ZDoom

For those that haven't been paying much attention, I've been abusing GZDoom for my own little interesting mod, centered around my personal avatar, Kate, and her friends in their natural habitat. Most, if not all of the resources are hand-drawn by yours truly for a cutesy sort of style, as the general feel of the mod aims for something cute and wacky and outlandish in a classic cartoon-style.

There are two versions planned: A standalone version with its' own set of levels (aka. Story Mode), and a version that runs as a doom mod, possibly supporting other games in the future (aka. Arcade Mode).

Here are some screenshots that I've probably posted in the WIP thread before:

Spoiler: Screenshots

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Spoiler: WIP Gameplay Video

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Yay! I can't wait for this, it looks so.. adorably intense.

Whoa, this looks... Unique. Can't wait to see more.

FINALLY! I have been waiting for this.

I want it as well. I want it. All of it.

It's peculiar that my wad is the "nega" version of this...

needs moar ponies This looks pleasingly whimsical.

Also, happy 8th birthday.

Looks incredible, although the ceiling doesn´t match the walls at the first 2 screenshots. I would replace with a flat texture.

Reminded me of the beautiful game Okami for ps2.

Spoiler:

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Arch wrote:... although the ceiling doesn´t match the walls at ... I would replace with ...

*stares blankly, eyes glazed over*
I will fix the texture dissonance when I get to it.
Otherwise, thanks.

It's great to see such innovative work again.

How is the project coming, Pink Silver? Should we look forward to a release fairly soon?

The standalone is REALLY in need of textures and enemies, but the mod version is somewhat playable although really rough around the edges at the moment, and I mean it's very noticeably incomplete. So if I do get into releases I want to wait until it's a bit more pieced together and playable in cooperative to some degree, which is the intention right now.

Of course that means I need player sprites, which there currently are none...

Pink Silver wrote:*stares blankly, eyes glazed over*
I will fix the texture dissonance when I get to it.

With that kind of Deviantart-y attitude to honest, non-hostile critique, I'll believe it when I see it.

The artstyle is certainly... unique among Doom mods, but it's lacking in consistency. Shading style is different from shot to shot, and in some cases from object to object. Some textures have detail to them while others don't. The sprites look very rough, and lack little details like varying line widths, smoothing out the messy bits of lines, etc... Granted, there's no videos so I can't judge the animation, so maybe it's redeemed by detailed movement. I don't know.

The visual clash between your stuff and the Doom stuff in Arcade mode is silly in a bad way, but it doesn't seem to be a major focus of your mod (more of a cool bonus) so it's easily ignorable. That's just one of the flaws of doing a non-Doom-styled mod in the Doom engine, so it's no biggie.

I have no clue what half the stuff in the HUD means. Seeing as the HUD is supposed to provide crucial information at a glance, that's probably not a good thing.

If this looks like I'm picking on the visual style, it's because that's all this thread is showing. There's no gameplay footage, no monsters visible in any of the Story Mode shots... you're asking us to judge your mod solely by an unfinished artstyle, which you yourself admit is still undergoing development and experimentation. It's not a good look, is what I'm saying. I probably would have polished up a room or two to closer resemble what you want the finished project to look like, with monsters and gameplay, and showing that off as the centerpiece of this thread before showing the rest of these shots as WIP stuff.

Arch wrote:Reminded me of the beautiful game Okami for ps2.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that people are experimenting with mods that break from Doom's low-res pseudorealism, but this is kind of hyperbolic. Unless there's some sort of deeper connection between traditional sumi-e paintings and the default Photoshop brush...

....... congratulations Kate! you managed to make one of the most controversial game in the 90's and made it into a mess of kiddie cartoons and fun!

Sooooooooooooooooooooooo....... what's the armory exactly?

Kinsie wrote: Granted, there's no videos so I can't judge the animation, so maybe it's redeemed by detailed movement. I don't know.

She posted a few on IRC, and it's pretty smooth.

I really like the "colorful platforms in space" shots, never saw anything like that in doom before.

Kinsie wrote:I have no clue what half the stuff in the HUD means. Seeing as the HUD is supposed to provide crucial information at a glance, that's probably not a good thing.

Could that be because you don't know the game's mechanics yet? Apparently not!

Ghastly_dragon wrote:

Kinsie wrote:I have no clue what half the stuff in the HUD means. Seeing as the HUD is supposed to provide crucial information at a glance, that's probably not a good thing.

Could that be because you don't know the game's mechanics yet? Apparently not!

To be fair, I've seen videos of this in motion and know most of the gameplay mechanics, yet I still don't understand all of it. v:Vv

Perhaps it would be wise to do a quick test for several varieties of level aesthetics and just decide on which to work towards in the final version. While it is true that it could just be done in the final version, it doesn't mean it will be easy if you don't plan ahead. If you decide that map lines should be a consistent width, then it might be difficult to integrate sector-based outlines of the same width if the geometry is too small to allow it.

I think the biggest problem with the cave textures are the cracks, namely on the really cracked texture. This is pretty clear in the first screenshot, where the only cave texture is it; it may work as a texture for something that doesn't actually connect to another surface, but as soon as you introduce another one the tiling goes to heel. Suddenly cracks don't align, or disappear instead of end normally. It's understandable that it's hell to fix that in the DOOM engine, but it's entirely possible to use the texture without the cracks as the generic cave texture. Of course, there comes the question as to what to do with the same screenshot, though as far as I can tell there's two 'base' textures with the cave textures that are combined and have details added onto them; it can go a long way to use the base textures and then make creative use of texture alignment with the composite ones. Like, say, using that texture in shot 2 to swap between usage of the darker brown texture while you're using the lighter brown one.

Granted, you're just using a lot of brown, but that's not going to end up a big problem considering shot 3. :V