remove the need for ACS.
-Switch from numbered to named scripts to allow for greater map compatibility.

A note about rifle ammo:
A full mag (max rifle ammo) has 30 rounds. That means that every mag in the map and the ones occasionally dropped by zombies have 0.5x the amount. A rifle gives 10 rounds, which is ⅓ the amount. A backpack gives 45 rounds, which is 1.5x the amount. A combined ammo box gives 60 rounds, which is 2x the amount.
Last, but not least, a NATO box gives 50 rounds, while a small belt gives 20 rounds, which isn't half the amount, but 2/5ths of it. I'm not saying anything has to change, just pointing out that I find the amounts a bit inconsistent. Vanilla Doom, Heretic and Strife had some sort of consistency, each large pickup gave 5x the amount of a small one, while Quake's gave double the amount.

[shadstarn]

the version you have putt for download does not have reloading? yet i see reloading in the video and in the settings? iam confused

[Dr_Cosmobyte]

You have to bind a key in Options > Customize Controls. ALSO, make sure the reloading is enabled in the mod options menu.

[Someone64]

I really like how the Arachnotron gets bloodier as it gets closer to dying. Unfortunately, this makes the monster incompatible with mods that show health like TopHPBar.

EDIT: Oh, it does work with it. But it causes an issue where the HP bar moves all over the place and never in the correct position.