Kingpin (Xatrix) TC (was: Sprite(sheets) from 3d models)

[Cherno]

Hello all,

I have been working with 3d modeling programs and ripping and modifying assets from other games for many years now, mainly for creating tabletop games though. Recently I discovered the great Doom modding scene and after seeing a couple of awesome mods and TCs, and all the fan-made sprites and whatnot, I thought it would be fun to add something myself. I'm no artist but I had the idea of ripping textured models from other games, import them into a 3D modeling application, animate them if neccessary, and then create sprites and spritesheets from their rendered images, with some minor touchups. The advantage is that results can be had extremely quick, especially if the model is already animated properly. Here is a first effort for testing purposes, the Thug model from one of my favourite games, Kingpin:

thug_1_resized.gif

thug_2_resized.gif

The first is rendered at approx. double Doomguy-sprite-size, and the second at approx. original Doomguy sprite size. Upscaled 2x and 4x for viewing purposes.

I think the double resolution version works reasonably well, while the original resolution version is too pixelated and would require a ton of rework.

What brings me to my question, is it possible to use higher resolution sprites with, for example, GZDoom? We are not talking about "HD" resolution here, mind you, just about double the dimensions.

Also, are there any games or specific models that people would really like to have a spritesheet made from?

[wildweasel]

As this is not a Project but an Editing question, I've moved your thread.

It is certainly possible to use sprites of nearly any resolution in ZDoom. For actors, it's a simple matter of setting the Scale property (at double resolution, that'd be Scale 0.5). For weapon sprites, the Textures lump gets involved, but even that's not horribly difficult (only slightly difficult, you see).

[Enjay]

Looks pretty decent at the 2xDoom resolution and I agree that the 1x is just too pixelated. Quite a few model-grab sprites exist that have been done using the 1x method and they usually look very pixelated and not very good IMO. The 2x version is a reasonable compromise between making them hi-res but not so hi-res that they look odd against the low-res textures of the game.

As wildweasel said, scaling enemies is easy. e.g. this is all you would need to make the Doom zombiemen look half size (their physical size hasn't changed, it's just a visual thing).

Code: Select all

ACTOR SmallZombieMan : Zombieman replaces Zombieman
{
  Scale 0.5
}

So you'd use a similar scale factor in your code (again as wildweasel suggested).

Kingpin was certainly flawed but it's a game that I like too (and I'm a bit of a Cypress Hill fan too, so that helps) so I'll be interested to see if you manage to do anything with this.

[Cherno]

I spent a couple of hours assembling a spritesheet for the "Punk" model.

x1 resolution (200%):


x2 resolution (100%):



I rendered the models at 512x512 which gave me more pixels to work with when I downsized it. I think even the x1 resolution doesn't look too bad now.

The cool thing about Kingpin is that while there are not a lot of different models (basically just a tall guy, short guy, a woman, a dog and a rat as well as a few different heads and accessories like cigars and hats), there are literally hundreds of different, high-quality textures for the human models. These range from typical gang attire to dirty underwear, black suit & tie, chemical protection suits, normal streetweat and much, much more. Because eaach model consists of legs, upper body and head, these textures can also be combined to create an almost infinite amount of distinct characters.

Anyway, back to my efforts. The walk cycle on that spritesheet could use improvement, I didn't pay much attention when converting the animation frames. I also didn't include a special "bloody mess" death animation, but I might do it in the future, with one arm blowing up or something. The muzzle flash frames have some transparency pixels which I assume are not ideal so I'll get rid of those as well.

The tommygun punk above could be a replacement for the chaingunner, and I also plan to create spritesheets for a shotgun and pistol guy. It would be cool if, in case these are included in a mod, the same enemy types are present multiple times, each with a different texture to create more variety.

[wildweasel]

You seem to be running into the attachment size limit - you might consider using an external image host like Imgur to host your pictures instead, because 256 KB account-wide is not nearly enough for regular usage of graphics.

[Cherno]

You seem to be running into the attachment size limit - you might consider using an external image host like Imgur to host your pictures instead, because 256 KB account-wide is not nearly enough for regular usage of graphics.

Thanks. Yes I uploaded the images to an external hoster. I also wrote some additional explaination in my last post.

[Cherno]

Pistol spritesheet. I always thought that the normal pistol from Kingpin looked pretty weak, but there's also the Magnum upgrade which looks more like a Desert Eagle, which is cool. I'll do this one next, I figure.

The hand model and texture looks really bad that's what I have to work with

[Cherno]

Spent another couple of hours on the project. I created a small pk3 where I put replacements for all the things I rip from Kingpin. So far, I have implemented the pistol and shotgun, with new sounds and ammo sprites. I think I'll focus on the other weapons for now. Once I get to the plasma gun and BFG, I guess I'll have no choice but to dive into weapon scripting, or I will have machine guns and grenade launchers firing plasma bolts Now that I think of it, this could be the first real chance of implementing the electro-gun that was planned for Kingpin but didn't make it into the retail version.

Maybe I'll also start to replace the demon/pinky enemy with a rabid junkyard dog and give him less health but even faster movement speed.

Here are some screenshots of my "workspace" in my 3d modeling application. As so far this has been a purely fun project I didn't bother with keeping things too tidy or organized. Everything just gets thrown into the scene and moved wherever there is still space.

Walk frames


View model frames


All human Kingpin models


The process of getting the graphics into Doom is quite cumbersome.
First, I have to use a dedicated Kingpin model viewer to load a KP *.mdx model and browse through it's animation frames to see which ones I need. Then I have to save the model as a Quake2 *.md2 model. This in turn can be imported by Milkshape3D, but only one frame at a time so I have to do this every animation frame and every model part (human models have three parts, weapon view models two or three, for example). Milkshape3D can export the *.md2 models to *.obj files which can then be imported into my 3D modeling application, where I have to flip the model's normals, reposition the pivot, rotate it, resize it, check for holes in the mesh and other potential problems, apply a MeshSmooth modifier for organic models, create a material with the correct bitmap and apply it, assemlbe the various parts, and put it somewhere in the scene. Sometime's I also have to add a light and muzzleflash effect. Then I can position the camera in front of it and render. The brightness of the resultng image is adjusted and resized, and minor touch ups are performed if neccessary. Then I can finally save the bitmap image and put it into at pk3 file.

[Enjay]

If you can get the models into either MD2 or MD3 format, you could consider putting the models into GZDoom directly.

I noticed that you mention Milkshape. Have you also got Misfit 3D and Noesis? Misfit handles MD2 and MD3 natively and much better than Milkshape. Noeisis, while not an editor, can handle many model types and can perform many conversions, including doing things like combining a mesh and animation data file into a single MD3 (assuming source files exist in a format that it can handle).

Misfit Cubed
https://sourceforge.net/projects/misfitcubed/

Noeisis
http://richwhitehouse.com/index.php?con ... ojects.php

[Cherno]

Thanks, I haven't heard of those programs. I will give em a try!

I would like to continue converting the models to sprites as I think it fits the aesthetic of the Doom engine better. With models, it's not much different from just modding Kingin itself

BTW, Kingpin uses MDX models which is not related to MD3, it's just a special version of MD2 created by Xatrix and adds functionality like multiple body parts, parts that can be blown off, and accessories like hats.

[Enjay]

Fair enough on the aesthetics point.

For what it's worth, if you are working with putting models into the game at any point, MD3 is generally far preferable to MD2. The MD2 format is very imprecise. You can see this in virtually any animated MD2 model. The vertices wobble around all over the place. MD3 is much more precise.

With static models it's less important because you don't see the wobble but sometimes vertices that get carefully placed in your model editing program get snapped to the nearest value supported by MD2 when you save/export them so previously nice sharp points (like the nose cone of a space ship I put into the game once) become strange, twisted, blunt or otherwise deformed structures if you look closely.

Both MD2 and MD3 have their limitations of course but those are the two formats that are suitable for use with GZDoom and, where possible, I use MD3 when I can for the above reasons. Of course, if the Kingpin models are essentially just fancy MD2 models, they will probably already have the imprecision of the MD2 format built in so (probably) either format would be fine. I think I experimented with some of the static items from Kingpin at some point in the past (cars, lamps, whatever) but I never tried to get the animated models into GZDoom; possibly because I was working with Milkshape which loses the animation information on import.

[wildweasel]

Of course, if the Kingpin models are essentially just fancy MD2 models, they will probably already have the imprecision of the MD2 format built in

Yup - this is very clearly visible in the game itself. You can see peoples' faces wobbling pretty clearly.

[Cherno]

Yeah, that was the one problem all reviews pointed out. I didn't notice it at all when playing Quake2 with the fast-paced action, but in Kingpin, you watch various cutscenes with closeups and also walk up to NPCsto talk to them, and the way their bodies and faces wobble is unnerving and kills the suspension of disbelief. It's even worse for the weapon models.

Anyway, thanks again for suggesting Misfit, it was a godsend as now, though I still have to convert models to MD2 first, I can easily export merged models frame by frame. This improved my workflow tremendously.

I encountered a problem today. I created some sprites for the tommygun which replaces the chaingun, along with some misc sprites like ammo for the pistol. However, after importing these into my pk3 GZDoom gives me an invalid texture error. The strange thing is that as far as I know, I didn't do anything different from yesterday when I already put replacement sprites into the game successfully. All texture files are PNG and as I said, I didn't do anything different today. Any idea?

[Nash]

To be fair, back in the day with low resolution screen modes, the wobble wouldn't have been noticeable... I still remember my old system that I had to play Quake 2 on, I could only run it on 320x200... the wobbling was non-existent to me with such a low resolution, because the entire display was pixel-swimming like crazy anyway...

And then I bought a Voodoo 3 (16 MB!!!!!!) graphics card and tried playing with hardware acceleration in 640x480, and I noticed the models looked weird...

[Cherno]

I played Quake2 the first time without a 3D accelerator card, and boy was I amazed when later I ran it on a system with 3DFX card and saw that the freaking blaster you start with threw colored lighting at the wall! This was an effect I had never seen before, having been used to the drab gray and brown environments of Quakle 1+2.