Looking for early Doom 3 screenshot with player face in HUD

I'm looking for an early (pre-alpha?) screenshot of Doom 3. IIRC the HUD showed the player's face and the environment was a simple corridor with a crucified human on the wall; the texturing was reminiscent of Doom's green marble hell maps (I think....) Google image search has failed me. Anyone?

Where did you initially see this?

Probably an issue of PC Gamer, but I'm not certain. I think it was a very early screenshot, the first id released, but, again, I'm not sure and I can't find it anywhere online.

Just checked screenshots page at Doom 3 section and noticed most links in there died. They must be elsewhere .

I remember the image you are talking about! It was just a fake, not an actual screenshot. The face in the HUD had numerous silly looking bullet holes in the forehead. Floor and walls were green marble with reflections, and there were torches on the wall. I tried to find that pic but wasn't successful either. I didn't save it back in the day because I found it to be a bad fake and was annoyed by others who took it for real. But now I want to have it for nostalgia reasons...

I also remember this screenshot. There were lots of these fakes. There even was a competition at a website (ShackNews) where people would send in faked Doom 3 (or Doom 2000 as many referred Doom 3 to back then) screenshots and vote on which one was the best, lol. It's very hard to find those screenshots today though. The websites that hosted them are long gone it seems. I'll try to look some more for them. It's also possible to find some information about this in old Doomworld thread and such.

I recall there were mods which added marble baron faces to Doom 3 maps with normal mapping applied.

Bummer. The fact that the screenshot is a fake certainly explains the trouble I've had finding it.

If it's any help, here's the original pages with four thumbnails backed up: https://web.archive.org/web/20001007073402/http://www.3dshack.com/onearticle.x/8733/
Unfortunatly, the full size pics are not backed up. However I know they were mirrored at other sites, I'll do some digging around and see if I can find anything...

Well, there's always that "Doom 3 to Doom 2" mod:

RUSH said:

Well, there's always that "Doom 3 to Doom 2" mod:

http://media.moddb.com/images/downloads/1/21/20035/shot00002.jpg

The pic shown in the archived page looks better .

Of course it does. Every single one of those "Classic doom in Doom 3" mods looks dumb as shit.

Since it was a fake, we could try to recreate it... faking the fake :)

I remember this screenshot.
The way I remember it, it wasn't a fake, it was released and discussed by Carmack himself, probably on one of his .plans.
This was probably around '99, give or take a few years.
This was basically the first new Doom game screenshot.
I remember the image being pretty primitive looking, it was in like a dark hallway and it had a face on the hud.
I don't have the image, and can't find it on Google or anything, I left it up to the internet to save this sort of thing, guess that didn't work out.
I doubt Carmack has it either, since he is probably the same way, in addition to being unsentimental.

Then it is a different screenshot you are talking about. The image I remember had that green marble hell style from old Doom, but very shiny, with reflective surfaces, so it didn't look primitive for the time arround 2000.

Cire said:

If it's any help, here's the original pages with four thumbnails backed up: https://web.archive.org/web/20001007073402/http://www.3dshack.com/onearticle.x/8733/
Unfortunatly, the full size pics are not backed up. However I know they were mirrored at other sites, I'll do some digging around and see if I can find anything...

FWIW none of these images are the one I recall.

The earliest actual Doom 3 footage I remember was from the presentation on MacWorld 2001: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj3dPyk7hPI

Including "Birdman" and Sarge with a strange helmet.

I was 4 years old back in 2001 =P, the game looks Darker in a Cool way in that video and greatly enhanced graphically for a 2001 version .

Tetzlaff said:

The earliest actual Doom 3 footage I remember was from the presentation on MacWorld 2001: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj3dPyk7hPI

Looking at those old materials makes me sad. Sure, everything is grey, but it was very effective. They added some Christmas lights and more colorful textures later on, but it mostly just made the graphics muddier, and everyone was still yelling that the game was too grey.

Da Werecat said:

Looking at those old materials makes me sad. Sure, everything is grey, but it was very effective. They added some Christmas lights and more colorful textures later on, but it mostly just made the graphics muddier, and everyone was still yelling that the game was too grey.

I agree with this. Looking back on that 2001 footage it honestly looks completely terrifying. Much more so than the actual game. Of course it's very dark so everyone would have complained about it I'm sure. Still though, I look at that and all I see is awesome. Anyone know why they dropped that monster design at 2:28? Was that supposed to be a hellknight? It looks badass and I wish they never scrapped the model. Much scarier than the actual hellknight we got.

I like the final hellknight, but it would be nice to have the birdman as an additional monster type. Perhaps a baron analogue, or a stronger, less agile imp variant (adjusting the size accordingly).

Da Werecat said:

I like the final hellknight, but it would be nice to have the birdman as an additional monster type. Perhaps a baron analogue, or a stronger, less agile imp variant (adjusting the size accordingly).

I share this opinion as well, I really liked it's design.

Is the birdman model included in the alpha assets? Could it be added back into the game?

No.

I guess you could if you recreated Birdieman from scratch.

jute: Yeah, I Think I remember that screenshot you're thinking of, yup, it's not among those. However there where a lot more faked screenshots made that IA haven't even got backed up as thumbs. Really hard to find fake Doom 3 screenies nowadays. ^^
I found one which had fake source code in VC++ that said Doom Technology Preview or something, heh, don't remember where I found it right now though.

jute said:

Is the birdman model included in the alpha assets? Could it be added back into the game?

Goddamn do I pine for that. Almost as much as I pine for the Doom II Dildo Display.

This thread actually makes me wonder what the very last game to use a face in the HUD was.

The Civ said:

This thread actually makes me wonder what the very last game to use a face in the HUD was.

Probably Quake III Arena/Team Arena.

Da Werecat said:

I like the final hellknight, but it would be nice to have the birdman as an additional monster type. Perhaps a baron analogue, or a stronger, less agile imp variant (adjusting the size accordingly).

They should've had it in RoE.