The WIP Thread

[phantombeta]

except it's a sprite
a modelrip, but still a 2d sprite

Except sprites are drawn using polygons like literally everything else in OpenGL. (and also in DirectX and literally every other hardware rendering API)
(Usually rendering APIs can also draw points and lines, but AFAIK those are rarely used as they're always one pixel thick, and you can't make them thicker, meaning you need to use a polygon for lines and points bigger/thicker than one pixel.)

[DoomKrakken]

I know it's a map of some sort... but what kind of map is it?

[kodi]

@doomkrakken

animated comparison between shaded and unshaded
For a monster the normal map area of the sprite could be set to alpha 0 in PS or whatever. The RGB data would still be there.

[DoomKrakken]

I don't get it, though... you have a rainbowy one below the normal sprite in the same graphic. It's offset from view. But what is it exactly you did here? Is this some thing built-in to GZDoom that'll immediately recognize that and put it over top of the upper graphic, or what?

[kodi]

The "rainbow sprite" stores information of the geometry of the original model in the R, G and B channels. Like, the more green there is in a pixel the more upwards the surface of that pixel faces. The shader uses that data when it applies shading on the normally colored part of the texture.

Edit:
@phantombeta
Yes that's how it works

Code: Select all

vec2 texCoord = vTexCoord.st;
vec4 texColor =  getTexel(texCoord);
vec2 normCoord = texCoord + vec2(0,0.5);
vec4 normColor = getTexel(normCoord);

and yes of course I'll release it if I finish it

[phantombeta]

@DoomKrakken
That "rainbowy" one is the normal map. No, it's not built in at all.
He made a shader that applies normal maps to sprites. Since you can't take in textures in shaders in GZDoom, and there's no way to store a normal map texture name and pass it to a shader without modifying the engine itself, the shader probably splits the sprite in half and uses the bottom half as the normal map.

@kodi
Am I correct about the way the shader works?
(And are you gonna release this on the forum so other people can use it when it's finished?)

[leileilol]

i'd like to see pixel-pushed normals on the stock doom weapon sprites tbh imho. There's enough implied depth and lighting information on them to make this possible. One could even make a lazy normal relief process based on edges of transparent pixels and surrounded darkening to apply to the actors (but will probably look crap on the sculpted ones)

[DoomKrakken]

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

Once it's done, it'd be cool if I were to do the same thing for the revamped DOOM weapon sprites featured in D4T, since the models in DOOM reflected a lot of light. Having that aspect in Doom would be amazing.

One more thing... did you do this map by hand, or did you use some sort of tool to generate the map?

[kodi]

@leileilol
Wouldn't you need to draw unshaded (or AO only) variants of the doom sprites as well then? Seems more convenient to make accurate models of them and make entirely new renders in that case.

@doomkrakken
I used a chain of rendering nodes in Blender to give me the scene normals. The only thing I really need to finish it is to figure out how to grab the player's camera pitch value within the shader.

[Captain J]

EilidhSprite2.PNG

Finally finished the sprites for the player. The name is eilidh! I'm also working on the universal gibbing animation as well, since it's pain to draw each characrers' own.

[Captain Ventris]

Well still need to do some more to get Doomvengers out the door (and thus out of my hair). It's not TOO much to do all told, but I've only got so much time in the day.

Then I got a copy of the old Skulltag mod Heretic: Element Storm that I've got the original creator's blessing to update and release to the wider public for the first time, so that's exciting!

[Trance]

This may not be interesting to you, but there's a streamer I'm following atm who's been tackling Eternal Doom with Doomvengers. Unfortunately he also went with Brutal Doom monsters, which I think have increased health, so that mech-suit class seems anemic. It's probably more effective with the vanilla set. He's in love with the cannon weapon though.

I'd link a video of one of his stream sessions but he doesn't have Youtube put them up automatically so eh

[Captain Ventris]

This may not be interesting to you, but there's a streamer I'm following atm who's been tackling Eternal Doom with Doomvengers. Unfortunately he also went with Brutal Doom monsters, which I think have increased health, so that mech-suit class seems anemic. It's probably more effective with the vanilla set. He's in love with the cannon weapon though.

I'd link a video of one of his stream sessions but he doesn't have Youtube put them up automatically so eh

That's neat! Glad to hear people actually play it, haha. And yeah he'd be better off toggling the monster multiplier and dropping the Brutal Monsters. All the weapons are calibrated for specific use-cases and monster comps. Next release will have actual menu items and bosses (not to mention some important balance adjustments)-now THAT'D be some good streaming.

[Captain J]

Ludicrous Gibs? Nah sir, this is Ridiculous Breakfast.

(Also i think this mod is 'bout to be completed)

[Master of Disasters]

Trying to evaluate how much work would be necessary to make HD Doom sprites.

My personal experience working with rendered model sprites all these years... it's just as much work and just as tedious as traditional 2D spriting. I used to think models were the "cheat mode" to sprites, but to be honest your light setup and even the textures need to be given attention to detail to just the same as when you're spriting... in other words, it's not really a cheat mode because more often than not, it's a lot easier to produce bad/amateur renders.

Okay, so I've been curious about this for what's been getting close to a year now, but, why does it have to be sprites? Amuscara's model there looks friggin badass, why can't that just be finished, textured up, and sent out the door as a GZDoom mod? We've had chunky model replacements in the past, but I always thought it was just because it was always amateurs, has it been a ram allocation/hardware/software limitations this whole time? Or is it me not understanding the hardships of animating models?