Has PBR for Doom been a disappointment so far?

I don't care about visuals, gameplay is important to me.

Wow, you came to the thread just to say that? Amazing!

Never mind The-Complete-Idiot, it's probably worth blocking them at this point, heh.

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"That just sort of begs the question of what the point was honestly. Why not just use models seeing as they are using a modern engine and everything else is 3D anyway?"

On 9/27/2018 at 10:53 AM, Lampenpam said:

Because the game is build on being extremly optimized. I quote their storepage: "OPTIMIZED to run on a toaster (a pretty nice toaster)" 

 

A sprite with a normal map as viewmodel looks almost identical to a high polygone 3d model but is much faster to render. I'd love seeing this in gzdoom too

Actually, the normal mapped + PBR sprites were the first thing we made in the game. It kinda went from there.
I guess you could say "because it looked cool" was the reason we did it.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In case you haven't seen; here's what they look like:

Those screenshots are from GZDoom? Wow!

18 minutes ago, Empyre said:

Those screenshots are from GZDoom? Wow!

Sadly they're from UE4. They are good examples of how good sprites with PBR can look though. 

16 hours ago, el zee said:

 

Actually, the normal mapped + PBR sprites were the first thing we made in the game. It kinda went from there.
I guess you could say "because it looked cool" was the reason we did it.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In case you haven't seen; here's what they look like:


 

Cool thanks for posting!

So having worked with PBR weapon sprites successfully before, do you think it's doable to 'retrofit' the Doom weapon sprites with PBR or is it a wild goose chase unlikely to be worth it?

4 hours ago, grahf said:

Cool thanks for posting!

 

So having worked with PBR weapon sprites successfully before, do you think it's doable to 'retrofit' the Doom weapon sprites with PBR or is it a wild goose chase unlikely to be worth it?

As much as I would like to say yes, it will probably never look as good as making something from scratch. However there are so many genius people in the doom community, someone might figure out a way to pull it off.

5 hours ago, grahf said:

Cool thanks for posting!

 

So having worked with PBR weapon sprites successfully before, do you think it's doable to 'retrofit' the Doom weapon sprites with PBR or is it a wild goose chase unlikely to be worth it?

Absolutely, it can be done. I've read a lot of negativity in this thread (not from you) about how "worthy" it is, and "no one will use it" bla bla. And, it's true: No one will use it...if it's not available. Predicting the future, and saying that it's going to suck. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. el zee's screenshots show how awesome it can be.

Other than all the other examples posted, i'm also gonna give you mine.

Personally i love working with standard res textures + PBR, they still have that retro look and don't clash with the geometry of the maps, while also being a bit more fancy and improving the atmosphere i'm going for.

Every wall in this screen uses normal and specular maps, including the grate, and the water uses normals, speculars plus a bit of parallax mapping. The water's specular map is specifically made so i could simulate water reflections with no performance loss, parallax also gives it a "fluid" feeling with the texture slightly going up and down with the waves.

On 9/29/2018 at 1:01 AM, kb1 said:

I've read a lot of negativity in this thread (not from you) about how "worthy" it is, and "no one will use it" bla bla. And, it's true: No one will use it...if it's not available. Predicting the future, and saying that it's going to suck. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Should probably clarify that I wasn't trying to be negative, I was just curious how it would look on sprites, I'm fairly new to this sort of things, I'm sorry if I sounded like I was trying to be negative.

12 hours ago, tempdecal.wad said:

Should probably clarify that I wasn't trying to be negative, I was just curious how it would look on sprites, I'm fairly new to this sort of things, I'm sorry if I sounded like I was trying to be negative.

Thanks for the clarification. And, no, you didn't sound negative.

I can totally respect the purist mentality, which is very strongly supported. But improvements to Doom require a lot of effort and time and dedication. Those people involved in making improvements require collaboration, encouragement, and lots of testing, not to mention the need for plenty of good resources. It seems like some people are ready to throw in the towel, before discovering what this new technology makes possible. To be 'disappointed' at this stage is way premature, and it doesn't do the tech justice. Shouldn't there be an amazement stage, before jumping right to disappointment?

I would love to see sprites get supported, even the originals at original resolution. Wish I could draw...

I was actually talking about the PBR sprites thing, I wasn't saying I'm disappointed or whatever, but yeah I guess you're right.

13 hours ago, Batandy said:

Other than all the other examples posted, i'm also gonna give you mine.

Personally i love working with standard res textures + PBR, they still have that retro look and don't clash with the geometry of the maps, while also being a bit more fancy and improving the atmosphere i'm going for.

 

Every wall in this screen uses normal and specular maps, including the grate, and the water uses normals, speculars plus a bit of parallax mapping. The water's specular map is specifically made so i could simulate water reflections with no performance loss, parallax also gives it a "fluid" feeling with the texture slightly going up and down with the waves.

I'm really liking the low-res PBR stuff like in this example.  It's sort of like seeing in-the-flesh what one would imagine when looking at back-of-the-box screenshots all those years ago. 

Red Faction or Unreal like water?

Yes, lowres PBR is just the most fitting thing for the more retro aesthetics of the Doom engine. I love it very much and would love to see more people utilizing it in interesting ways. 

2 hours ago, tempdecal.wad said:

I was actually talking about the PBR sprites thing.

Yes, I would love to see the sprites be included. Starting with the original sprites should reduce the huge amount of work that would be required to add all the layers, but they provide an excellent template.

2 hours ago, Reiken said:

I'm really liking the low-res PBR stuff like in this example.  It's sort of like seeing in-the-flesh what one would imagine when looking at back-of-the-box screenshots all those years ago. 

It's breathtaking. Doom has always looked good, even at low resolutions. But with today's high-res monitors, combined with these realistic effects adds to the immersion. And that's what's really important. At the end of the day, the idea is that the player feels like he is visiting an actual place, not looking at a bunch of effects.

This is a natural evolution of the graphics tech. From Wolfenstein, first, Doom textured the floors and ceilings. Then, Doom added arbitrary angles, and sector heights. Then, diminished lighting. Each of these improvements worked with the same texture scale, where at distance of 160 units away, there's a 1 to 1 relationship between actual texture size, and the texture rendered in 3D.

And, now, PBR adds a new level of detail, and can do so using the same texture scale, without having to resort to hi-res textures. Sure, hi-res textures are even better. But adding PBR layers to the original resources is a practical next step... that can realistically be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time.

1 hour ago, elend said:

Yes, lowres PBR is just the most fitting thing for the more retro aesthetics of the Doom engine. I love it very much and would love to see more people utilizing it in interesting ways. 

Adding PBR layers to all the original resources instantly makes tens of thousands of WADs look that much better, moreso than most any other improvement.

I've yet to see an HD coat of paint for Doom 2 that doesn't look out of place.

EDIT: The lo-res screenshot looks nifty though.