For high-res texture/sprite projects, sprite-fix patches, music add-ons, music randomizers, and other graphic/sound-only projects.
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Greetings, ZDoom forums! I'd like to share with you all the release of a couple of small projects I've been working on. They're not ZDoom-specific (rather, they don't require any source ports at all), but I think these would be of great interest to anyone looking for IWAD enhancements/improvements/fixes.
To reiterate an old story, I came across Perkristian's high-res sound effects pack a while back. I like the idea of enhancing Doom while remaining as pure (and compatible!) as possible, so I pondered what other areas this line of thought could be applied to. Perkristian's pack is pretty definitive when it comes to the sound effects, and the music has been dealt with in many ways over the years, but what about the game's art? Of course, I wouldn't dream of recreating the art and thinking it an improvement, but I have noticed tiny little errors in the sprites that seem trivial to fix. Why not go ahead and make those fixes?
Hence, I bring you the Doom 2 and Heretic Minor Sprite Fixing Projects. The four combined goals of this endeavor are as follows:
Spoiler:
1. Adjusting sprite offsets - This comprises the bulk of the project. In Doom 2, you may have noticed some enemies jitter back and forth during their animations, such as in the angled firing frames for the Commando and Cyberdemon. This was likely the result of an auto-center option used by id's artists when importing the sprites into the WAD file. These are obvious candidates of errors that can be easily fixed with slight sprite offset adjustments, but I decided to go a step further. I very closely examined all of the monster animations paying close attention to how they were drawn or how the physical clay and latex models were posed when digitized. It turns out Doom's animations are pretty damn smooth, but it's hard to tell since most sprite offsets were simply auto-centered. Therefore, I went ahead and re-aligned a great number of sprites. I believe the end result accentuates the fluidity (believe it or not) of the animations and is more representative of what the artists intended. You can now clearly see things like the Revenant pivoting on his front foot as he punches his target or how the Arch-Vile leans back and forth during his attack. I also made sure the transitions between different animations and even rotations went smoothly as well. For example, the position of the Cyberdemon's feet no longer radically shifts around between his firing, pain, and death animations. This may seem like a lot of personal guess work, but I tried to remain as objective as possible consistent with id's approach to the art. Additionally, in Heretic, some sprite offsets were shifted slightly upwards to avoid the sunken underground look.
2. Small image edits - There are a number of trivial errors found in the sprites of all of the IWADs. These mainly consist of transparent pixels or visible garbage pixels that were overlooked. If I could conclusively identify the issue as being an error and the fix would be as minimally intrusive as possible, I went ahead and made the edit to the sprite.
3. Restoring missing graphics - This mainly applies to Doom 2. This basically just means bringing back the sprites that were cut for optimization/memory reasons. For the most part, this pertains to the missing rotation sprites in the full 8-sided set. This artwork has been sourced from the early Doom alphas, shareware versions, and Romero's released sprite sheets.
4. Making the graphics widescreen-friendly - This mainly applies to Heretic. For those running source ports with widescreen resolutions, you've likely noticed that some sprites cut off abruptly near the sides of the screen as they were only intended to be seen in a 4:3 aspect ratio. This pack extends these sprites so you can enjoy all of that extra viewing area without impediment. Credit goes to one Neoworm for creating most of these new graphics.
As for how to use them, the WADs in their current state work with limit-removing ports. However, vanilla doom2.exe and heretic.exe compatibility simply requires some DeuSF work. With that in mind, you can pretty much use these WADs with any other level or mod as I can't imagine any conflicts. Simply run it with the lowest priority in the add-on hierarchy. Most newer source ports, namely ZDoom, have an autoload feature, so I recommend using that.
Doom 2/Doom Download
Here's the current download of v2.0 which includes both Doom 2 and Doom 1-compatible WADs (released 11/28/22):
General
- [1.8] Added sprite padding to several monster and projectile rotation sprites to fix incorrect mirrored recentering in vanilla executables and certain source ports.
- [1.9] Removed IWAD header to fix some source port compatibility issues.
- [2.0 Beta 1] Restored inadvertently remapped duplicate palette colors in affected sprites. Fixes visual inconsistencies when using very particular custom color palettes.
Zombieman
- Adjusted sprite offsets during gibbing frames.
- Filled in erroneous transparent pixels in 3 frames.
- [1.1] Renamed walking frames so the leg positions properly mirror in walking rotations. Gun still doesn't correctly mirror.
- [1.4] Adjusted sprite offsets during shooting and pain frames.
- [1.5] Restored missing rotation angle sprites.
- [1.5] Filled in erroneous transparent pixel in 1 death frame.
- [1.6] Further refined sprite offsets during walking frame based on Romero's released sprite sheets.
- [1.9] Fixed leftover Shotgun Guy parts in gibbing frames.
- [2.0 Beta 1] Replaced few instances of color palette index 255 to more standard color for consistency.
Shotgun Guy
- Adjusted sprite offsets during shooting and gibbing frames.
- [1.1] Renamed walking frames so the leg positions properly mirror in walking rotations. Gun still doesn't correctly mirror.
- [1.4] Adjusted sprite offsets during shooting and pain frames.
- [1.5] Restored missing rotation angle sprites.
- [1.6] Further refined sprite offsets during walking frames based on Romero's released sprite sheets.
Heavy Weapon Dude
- Adjusted sprite offsets during shooting, pain, death, and gibbing frames.
- [1.6] Adjusted sprite offsets during walking frames based on Romero's released sprite sheets.
Imp
- Adjusted sprite offsets during walking, shooting, pain, and gibbing frames.
- Restored missing rotation angle sprites for the Imp's walking animation taken from alpha 0.2. Additionally, fixed the walking frames in one of these restored angles as the sequence was incorrect in the alpha.
- Restored missing rotation angle sprites for the Imp's shooting animation taken from alpha 0.5.
- [1.2] Adjusted sprite offsets during final death frame.
- [1.3] Further refined sprite offsets during walking and shooting frames.
- [1.3] Fixed inexplicable grey pixels in 15 frames.
- [1.9] Fixed leftover Zombieman parts in gibbing frames.
- [1.9] Adjusted sprite offsets during gibbing frames.
- [2.0 Beta 1] Added missing knee spikes in 1 death frame.
- [2.0] Further refined sprite offsets during gibbing frames to match feet position in pain and death frames.
Demon
- Adjusted sprite offsets during attacking, pain, and death frames.
- Restored missing rotation angle sprites for the Demon's walking animation by mirroring existing graphics. This is exactly how id would have done it.
- [1.1] Removed the additional mirrored walking frames I had included and instead renamed the existing walking frames so that they properly mirror in rotations. The end result is completely identical and saves a little space.
- [1.1] Adjusted sprite offsets during walking frames.
- [1.1] Further refined sprite offsets during attacking and pain frames.
- [1.2] Further refined sprite offsets during walking frames.
- [1.9] Removed leftover pixel in pain frame.
- [1.9] Adjusted brightness of toes in attacking and pain frames to match walking and death frames.
- [1.9] Added orange leg ridges in attacking and pain frames to match walking and death frames.
- [2.0 Beta 1] Fixed grey pixels in teeth in 13 frames. Teeth now have correct consistency with the alpha-to-retail color palette translation.
- [2.0 Beta 2] Further refined sprite offsets during front and rear-facing walking frames. Now perfectly centered and consistent with general sprite mirroring logic.
Lost Soul
- Adjusted sprite offsets during walking, attacking, and death frames.
- [1.1] Adjusted sprite offsets during pain frames.
- [1.1] Further refined sprite offsets during walking, attacking, and death frames.
- [1.3] Restored the intended front-facing walking sprites from pre-1.666 patch versions.
Cacodemon
- Adjusted sprite offsets during walking, shooting, and death frames.
- Filled in erroneous transparent pixels in 3 frames.
- [1.1] Further refined sprite offsets during walking, attacking, and pain frames.
- [2.0 Beta 1] Removed 3 erroneous brown pixels in death frame.
Hell Knight
- Adjusted sprite offsets during attacking frames.
- Fixed the Knight's hooves suddenly turning grey like the Baron's during his attacking animation. They're now properly recolored to brown.
- Fixed small bright patch inexplicably appearing during the final death frame.
- [1.1] Further refined sprite offsets during attacking and pain frames.
- [1.1] Fixed the Hell Knight's hands being darker than intended in 38 frames. This was a side effect of his pants being darkened and the affected portion inadvertently extending too far.
- [1.1] Fixed some errant pink pixels left over from the Baron.
- [1.1] Fixed gore chunk in death animation being colored blood red instead of flesh-toned.
- [1.2] Redid the coloring of the Hell Knight's hooves during his attacking animation.
- [1.3] Fixed more grey pixels in the Knight's hooves in 5 frames.
- [1.8] Further refined sprite offsets during attacking frames.
- [2.0] Fixed pixel inconsistencies between Hell Knight's and Baron of Hell's sprites in 5 frames.
- [2.0] Further refined sprite offsets during angled and side walking frames. Now consistent with Baron of Hell's mirrored offsets.
Baron of Hell
- Adjusted sprite offsets during attacking frames.
- Restored missing rotation angle sprites for the Baron's walking animation taken from alpha 0.2. Additionally, darkened the horns and hooves of these alpha sprites in order to match the finished sprites.
- Fixed the Baron's horns and hooves suddenly becoming brighter during the second frame of his attacking animation. This was a leftover from the alpha.
- [1.1] Further refined sprite offsets during attacking and pain frames.
- [1.1] Fixed pants becoming darker during death frames.
- [1.1] Fixed brown pixels from the Baron's pants appearing on his torso in 8 frames.
- [1.1] Fixed gore chunk in death animation being colored blood red instead of flesh-toned.
- [1.2] Replaced many of my manual sprite edits with sprites found in the 1.0 Shareware version. The previously mentioned brighter hooves and darker pants are now fixed using completely official artwork that was inadvertently broken in some update.
- [1.8] Further refined sprite offsets during attacking frames.
- [2.0 Beta 2] Further refined sprite offsets during front and rear-facing walking frames. Now consistent with Hell Knight's offsets and general sprite mirroring logic.
- [2.0] Fixed pixel inconsistencies between Baron of Hell's and Hell Knight's sprites in 1 frame.
Arachnotron
- Adjusted sprite offsets during walking and shooting frames.
- Filled in erroneous transparent pixels in 15 frames.
- [1.1] Adjusted sprite offsets during shooting and death frames.
- [1.1] Further refined sprite offsets during walking and pain frames.
- [1.1] Renamed walking frames so that they properly mirror in rotations.
Pain Elemental
- Adjusted sprite offsets during walking, attacking, pain, and death frames.
- [1.1] Further refined sprite offsets during walking, attacking, pain, and death frames.
- [1.3] Fixed minor animation inconsistencies in 2 walking frames.
Revenant
- Adjusted sprite offsets during walking, punching, shooting, pain, and death frames.
- Removed leftover line of garbage pixels in 1 frame.
- [1.1] Further refined sprite offsets during walking frames.
- [1.2] Further refined sprite offsets during shooting frames.
- [1.4] Removed leftover garbage pixel in 1 frame.
- [2.0 Beta 1] Restored missile launcher's missing column of pixels in 1 punching frame.
- [2.0] Added missing markings on arms in 2 frames.
Mancubus
- Adjusted sprite offsets during shooting, pain, and death frames.
- Removed leftover garbage pixels in 2 frames.
- [1.1] Renamed walking frames so that they properly mirror in rotations.
- [1.1] Adjusted sprite offsets during walking frames.
- [1.1] Further refined sprite offsets during attacking, pain, and death frames.
- [1.2] Further refined sprite offsets during pain and death frames.
- [1.4] Further refined sprite offsets during walking frames.
- [2.0 Beta 1] Further refined sprite offsets during walking frames.
Arch-Vile
- Adjusted sprite offsets during attacking, pain, death, and resurrection frames.
- [1.1] Adjusted sprite offsets during walking frames.
- [1.1] Further refined sprite offsets during pain and resurrection frames.
- [1.8] Further refined sprite offsets during walking frame.
Spider Mastermind
- Adjusted sprite offsets during shooting and death frames.
- Removed visible Cyberdemon hooves in the explosions during the death animation.
- [1.1] Adjusted sprite offsets during walking and pain frames.
- [1.1] Further refined sprite offsets during shooting frames.
- [1.1] Renamed walking frames so that they properly mirror in rotations.
- [1.9] Removed purple pixels in 3 frames.
Cyberdemon
- Adjusted sprite offsets during shooting, pain, and death frames.
- Filled in erroneous transparent pixels in 6 frames.
- [1.3] Fixed rightmost column of pixels being cropped in death frames by restoring 1.1 Cyberdemon sprites.
- [1.3] Filled in erroneous transparent pixels in 1 death frame.
Wolfenstein SS
- Adjusted sprite offsets during walking, shooting, pain, death, and gibbing frames. These offsets (except for the gibbing) are based on the actual Wolfenstein 3D sprite offsets, so they're as authentic as can be.
- Removed purple pixels in 2 frames left over from conversion process.
- Added missing rotation angle sprites for the SS's shooting animation.
- [1.1] Replaced firing rotation sprites with better versions.
- [1.4] Removed gore chunk in 1 gibbing frame that was only meant for the Zombieman.
- [1.5] Added missing rotation angle sprites for the SS's pain animation.
- [1.5] Fixed leftover green hair pixels in 1 gibbing frame.
- [1.5] Renamed walking frames to fix improper leg rotations in 5-8 angle walking rotations.
Player
- Filled in erroneous transparent pixel in 1 frame.
- Fixed gun suddenly becoming brighter during final gibbing frames.
- [1.5] Restored missing rotation angle sprites.
- [2.0 Beta 2] Fixed miscolored pixel between legs in 1 walking frame.
- [2.0 Beta 2] Fixed disappearing pixel in 2 death frames.
Other Things
- Barrel: Removed visible Cyberdemon hooves in the final explosion frame.
- Megasphere: Removed some odd green pixels in 2 frames.
- Hanging Corpses (all types): Extended the ropes/chains of these props so that they actually connect to the ceiling.
- [1.1] Small Blue Torch: Fixed wood shifting in 1 frame (SMBTA0).
- [1.1] Red and Yellow Keycard: Shifted both 1 pixel so that they are perfectly centered. They now much the offsets of the Blue Keycard.
- [1.1] Berserk Pack: Adjusted sprite offset to match Medikit. Their sprite offsets matched in the press release beta, so it's likely they just forgot to alter the Berserk Pack as well when they changed the Medikit.
- [1.2] Pool of blood decorations: Shifted sprite offsets upwards so these objects no longer appear to be sunken underground.
- [1.2] Baron/Knight Fireball: Adjusted sprite offsets of projectile explosion so that it does not appear below the point of impact.
- [1.2] Revenant Rocket: Adjusted sprite offsets of projectile explosion so that it does not appear above the point of impact.
- [1.2] Mancubus Fireball: Adjusted sprite offsets of projectile itself to smooth out transition between rotations.
- [1.2] Boss Spawn Cube: Adjusted sprite offsets to make the rotating animation smoother.
- [1.2] Made minute sprite offset adjustments to the following: Blood puff, Cacodemon fireball explosion, teleport fog, Arachnotron plasma ball and explosion, Plasma Rifle projectile explosion, and BFG ray explosion.
- [1.4] Fix by NightFright: Cleaned up errors in help screens. (Doom 1 and Doom 2)
- [1.4] Fix by NightFright: Cleaned up green pixels in intermission screen graphics. (Doom 1)
- [1.4] Fix by NightFright: Fixed iris color of the status bar face during Ouch expression.
- [1.6] Tall Blue and Green Torches: Fixed erroneous red pixel appearing in 1 frame.
- [1.7] Radiation Shielding Suit: Removed green pixel leftover from Player sprite.
- [1.7] Status Bar Face: Removed erroneous brown pixels in God frame.
- [1.7] Burning Barrel: Removed erroneous black pixel in 1 frame.
- [1.8] Fixed incomplete stroke effect around 2, 5, and 8 HUD numbers.
- [1.8] Added sprite padding to Twitching Impaled Human and Twitching Hanging Corpse things to fix jittering in all engines.
- [1.8] Added sprite padding to Small Torches, Evil Eye, and Flaming Barrel things to fix jittering in ZDoom, GZDoom, Zandronum, and derivative source ports.
- [1.8] Restored uncropped Blood Pool sprite from original sprite sheet.
- [1.9] Fixed cropped comma in Hey, not too rough! difficulty text. By LemonWolf3322.
- [2.0 Beta 1] Fixed brown pixels and pink pixel in Nightmare! difficulty text. By JCST.
- [2.0 Beta 1] Status Bar Face: Adjusted sprite offsets during left and right looking pain frames.
- [2.0 Beta 1] Status Bar Face: Added missing bloody nose in 3 frames.
- [2.0 Beta 2] Fixed font inconsistencies in several menu graphics.
- [2.0] Shifted both short red pillars by 1 pixel to match other tall red and all green pillars.
First Person Weapon Sprites
- Restored uncropped Fists, Pistol, and Shotgun sprites taken from the press release beta. The cropped portions still aren't visible, but why not include them anyway?
- [1.1] Centered offsets for the Shotgun, Super Shotgun, Chaingun, Rocket Launcher, Plasma Rifle, and BFG.
- [1.1] Super Shotgun: Removed erroneous brown pixel from idle frame. This was a leftover of Doom Guy's glove.
- [1.1] Super Shotgun: Extended Doom Guy's arm in 1 reloading frame so that it reaches the bottom of the screen. This change is only visible in widescreen resolutions.
- [1.5] Fix by Da Werecat: Fixed mismatching Rocket Launcher muzzle flash firing frame
- [1.7] Shotgun: Fixed tall sprites wrapping error. Thanks to Linguica.
- [1.8] Super Shotgun: Updated widescreen sprite. By Blastfrog.
- [1.8] Super Shotgun: Readjusted centered offsets to be more accurate.
- [1.9] Super Shotgun: Updated widescreen sprite. By Blastfrog.
- [1.9] Chaingun: Removed extraneous pixel in muzzle flash firing frame.
- [1.9] Rocket Launcher: Updated firing frame sprite. By Blastfrog.
- [1.9] Added sprite padding to Shotgun, Super Shotgun, Chaingun, Rocket Launcher, and BFG muzzle flash firing frames to fix horizontal jittering in high resolution source ports.
- [1.9] Chainsaw: Removed purple pixels in 2 frames.
Patches:
- [1.3] Filled in 2 erroneous transparent pixels in RSKY2 texture.
Now if you've made it this far, you probably just want to see some screenshots of the changes in action. Well, truthfully, it's rather difficult to showcase the end result outside of the game since many of the effects must be seen in motion. If the idea interests you, I suggest simply downloading the WAD right now and autoloading it during any future Doom sessions. I know this sounds cheap, but some changes are subtle and I think it would ruin the point to explicitly search for the differences. Nonetheless, here are preview images of some of the Doom 2 fixes:
Spoiler:
(clickable thumbnail)
Compatibility patches for select Doom PWADs: Ancient Aliens compatibility patch (load the sprite fixes after aaliens.wad):
Work-In-Progress PWAD Compatibility Patches:
This section contain sprite fix patches for PWADs that have yet to reach a final release state but currently have public alpha or beta versions available. Due to the in-progress nature of these PWADs, you may have to return here from time to time to download updated versions of the corresponding sprite fixes. Note the dates in the sprite fix WAD filenames to determine if the version you have is up-to-date.
NOTE: Eviternity II now officially incorporates these fixes already.
Full Modder's Resource WAD:
If you are a mapper or sprite artist who wishes to utilize the Doom 2sprite fixes in your own projects, this resource WAD is aimed at you. Included in the WAD file are the untrimmed graphics contents, hence they can be batched processed for new palette conversions or selectively extracted and merged for individual monster sprite edits:
Note: The Heretic sprite fixes and widescreen-friendly graphics are split into two WAD files. This is meant to provide compatibility with the original Heretic executable as the widescreen graphics will cause the engine to crash. Anyone using source ports such as ZDoom should load both WAD files at the same time.
The complete Heretic changelog can be viewed here:
Gargoyle
- Adjusted sprite offsets during walking frames for smoother rotation transitions.
- Fixed green pixel in 1 walking frame.
- Fixed blue pixel in 1 pain frame.
- Fixed a bunch of purple pixels in 1 gibbing frame.
Golem
- Filled in erroneous transparent pixel in 1 pain frame.
- Fixed disappearing side of foot during death animation.
- Renamed walking frames so that they properly mirror in rotations.
Undead Warrior
- Adjusted sprite offsets during walking, firing, and pain frames.
- Filled in erroneous transparent pixels in 4 frames.
Disciple of D'Sparil
- Adjusted sprite offsets during death frames.
- Filled in erroneous transparent pixel in 1 attacking frame.
Iron Lich
- Adjusted sprite offsets during attacking and death frames.
- Filled in erroneous transparent pixel in 1 attacking frame.
- Removed some excess pixels in 1 attacking frame.
Sabreclaw
- Adjusted sprite offsets during walking, attacking, pain, and death frames.
- Fixed unconnected tail/claw/toe 28 in frames.
Weredragon
- Adjusted sprite offsets during pain, attacking, and gibbing frames.
- Filled in erroneous transparent pixel in 1 attacking frame.
- Removed black line from 1 attacking frame.
- Removed floating pixel in final death frames.
Ophidian
- Adjusted sprite offsets during attacking, pain, and death frames.
- Fixed unconnected rattler on tail in 2 frames.
Maulotaur
- Adjusted sprite offsets during pain and death frames.
- Filled in erroneous transparent pixel in 1 death frame.
D'Sparil riding Serpent
- Adjusted sprite offsets during walking, attacking, and death frames.
D'Sparil
- Shifted sprites offsets during walking, firing, and pain frames up 1 pixel so they're not so deeply sunk into the ground.
- Adjusted sprite offsets during walking and attacking frames. Should be a more natural walking cycle.
Player
- Shifted sprite offsets during walking, firing, pain, and burn death frames up so they're not so deeply sunk into the ground.
- Filled in erroneous transparent pixels in 7 frames.
- Fixed order of rear angle walking frames.
- Renamed walking frames so the leg positions properly mirror in walking rotations. Staff still doesn't correctly mirror.
Other Things
- Status Bar: Made widescreen-friendly.
- Chicken: Adjusted sprite offsets during death frame.
- Pod: Adjusted sprite offsets during death frame.
- Green Axe Projectile: Added correct rear angle rotation frames.
- Green Key: Fixed duplicate frame in spinning animation.
- All Keys: Adjusted sprite offsets they're not so deeply sunk into the ground.
- Various Weapon and Ammo Pickups: Adjusted sprite offsets they're not so deeply sunk into the ground.
- Hanging Skulls (all types), Hanging Corpse, Chandelier: Extended the ropes/chains of these props so that they actually connect to the ceiling.
- Moss (both types), Large Stalactite, Small Stalactite: Adjusted sprite offsets of these props so that they actually connect to the ceiling.
- Made minute sprite offset adjustments to some decorations, projectile explosions, and effects.
First Person Weapon Sprites
- Staff: Made firing frame widescreen-friendly.
- Gauntlets: Filled in erroneous transparent pixels in 2 frames.
- Gauntlets: Fixed inconsistent brightness.
- Firemace: Fixed odd black squares in 2 frames.
Preview images of some of the Heretic fixes:
Spoiler:
(clickable thumbnail) (clickable thumbnail)
This project is still very much a work-in-progress. I'm open to feedback on the current release as well as potential ideas for further changes. Thanks you for reading this far, and I hope you enjoy it too many.
Last edited by Marphy Black on Sat Dec 23, 2023 3:30 pm, edited 43 times in total.
Incredible stuff! I had noticed and made autoload fixes for a number of these issues, but you caught a few I didn't (and so I will merge some of your changes).
Cire wrote:The Heretic sprite fixes also goes well together with perkristian's hi-res Heretic sound pack, which is something I can recommend.
