Plasticine sprites [WIP] -> NOW WITH DEMO .WAD!

That looks pretty cool in game. There's a strange white outline around the corpses, but other than that this works pretty damn well.

The sprites could use some clean up, but the idea works really well. NOW DO MORE. :p

Haha, I love it! The death frames turned out awesome for sure. Obviously just some "aliasing" issues, but otherwise they're solid sprites.

I still like the idea of completing some missing monsters for Freedoom with this method. You could be doing the community a huge favor. :D

Any monster done in this style for Freedoom will need to be original rather than based on an existing monster, but that's not really a problem.

I figured that was a given.

Well, I thought I'd mention it anyway. :p

Here are some indicative development times for a sprite using these techniques (barring me being lazy and/or busy elsewhere):

Actually modeling something in clay: 5-30 minutes, depending on complexity and detail level desired.

Changing pose: trivial. That's the best thing about it, while a 3D model would be hell unless you're a pro or use pretty sophisticated software with model skeletons etc. OTAH you're somehow more limited in what postures you can make it assume.

Taking pics: about 30 seconds per frame.

Cropping and cleaning up outlines: depending on the background's junk, from 1 to 5 minutes. 1 = with perfect white BG, 5 = with reflective, corrugated blue background ><

Now, if you are using just the hi-res, your work is done.
Scaling down to Doom resolution can be done trivially with a PSP script (as I did) but then you may need some minor or major cleanup depending on imperfect color conversions, spurious white outlines etc.

A trick to make the Doom's palette match more closely was to boost color saturation in images before downgrading them.

I'd add more wrinkles to their backs so they don't look like cancer, and ask if the barons of hell were made the exact same way.

Good job, Maes.

I could see a whole TC spawning out of this idea. Plasticine textures, weapons, items, decorations, Hud, misc GFX etc.

It'd be like if Neverhood attempted a FPS.

rf` said:

That would be the Neverhood.

No, Skull Monkeys. Neverhood was the adventure game. Both were Neverhood games mind you.

Truely wierd and different - but cool!

This is a neat idea, and I really like the way it turned out! It would be really interesting to see other monsters done similarly.

OK, I cleaned up the sprites, added some minor PSP bling and uploaded the whole bundle to the Archives.

In the mean you can get the final version (now with both Doom and Doom II test maps) from PLASCACO.ZIP

It looks slightly Gumby-fied, but I love it! May we hope for more?

sparerib1968 said:

It looks slightly Gumby-fied, but I love it! May we hope for more?

Sure, as soon as the feedback on idgames/ is clarified.

It now exists as an idgames entry since a week, but the response was much more ambiguous than on the forums. Justice must be done :-p

Maes said:

as soon as the feedback on idgames/ is clarified.

I really wouldn't think about that. Just do them if you want to. Besides, you'll have some rather unique DooM decorations around the place. :P

Frankly, I read the thread and voted 4 on idgames with the comment "fun" because I thought the concept was, well, fun.

However, the quality of the sprite itself is in my opinion poor, after having fun with the test map two minutes I'd never touch it again. It just doesn't fit with anything else and doesn't look that good to me. I can understand people who genuinely think it's bad, and if you believe they're just trolling I think you're setting yourself up for dissapointment later on. Graphic replacements and popularity hardly mix, seeing as the former is always controversial.

As a full TC with the sprites more polished it'd work well, as it is it looks too out of place except as a joke.

Maes said:

Sure, as soon as the feedback on idgames/ is clarified.

It now exists as an idgames entry since a week, but the response was much more ambiguous than on the forums. Justice must be done :-p

You don't need to worry. I gave it a positive review.

AS I posted elsewhere, I know that much better results can be accomplished even with plasticine. The cacodemon was more of a proof-of-concept (and deliberately modeled close to the original)

Sure, I didn't dedicate more than 10-15 minutes crafting its final form, and pose modifications usually required little more than squeezing and poking it. If I wanted, I could filigree the shit out of it, but I wanted quick results (the very least I learned that it would need to be larger to easily add detail).

Not what I'd call a masterpiece myself, but the very least I consider it viable and not worse than most other graphics replacements.

After the general response though, a doubt a high resolution release would change much (although there aren't many high-res sprite resources that I know of).

My next idea is either a biped monster/human, or a wicked PE replacement (something really disgusting).