Pseudo Bump textures

[Matt]

I kinda see what you're getting at, and it kinda makes sense from a user's perspective, but as far as representing that in any sort of code is concerned it is, to say the least, beyond the scope of anything even remotely resembling the Doom engine.

[coltermegasxlr]

Thank you. When the Hi res texture project for ZDOOM comes, I'll see if I can get permission to use the textures and move them to a program that is capable of generating bump-maps of the DOOM/DOOM 2 textures. I just hope that the hi res texture pack for ZDOOM does not come at a time when homework really picks up for me, when school starts that is.

[Enjay]

I think both you and the rest of us need to see an example before any of us can assess how convincing it would be. To me it just sounds like you are talking about altering the textures to look more ... well, textured I guess. People have done similar before using filters and what-not (no-one says what-not these days ) with mixed and often poor results.

Sorry, but I don't see this as being dramatically different. However, if you think you can produce something that looks good, please give it a go and post some sample results so that people can see how it turns out. There are already hi-res textures available. Why not take one of them and see how it works out before setting out to change the textures "wholesale" or waiting for a new set to come available? Sure a test or two wouldn't take that long?

[Chilvence]

I'll see if I can get permission to use the textures and move them to a program that is capable of generating bump-maps of the DOOM/DOOM 2 textures.

No. Make them from scratch or not at all.

[Phobus]

Whilst the theory sounds pretty... sound... to me, I have to say that the method herer is highly questionable. You'd probably want to make new textures, as the ones in doom already have attempts at 3D-ness anyway (STARTAN and the like in particular are good examples)

[coltermegasxlr]

You're right. When I have the right programs and more experience, I'll see if I can show you some examples.

PS: For step 3, I should have said "create image file of bump mapped texture and "rip" texture to DOOM.WAD textures". That would've been more understandable.

[Phobus]

If you'd like a suggestion on how to gain experience, try starting small, and if possible get hold of a good book (it doesn't need to be up-to-date as long as it's got the right stuff in it)

Also, follow examples, check out the tutorials on this site and definitely have a good play through and poke through of various wads.

[Skutarth]

He's talking about baking bumpmaps like a lightmap.

EDIT: Not that I support his idea or anything, but at least you should try to understand what he's suggesting.

[coltermegasxlr]

Understand that this Pseudo bump mapping does not have the ability of creating interactive surfaces nor does it create shadowing ( real or fake ). It just emulates the illusion of bump mapping.

[Nuke em]

The closest any group/person has come to improving the doom textures without completely ruining the feel was JDoom's Hi-res texture pack for DoomsDay (Doom Source Port). This sounds like it would make doom look like half-life or something. Which would look horrid! Honestly, if you want fancy textures use Doom 's built in map editor, and build a map for Doom 3!

[HotWax]

Now that I understand what the OP is suggesting more clearly, let me just point out that it'd be a lot harder than it sounds to pull this off, and the results likely wouldn't be good enough to justify the effort.

What you're forgetting is that id made an attempt to create textures that appeared "3D" by drawing shading directly into the textures themselves. Hence, what you're suggesting is already, to a degree, in place. The only difference is that a lighting engine didn't decide where the shadows should be cast; rather, the artist did.

Now here's where it gets tricky. If you really want to apply your own shadowing, you're going to have to first remove the shadowing that the artist already applied to the texture. If you are designing a texture with bump-mapping in mind, you wouldn't put any shading in place at all, instead drawing a texture that looks like it is being lit perfectly evenly. If you would like to see what such textures look like, load up Doom 3 and turn off bump-mapping. All the sudden, the surfaces will look worse than they do in Doom 1! That's because there is absolutely no shading, and since the engine is no longer providing any you get to see the raw, ugly results.

So, what you'd have to do is go back and manually retouch every texture in the game by hand to pull out the original artist's shading. Then, load up the textures in whatever 3D tool you're talking about and try to generate a bump-map based on what the features of the texture appear to be. Then, cast a light from some arbitrary angle and take a shot of the results. And what you get would most likely look no better than the original texture!

This doesn't sound like it's worth it at all, to be perfectly honest.

[Enjay]

Then, cast a light from some arbitrary angle and take a shot of the results.

That's the bit that was confusing me too. Unless there was some way of doing true bump mapping, you'd simply be replacing the original arbitrary light source (generated by an artist - as HW said) with your own arbitrary light source. I don't really see things improving much, if at all, as a result.

[HotWax]

The only way I could see this working out is if he were to take each texture, remove the lighting, add a bump-map, and then take multiple shots of the textures with the light source angling from different directions. Obviously the resulting textures would then only be useful if used in a custom map and placed in such a way that the apparent light source matches up with the shadows being cast.

I'll say it again though; too much work for too little gain. If you want bump-mapping, use a modern 3D engine.

[hnsolo77]

I guess I should have mentioned that my idea was not to have the texture surface interact with light at all.

explain, better yet explain in icelandic so i can figure out what your saying better

[LorD_BaZ]

I think I know what the guy is trying to do, the problem is it does not really work. I tried this when I was fooling around in doombuilder a while ago. I grabbed a nice high-res image from Quake 4 and put it in the wad file and while it does look a little better than the default... the two engines are both doing the textures in different ways so you lose the effect. I did consider taking a screenshot of a wall while playing Quake 4 and then pasting it in to xwe... thing is, it's hard to judge what "looks right" while looking at the game rendering it than it is loading the screenshot in photoshop or paint.

I think the best way to do high-res textures for zdoom and the like is to do it the way the artists did it for the original. Draw the shadows onto the texture and make a best guess as to looks best.