Voxel caco

[Hasuak]

This is the reason why ZDoom should support Voxels.

[Juan "JacKThERiPPeR]

Is THAT intended to move?
Srsly. MY ZDOOM ASPLODE.

[TheDarkArchon]

I don't think you need *10* models for an animation cycle. The amount of sprites that doom used (not counting the rotations) is enough in my opinion.

Which is even higher.

[Spleen]

I don't think you need *10* models for an animation cycle. The amount of sprites that doom used (not counting the rotations) is enough in my opinion.

Which is even higher.

Let's see...

HEAD A is for a Caco when it's moving around. ONE model is required for this animation cycle.

HEAD BCD is for a Caco when it's firing. Only three models are needed for this animation cycle.

HEAD EF is for a Caco in pain. Only two models are needed for this animation cycle.

HEAD GHIJKL is a dying Caco. This is six.. but it's still not 10.


You don't need 10 models per cycle to get a smooth floating, firing, or pain animation. And the death animations don't have to be voxelized if the voxel models are close enough to how the sprites look from the front, since the sprite rotations for the death animations weren't done either. Since it's really not that important which direction a dying monster is facing.. (the DOOM sprite artists obviously didn't think it was, either). In fact I always thought stationary objects looked better with one sprite rotation. It always irks me when I see multiple sprite rotations for stationary objects in mods - not only does it look jarring (which doesn't apply in the case of voxels), but the object is not immediately recognizable since you're not always looking at it from the front. So you only need 6 good voxel models in total for a real Voxel Caco.


What Nash was suggesting is that you need a lot for any action it does to look smooth. A lot for floating, a lot for pain, a lot for firing, a lot for walking.. I claim that you don't: since DOOM sprites got away with less, the models don't need that many either. After all, this isn't Crysis. Depending on which monster you are doing you might have around 10 models in *total*. If this is not what you thought I said then it is my fault for making it unclear and I apologize. I think what Nash meant is that you needed that many for every action the monster was doing.

And I quote:

BUT we have a problem: 3-d objects unfortunately look like SHIT if their animation isn't interpolated. "Oh but Quake 1 didn't have interpolation but the animations looked okay" - well of course they do, because the uninterpolated walk cycle usually uses about 6 to 8 (or 10) frames.

That is what I am disagreeing with.



Voxel, I have an important question for you: what utility do you use to make these? I'd like to try to make some myself, though no guarantees as to whether I'll succeed

[Nash]

Well the Caco's float cycle doesn't need to be animated, but I'm talking about stuff like zombiemen, demons, etc. Things that walk. Have you seen how uninterpolated walk cycles look like?

If I'm not mistaken, EDuke supports models but there's sitll no interpolation implemented (or was it JFDuke?). Try loading the model pack into those ports and behold the ugliness that is uninterpolated walk frames...

[Spleen]

Well the Caco's float cycle doesn't need to be animated, but I'm talking about stuff like zombiemen, demons, etc. Things that walk. Have you seen how uninterpolated walk cycles look like?

If I'm not mistaken, EDuke supports models but there's sitll no interpolation implemented (or was it JFDuke?). Try loading the model pack into those ports and behold the ugliness that is uninterpolated walk frames...

The DOOM modelpacks (I'm sorry to offend the people who made it) have monsters that are not of the best quality. They are better than anything I could make, but still, I am sorry but they are not very good.. Even if you have 20 models for walking, it will still look pretty bad if the model isn't good to begin with. If you're talking about the Duke model packs then I will download those and take a look.

The zombieman has 4 walking sprites, POSS A through POSS D. Are you saying that if POSS A through POSS D are each converted into good voxel models, it will still look a lot worse than the sprites? I imagine voxel models might not look as bad as polygon models without interpolation, especially since it's easier to make them look like the original sprites.

Thanks for responding by the way. I didn't want to bump the old topic but felt that your argument was also relevant here.

[Nash]

No worries. It's a matter of opinion I guess. I just think uninterpolated walk frames don't look good, and if the thing is a bunch of low res blocky voxels, it'll just make it look worse.

It might look good if you play in, say, 320 x 200, but I'm on 1920 x 1200 and I definitely can imagine it not looking good.

[esselfortium]

We've been playing with the original sprite frames for 15 years now. If the voxels are reasonably accurate-looking recreations of the sprite frames, I don't see why more of them would be needed to look good.

[Phobus]

And the voxel at the start of the thread isn't particularly accurate to the cacodemon. Nice try and all, but it's certainly not very good.

[Ryan Cordell]

And the voxel at the start of the thread isn't particularly accurate to the cacodemon. Nice try and all, but it's certainly not very good.

Seems fine to me.
Certainly better than some things I've seen in JDoom..

[Enjay]

Like I said, if I were able to produce something like that, I'd probably be pleased with it, but it's really not that close.

[edward850]

The front looks good, but the sides...
It could do with some work.
I'm not even sure if zdoom's software render could handle voxels.

[Voxel]

Made the face bigger.

I only use Slab6.

It should be possible to animate voxel models by "stretching" them, but then you would have to convert the voxels to hexahedrons or something. hansk (Voxelstein programmer) is currently working on a new animation system that hopefully will allow me to stretch/bend/twist/deform models without making holes/gaps in the model.

[Cutmanmike]

Much better. Are you making voxel doom or something?

[Voxel]

No, I was just bored and felt like making a caco