Screenshots with or without weapon?

I am ready to publish screenshots of my level (DOOM1). Should I take them with out without a weapon and the doomguy's hand showing. If the answer is without, how would I achieve this with the prboom engine?

I generally take weaponless screenshots in older ports by switching from pistol to fist and pressing the key in the brief moment between them when neither is visible.

An easy way to have no weapon showing is to use a deh patch that sets the player's starting health to zero. You'll find one in this zip. That works best if you are taking fullscreen images - if you have the status bar showing, then you see that the player has zero health. This also means the monsters don't move.

Status bar and BFG or GTFO

So far I've been using the method Jayextee mentioned, at least on PrBoom+, but for ZDoom-based ports I disable all HUD/weapon graphics to get a clean view when necessary. The zombie method should work really well!

I just guessed you could type spectate in the console and that works (At least in Zandronum).

Normally I like to show weapons, but for taking pictures of a map to use within a selection map, I put it in spectate mode.

Another method is you could make a pwad with a blank graphic in place of the fist idle frame.

I like screenshots that are no weapon/no HUD/no monsters, unless the monster(s) serve as focal point/ enhance the theme of the shot.

Like a Pinkie on a submarine? that's cool but no./

A Disciple in a ruined castle or Trooper in a techbase? now we're talkin'

1 hour ago, reflex17 said:

unless the monster(s) serve as focal point/ enhance the theme of the shot.

Yeah that was my thought. If you are focusing on gameplay, show me the action.

If it's more about visuals, maybe a slight plus if you show without status bar/hud but it's fine either way.

For screenshotting, I have a custom binding in ZDoom which removes the weapon, turns off messages, and freezes the action so I can get cool shots from any angle without worrying about monsters.

To take screenshots in GZDoom without the weapons, bind a key like this in autoexec.cfg,

for example h

bind h "wait 2; r_drawplayersprites 0; wait 2; screenshot; wait 2; r_drawplayersprites 1;"

Thank you all for your input. I figured it out.

I liked DuckReconMajor's point about whether to take screenshots with or without monsters depending on showcasing either details or the action aspect.

My level is huge (over 3 hours) and I have created over 100 screenshots. How many screenshots would you guys think is appropriate and how many are too much? The aim is to interest playtesters.

1 hour ago, ryg said:

... How many screenshots would you guys think is appropriate and how many are too much? The aim is to interest playtesters.

I like to include the monsters in screenshots to show, more or less, the difficulty of the map.

Maybe 4 screenshots max in the forum. You can always create an album in imgur showcasing more screnshots.