Doom High Res Sprites - Kickstarter?

Well, so far everything seems to point towards that direction, so the only ones potentially affected are Chillax BFG spammers -and those couldn't care less about the sprites being hi-res In the first place. On a completely academic note, just how big are those hi-res imps?

They 634x310, so it's more then 8x bigger than original ( I know it should be in power of two, but remember that it is only test sprite). Coming back to the most important question - how big sprites will behave in sloughter maps. So I do another quick tests. Here we go:

(in)famous NUTS.wad + usd3mod

At start everything is ok, but when all monsters are activated there's one big lag and we have 0 fps :)

But! I make some map with 1200 monsters visible at time in one sector. 

On start everyting is ok, but when fights go on I notice framedrop to something between 60-24 fps, in most cases more then 50 fps. So it's fully playable.

I test this map with 600 hires imps...

...and don't notice any framedrops.

Here's my imp if you want to test it yourself:

https://cp.sync.com/dl/be0be1b10#4waejt5z-rb7ng5vk-8b3uqaih-je5yx3pn

Well then, at least for GPU-accelerated ports, it seems that big sprites are not a problem.

That being said, there's something comical about those screenshots....

7 hours ago, Reinchard said:

Here's my imp if you want to test it yourself:

https://cp.sync.com/dl/be0be1b10#4waejt5z-rb7ng5vk-8b3uqaih-je5yx3pn

Thanks for posting your imp! I love that imp!

I'm glad you're getting good performance out of it. Unfortunately, your tests don't really target the cache issue we were discussing a few posts back, because it showcases frames for only 1 hi-res monster.

To *really* test performance, you'd need to have hi-res sprites for all 17 Doom II monsters, and feature a map with all of them in a room. You don't need 1,200 of them, either. Maybe 12 each, or so. It's more about the number of *distinct* hi-res frames, not necessarily the number of monsters.

But, because you don't have hi-res images for all the monsters, you can use *any* hi-res images for this test. If it were me, I'd make copies of the hi-res imp images, and rename them to replace the other monster's frames. For example, you could copy TROOA1 16 times, renaming each copy to "BOSSA1", "HEADA1", "POSSA1", etc. This should not take much time to do. (an hour or so, maybe less?)

This is a very good, realistic test, and it creates a "worst-case scenario" for the Doom renderer, and for the CPU. When you go into a room with all 17 monsters, Doom will have to load hundreds of hi-res frames to paint the scene. If performance is acceptable in this test, most maps should play fine.

If anyone tries this test, be sure to try it in GL mode and software mode, because the potential problems are very different for hardware vs. software rendering.

5 hours ago, kb1 said:

To *really* test performance, you'd need to have hi-res sprites for all 17 Doom II monsters, and feature a map with all of them in a room.re rendering.

That's exactly what I did two posts above - besides of imp tests there is a test with 1200 hires monsters from Doom3 monster pack for Doom. Have you missed it? The test is reliable, proves that evey wad except nuts-like ones can handle it. Besides of all hires monsters, there is a lot of hires gfx associated with monsters, like fireballs, teleporting effects, smoke. 

Keep in mind that this is still on a GPU, so caching in the traditional sense might not even exist (older GPUs may not have any at all). There might even be some different handling of overdraws, compared to the software renderer.

I don't think Tea Monster creating 3d models and hi-res stuff with software rendering in mind. He probably thinking about mods like Doomsday or GZDoom.

When it comes to hi-res models or sprites, there's always some ambiguity as to what port(s) these are supposed to target, or even left as an afterthought. OK, so Ascension targeted Doomsday right off the bat, at least that's clear-cut even if it leaves a huge chunk of the Dooming community out. Now, unless there's some cross-port, broadly compatible way of making either of them work, such projects will always be left in a Limbo of sorts, because who would like to work with the premise of "make the assets first, worry about the target port and testing later"?

I don't know what exactly Tea Monster planned, I'm just doing test to check if this is even possible. So i prove that this is possible on ports like GZDoom or Doomsday. I suppose that if he is planing some extra graphic stuff, he's target are mods with extra graphic addons for sure, not Chocolate Doom for example. 

If I'm not mistaken ports like the classic ZDoom, ZDaemon, prBoom+ and others allow using sprite scaling and extra viewing angles, which in theory would make them targets for such a mod too, but with more restrictions (e.g. only 8-bit resources in the case of wall textures and sprites). A quick "downgrade" of the imp pack and a test in one of those ports would be most revealing... IMO, a quality hand-drawn sprite with no more than 2x scaling would be improvement enough for most players, even in software mode.

Besides, there's a minimum distance beyond which you normally don't get to see textures or sprites, so choosing a resolution/scaling factor also depends on your target audience. It's one thing making sure you'll get little to no pixelation at 320x200, at 640x480 etc. and another at 1080p or 4K.

I agree that 2x bigger sprites are enough. That solution requires less of work and should not produce any slowdowns.

The biggest sprites (e.g. Cyberdemon, SM) are already beyond a scaling factor of 2x compared to most common ones, esp. zombies and imps, so a test using a DEHACKED sprite swap of every monster's frames for the Cyberdemon's in NUTS.WAD would also be interesting, if a little unsettling.

16 hours ago, Reinchard said:

That's exactly what I did two posts above - besides of imp tests there is a test with 1200 hires monsters from Doom3 monster pack for Doom. Have you missed it? The test is reliable, proves that evey wad except nuts-like ones can handle it. Besides of all hires monsters, there is a lot of hires gfx associated with monsters, like fireballs, teleporting effects, smoke. 

Oh, I didn't realize that the other monsters were hi-res too - my mistake. Yes, in that case, your test is good...for GPU rendering. All of that previous technical discussion was us theorizing about the effects of hi-res sprites on the software renderer. The possible issues with hi-res sprites are completely different when using the software renderer.

15 hours ago, Maes said:

Keep in mind that this is still on a GPU, so caching in the traditional sense might not even exist (older GPUs may not have any at all). There might even be some different handling of overdraws, compared to the software renderer.

Yes, I think the sprite images get pushed to the graphics card, and stay cached on the card. So, as long as the card has enough memory, you're good. I don't know why, but I've always felt like using graphics acceleration was cheating, a bit, as far as Doom is concerned. Please, no offense to GL programmers intended - what you've done with Doom is truly awesome. But, I expect Doom to run well on GPUs. What always fascinated me was that Doom could run at all, when powered completely by the CPU. This was Doom's claim to fame, back in the day, after all.

12 hours ago, Maes said:

a test using a DEHACKED sprite swap of every monster's frames for the Cyberdemon's in NUTS.WAD would also be interesting, if a little unsettling.

Coming from a guy that lusts after cyberasses :)

23 hours ago, Maes said:

When it comes to hi-res models or sprites, there's always some ambiguity as to what port(s) these are supposed to target, or even left as an afterthought. OK, so Ascension targeted Doomsday right off the bat, at least that's clear-cut even if it leaves a huge chunk of the Dooming community out. Now, unless there's some cross-port, broadly compatible way of making either of them work, such projects will always be left in a Limbo of sorts, because who would like to work with the premise of "make the assets first, worry about the target port and testing later"?

Nope. the models are specifically made for Doomsday 2.0 as that is (as far as I know) the only port that will support the normal maps and other graphical goodness. We don't have the time to create separate packs for all the different Doom ports. 

Having said that, for the modelling project, we do release our source files and encourage other modders to adapt our resources for other ports. We want modders to take our models and use them in other ports, we just don't have the time make all the different packs and optimise the models to each port. 

Thanks for releasing your stuff! A question: Are some of the textures based off of Reinchard's work? I thought they were very nice and faithful.

I think hires sprites should be not more than three or four times bigger

or else they appear flat also since there are other ways to enhance them

like e.g. high contrasts like seen in D64 or Donkey Kong or Primal Rage 2.  

All the model textures are created in Painter or have been painted in ZBrush polypaint. None of Reinchard's textures were used by ourselves.

Wait... What??? xD

Edit: Oh now I'm see, nevermind

fuck sprites. stick to high quality models, highres sprites will just look stupid trust me. gzdoom now supports norm and spec maps so now they will look beautifully detailed. its time to move forward with the engine not backwards. I'm wiling to help animate the models for free.

1 hour ago, Ermi said:

fuck sprites. stick to high quality models, highres sprites will just look stupid trust me. gzdoom now supports norm and spec maps so now they will look beautifully detailed. its time to move forward with the engine not backwards. I'm wiling to help animate the models for free.

Uhm, I don't think things are as simple as you make them out to be. A few things to consider:

-Gzdoom only supports MD3 models. Even with PBR I don't think there is that much you could really do with those. There is a reason most current models look like crap, and it has nothing to do with the textures.

-What is stopping people from giving sprites PBR textures?

-Perhaps this is wrong but I don't think MD3 even supports skeleton animations. There is a reason the current Doom 3D models are so poorly animated. I will admit though that this could be entirely incorrect since this might just apply to MD2 models actually, and that the animations for the current 3D models are merely poorly done.

-High res sprites do NOT look stupid. Look at the Doom 64 sprites, they are pretty much an official high res version though obviously what was considered high res then is not considered high res today.

I

10 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

 

Uhm, I don't think things are as simple as you make them out to be. A few things to consider:

 

-Gzdoom only supports MD3 models. Even with PBR I don't think there is that much you could really do with those. There is a reason most current models look like crap, and it has nothing to do with the textures.

 

-What is stopping people from giving sprites PBR textures?

 

-Perhaps this is wrong but I don't think MD3 even supports skeleton animations. There is a reason the current Doom 3D models are so poorly animated. I will admit though that this could be entirely incorrect since this might just apply to MD2 models actually, and that the animations for the current 3D models are merely poorly done.

 

-High res sprites do NOT look stupid. Look at the Doom 64 sprites, they are pretty much an official high res version though obviously what was considered high res then is not considered high res 

 

what are you on about... its very easy. I animate in md3 all the time. looks perfectly fine, it's the animator not the animation that's the problem. I use skeletal mesh animations on all my models lol just look at my animated hands in my survive mod. that shit is 30 animated frames a second.

I think doom 64 sprites look terrible against the low res originals but whatever,  if you lot think it looks great then go for it. its not my project lol

2 minutes ago, Ermi said:

I

what are you on about... its very easy. I animate in md3 all the time. looks perfectly fine, it's the animator not the animation that's the problem. I use skeletal mesh animations on all my models lol just look at my animated hands in my survive mod. that shit is 30 animated frames a second.

Well I guess the Doom 3D models that currently exist are just badly animated then. But I am still pretty sure that when Quake 2 was made that there were no skeleton animations which is why I thought you could not animate MD3 models very well.

16 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

 

Well I guess the Doom 3D models that currently exist are just badly animated then. But I am still pretty sure that when Quake 2 was made that there were no skeleton animations which is why I thought you could not animate MD3 models very well.

honestly I have no problems animating in md3. I use a blender convertor which exports perfectly even meshes above the md3s limit. its brilliant. like I said if said person can't animate then the animation will suck. I also use interpolated frames in  modeldefs to smooth out any choppiness. For smooth animations you literally have to manualy adjust each frame sometimes.

20 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

 

Well I guess the Doom 3D models that currently exist are just badly animated then. But I am still pretty sure that when Quake 2 was made that there were no skeleton animations which is why I thought you could not animate MD3 models very well.

Take a look at this. This is the animation process of my model in blender before converting to md3.

I think if the sprites are too realistic they stand out over the rest of the game.  Even when playing some of the advanced mods like KDitzD, those sprites just don't stand up to the level of detail and texures. 

I think the best approach is to stick with the same cartoon like art style and improve on that.  There are some decent hd models if you google it, but there is a fine line, and you will have to either make even more sprite frames or just go with 3d models.

On 12/9/2017 at 2:36 AM, Tea Monster said:

Do you really believe that me starting a kickstarter is going to bring down the entire Doom modding community? 

 

Really???

I personally like Your will and your results in the project. And I would personally spend some money to support it. But I don't see kickstarter the optimal solution for you as you would specifically receive money to produce models of art covered by copiright. My desire is to see the project finished (and possible to get 3-d models to 3d-print and to paint) but I guess that best choice is patreon, giving access in advance to previews of your models or to mods betas to your patreon supporters. Seems more safe for you.

On 12/9/2017 at 6:11 PM, hardcore_gamer said:

 

The model itself looks nice but the textures make it look like it's made out plastic, like's its some kind of toy or action figure. This is actually the problem I have with a lot of 3D models. Good texturing is a MUST if the model is suppose to look convincing.

I like it. I still hope it will be available soon for 3-d printing, I would really like to paint this model.