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MinerOfWorlds

Why are there no good 3d models for doom?

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Maes said:

Well, that's exactly the problem: some people hope that one day some magic fairy (or super-algorithm) will effortlessly create high-detail, flawlessly animated 3D models starting from 8 rotations of low-res sprites for every unskilled, poor sod to enjoy. Might as well go get one of those "university diplomas based on your life experience, no books, no courses, no exams!".


The guns in doom are basic so are quake's so if someone can make good models for quake why not doom?

Avoozl said:

People are forgetting that not a lot of modelers out there are able to make professional quality models so that's yet another reason why they don't look so good nor animate well, besides it's not like they are being paid for their work. Also not all the good modelers out there are interested in modeling for an older game such as Doom, they are more likely interested in modeling for some of the newer and more popular/relevant games.


No they don't get paid but mapper's don't either and some make high quality maps so why not high quality models?

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Maybe because good 3D model artists are more likely to be interested in making models for 3D games than for 2.5D games like Doom. The analogy with mapping doesn't really work, because good 2.5D mappers are more likely to be interested in making maps for 2.5D games, obviously. Also, good 2.5D mapping is generally easier to do than good 3D modeling, so you'll find more people doing the former than people doing the latter.

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Many modelers be able to create stunning models, but often these are just static models. To model a game character, optimized for animation isn't an easy task. Not to forget that rigging and animating a game character is a lot of work.

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MinerOfWorlds, Quake was 3D from the onset. What we have are modelers trying to turn sprites into 3D models. It has to be handled very carefully. I think maybe at some point someone will succeed, but it's hard to imagine it not looking out of place in the game unless the poly count and texture resolution is about the same as Quake or Quake 2.

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MinerOfWorlds said:

The guns in doom are basic so are quake's so if someone can make good models for quake why not doom?

Quake is already 3D. Magically changing low res 2D pictures into perfect 3D models is literally impossible. It's like wishing you could shoot deadly lasers out of your delicate eyeballs. Doom was made with 2D sprites in mind.

But feel free to use Risen3D.

MinerOfWorlds said:

No they don't get paid but mapper's don't either and some make high quality maps so why not high quality models?

That's like comparing oranges and apples. Mappers make maps, not models. Modellers make models, but not maps.
TBH, making high quality stuff involves immense dedication and skill, and I mean immense.
Have a go with making a "high quality" map in DB2/GZDB or making a "high quality" model with Blender. It will take you a LONG time to even make a low/medium quality map/model.

So why aren't there any good 3D models for Doom? Many reasons. Not enough motivation. Barely any modellers willing to make good models. The engine doesn't look very nice with models (IMO).
Face it. 3D models in Doom sucks anyway. Quake (or any other 3D game) on the other hand isn't.

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Also doesn't help that even OpenGL ports of Doom are very limited in what they can do with the models since Doom is still a 2D engine by heart. As someone who's played around with modeling for years, I ended up stop Doom modding in favor of Unity since it has a lot more flexibility in what I can do because, unlike Doom, Unity was intended to be a fully 3D engine.

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It's remarkable that we can even get models working in Doom at all. I feel like some day, we'll get a proper voxel Doom. That seems like the best way to be as literal as possible in the translation. I know there's an abandoned voxel Doom project, but I'm certain in the near future that arranging and animating voxels will get easier, and perhaps it'll be tackled again.

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GoatLord said:

It's remarkable that we can even get models working in Doom at all.

??? GZDoom, Doomsday and related ports support them.
(EDIT: I somehow misread "can" as "can't")

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GoatLord said:

It's remarkable that we can even get models working in Doom at all. I feel like some day, we'll get a proper voxel Doom. That seems like the best way to be as literal as possible in the translation. I know there's an abandoned voxel Doom project, but I'm certain in the near future that arranging and animating voxels will get easier, and perhaps it'll be tackled again.


I hope so i have always liked voxels but animation would either have to be moving like a 3d model or make 3d sprites i want 3d sprites be that would take a long time to do one monster so a full one is not likely to happen.

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3D sprites? Sprites are only 2D, but if you mean sprites derived from 3D models, then it's still 2D.

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What is meant by "3D sprites" is that a voxel data set would have to have a unique arrangement for each frame of animation. That could be a lengthy process.

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GoatLord said:

What is meant by "3D sprites" is that a voxel data set would have to have a unique arrangement for each frame of animation. That could be a lengthy process.


Exactly. And unlike a 3D model, each pose would be like the pixel-art equivalent of sculpting a statuette. Seriously, how many 3D artists are skilled enough to do that? Even accomplished "traditional" 3D artists, well-versed at working with polygons, might find this daunting, or lack the attention to detail that a pixel artist would have. You'd really need someone who has the combined skills of a 3D modeler, an animator and a pixel artist. Good look with that.

Even if one "cheats" and goes the 3D mesh -> voxel path, the skill required to clean up the finished voxel poses can be comparable to sculpting them from the ground up.

Edit: now that I think of it, a potential source of decent voxel artists may come from the ranks of Minecraft modders.

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GoatLord said:

But Minecraft isn't a voxel game, it's just a game with blocky polygons.

Voxels are just points on a three dimensional grid. Minecraft blocks are points on a three dimensional grid. Whether or not they are true "voxels" is nothing but semantics.

There is no reason voxels can't be rendered using polygons (and, indeed, it would be utterly stupid for any game to not do so).

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Sorry if someone has already mentioned this, but couldn't the jerky animation be overcome simply by adding more movement frames? For example if a trooper has a 3 tic animation for one step, couldn't that be changed to 3 sperate frames all at one tic to allow for smoother/more precise animations due to the shorter durations? Surely this could be used for less "floaty looking" movement, but maybe it would also alter behavior in a significant way I'm not currently realizing

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In vanilla Doom, monsters move every time their state changes to a new frame with the "walk around" code pointer, then they stay still for a few tics until they change to another new frame with a "walk around" code pointer. So you could probably add new frames in between with no code pointer at all and it would still stay synced. Of course then this would break the interpolation in a lot of source ports where it smoothly moves things from one position to the next.

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There are a lot of limitations when it comes to 3D model use in Doom seemingly. It's hard to make a "good" mod making excessive use of them. Even WolfenDoom BOA has a bit of limitation when using them.

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MetroidJunkie said:

unlike Doom, Unity was intended to be a fully 3D engine.


Important note: with possibily of making 2D game, too.

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GoatLord said:

Does that mean Unity could make a Doom engine or Build engine-esque game?

Yeah, in the same way you can drive on a highway in an airplane.




It's not appropriate but hey, it can do it.

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It'd probably be better to just build something Doom esque, Polygons for the environment and billboard sprites for everything else. It'd be a lot easier than trying to use the same kind of rendering techniques that Doom does.

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When people start creating a Doom clone, they pussy out and don't implement the floating superfast and smooth movement/physics of Doom.

So they turn out like generic lowfi shooters with badly animated enemies. Usually robot enemies, to avoid hafing to deal with humanlike behaviour, skeletal animations and ragdoll physics.

Bullshit. If there are proper Doom clones, I haven't played them.

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I haven't done much modding lately due to not having much free time. I looked in the forums and found this interesting thread, so please forgive me if it is considered too old to bump. May I offer some rambling insights and opinions as a 3D artist who has made models for Doom? Most of what has been said in this thread is spot on. My personal experience and frustrations wrt working with models in Doom has led me to make the very same observations that have been pointed out in previous posts.

I think that the biggest roadblocks are the technical hurdle, the general attitude towards 3D models within the community, and the inescapable fact that 3D models just don't mesh well with the general aesthetic of Doom.


The technology hurdle is not to be underestimated. While it is true that a poor artist blames the tool, it is also true that there are only so many hours in a day. I hit a wall while making my own models. It is not so much that it is difficult (the more you model, the easier it gets) as it is discouraging knowing that the technology that you are working with is not going to be able to handle the load to the point that a large number of people would be able to actually enjoy what you are working on. There is no way that I would be able to make the quality of models that I want to make and have them run adequately in a Doom engine. Trust me - I've already tried with multiple sourceports. Then I scaled back the project. Then I scaled back even more. I scaled back so much that what I produced ended up looking like pure and utter crap (just take a look at some of my WIP screenshots over on the 3DGE forum). So then there is the question of do I want to soldier on and push through just to release pure and utter crap that will only appeal to a small niche within the Doom community? Not at all. I've already made that mistake too, and I don't intend on repeating it. I'd rather save people the bandwith and avoid more angry messages in my email. You could make 3D models that are of the same fidelity of Quake I's models, but how many people within the Doom community consider Quake I's models to be of high quality? Then there is the whole "The Hell That's Coming" TC that is already available for Quake I, so it would be kind of redundant. I think that there is a difference between having the ability to support 3D models, and having the ability to actually do so at a level that the common 3D artist and player alike would find to be worth their while. The Doom community has achieved the former, but we are still a ways away from the latter, assuming that it is even a shared goal within the community to begin with.

I've talked to other modelers and asked them if they would ever attempt to make models for Doom. The answer is usually somewhere between "Hell no!" and "Stop wasting my time with nonsense!" Another interesting yet not uncommon response is "Why would I do that when there are free, open source 3D engines out there that easily outperform anything that you'll currently find in the Doom community?" I've sat down and watched youtube videos of Doom's 3D models with some of them, and while they agree that the overall quality could be much better, a look at the comment section is usually enough to put them off from committing the time and resources necessary to make decent models for Doom. The general impression is that no matter how good your work is, the community will automatically reject it due to the fact that it is 3D models and not sprites. That may not be true across the board, but that is definitely the impression that I get from talking to other 3D artists.

Then there is the point that 3D models look completely out of place in Doom. They just don't have the look, movement, or feel of Doom. I've thrown away tons of 3D models that I've actually received many compliments on. They looked and moved pretty decently, but they didn't have that Doom look and feel to them. they were too "natural". A lot of Doom's art is implied, such as the details on the decorations and monsters, and the animations in-game. 3D models show everything from every angle, so you don't have the luxury of being able to let the player "fill in the blanks", so to speak. You're practically forced to take creative liberties, and those creative liberties are exactly what contribute to most 3D model packs not looking or feeling like Doom. A 3D model would look too "natural" and convey too much direct information compared to the implied nature of Doom's art. I've been told that the Duke HRP doesn't have this problem and it is based directly on Duke 3D sprites. However, look at how much larger and more detailed the Duke 3D sprites are compared to Doom's. There is a lot more for an artist to work with. I can look at a pig cop and pick out nearly every single detail on it. That is crucial to an artist who is trying to translate something from one medium (sprites) to another medium (polygons) while keeping the latter as faithful as possible to the former.

So, I guess that's the end of my ramble. If you read this far, then thanks. As an aside, I figure that it is more productive for me to focus on making my own sprite-based gameplay mod not suck so badly (Doom R3loaded), as opposed to trying to push a model pack that most don't even seem to want (or love to threaten me over, via email, for daring to put those "ugly 3D models" into "Their" game).

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On the topic but slightly unrelated, 3DGE is adopting a cube-based physics library specifically for 3D models to circumvent collision issues for bounding boxes -- so far, it is going great. Lots of minor things to work out with physics, but since 3DGE occupies everything in a 3D space, it will not take much longer to implement. That is one half of the battle solved for our port. :-)

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