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lazygecko

High-res sprites

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Considering there is a high-res item pack available for Skulltag, I thought it'd be possible to do the same for Doom's monsters and have them scaled correctly. I don't know if anyone has ever done this before. I extracted some sprites just to do a quick proof-of-concept and I'm pretty pleased with the results so far.





They are 50% bigger than the original sprites. I guess you could go either further, but I don't want them looking too out of place in relation to the world's textures. Fixing the blurred edges when upscaling was easy enough, and it was done using mostly automated techniques. The only handmade touchup was a bit of extra glow on Pinky's eyes. Like I said, it was done quick and they could probably look a lot better with just a bit more effort.

I have no idea if there's any way to get all the frames for each sprite extracted in one convinient sheet, cause that would make the job a lot less tedious. I guess the obstacles after touching them up would be readjusting to the Doom palette and aligning them correctly, I really don't have much insight when it comes to that.

Anyone interested?

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My 2 cents:

You say that the process is mostly automated; if you can describe the process sufficiently then I'm sure it can be reproduced programmatically in an algorithm that could be implemented in a source port directly.

I must say though, that the results are significantly nicer than that produced by the hq2x algorithm on the same sprites.

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The baron looks okay, but the demon is too grainy. You should work with the original palette, though, because when you convert them they'll get messed up to a point.

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I can't imagine that any wholly-automated process that sticks to the original palette would lead to ideal results. If there's a certain scale multiplication that everyone feels would be most useful, then someone should expand the sprites to that consistent size and do extensive detail touching-up.

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This would be even better if it didnt use the Doom palette, because then I could make high-res PNG sprites for GZDoom. Which would be majorly awesome

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Hm. That'd be handy but less universally useful. I'm pretty sure that ZDoom and possibly some other software renderers can handle higher resolution sprites but not true-colour graphics, and it would be good if a sprite enhancement would work with these ports as well.

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These are the first hi-res'd sprites i've seen that are decent, better than those smudge attempts seen earlier on zdoom

i can hi-res up stuff too, but doom's lots of sprites.

DaniJ said:

My 2 cents:

You say that the process is mostly automated; if you can describe the process sufficiently then I'm sure it can be reproduced programmatically in an algorithm that could be implemented in a source port directly.


No
just no
you can't ever replicate a good looking result just resampling stuff. That's just lazy.

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He already said that the technique he used was almost entirely automated :P

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well that's probably bullshit as i know of no scaler that can pixel in appropriate detail touchups to everything. if one existed then sf2hd would have been done ages ago

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Creaphis said:

Hm. That'd be handy but less universally useful. I'm pretty sure that ZDoom and possibly some other software renderers can handle higher resolution sprites but not true-colour graphics, and it would be good if a sprite enhancement would work with these ports as well.


True, but if the sprites were available in their own non-doom palette they could be used that way by ports that support them. Especially if the process of making them has to go through that stage anyway. Then the sprites could be converted to the Doom palette for ports that don't support higher colours.

So, I suggest 2 packages. 1 in png format in their own colours - which would be very much appreciated by those who like to use such things - and one of the same sprites converted to the Doom palette. I don't see that doing this would involve much, if any, additional work.

As a matter of interest, how many ports support sprite scaling and not png graphics anyway?


Anyway, yes, these samples are very good looking and much better than previous attempts that I have seen.

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What I meant by mostly automated is that I just carefully threw some filters on them after upscaling. The graininess comes from a bit of noise I added, as otherwise it'd look a bit too smooth and cartoonish.

Fixing them for the doom palette shouldn't be that much of a problem, most tools like Photoshop, PSP and GIMP can beautifully adapt images to even the most absurd palettes.

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can you go any higher in terms of resolution

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Whats the time take of a single sprite from start to finish?

Also, do you plan on correcting some of the anomalies that are created by the original sprites, like the darkness around the demons eye and what happens to the imps eyes and mouth?

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I'm not easily happy when it comes to replacing textures or sprites, because, in my opinion, the replacements are often of poor quality (cheap photoshopping, resized or don't align properly like the original texture would) but I actually like what you did here. The sprites are good and don't destroy the original Doom feeling.

Though, to match with the high-res textures, I really think you should make 200% size versions (instead of 150% which is what these are). Do you think that's doable? I would love you!

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I found a rather convoluted method of enlarging sprites that looked just about perfect, but I'm not sure how large you can go before anomalies start creeping in. 130% was as large as I needed for my project, but it might work with higher values.

Instructions are for PSP8, so substitute the unfeather tool for whatever the equivalent is in whatever you're using:


1. Increase colour depth to 16 million colours
2. Magic wand the background
3. Invert Selection (so you have everything except the cyan background selected)
4. Resize 130% Bilinear
5. Selections -> Modify -> Unfeather
6. Copy, Paste as new image
7. Apply Doom Palette
8. Fill background Cyan

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I did try 200%, but I never managed to get desirable results with it. 175% seems to be OK though. Here's the revised Pinky:



I also emphasised the highlights on the skin to make it a bit shinier, which appears more detailed. I won't do any extensive sprite reworking until I work out a nice "template" procedure, though I guess I am getting there.

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I wish I could see upright demons too in Doom. And have those demons shoot "floor boiling" magic. How would a demon posturing as a baron look like?

Everything looks wicked, and if it's automated, I see no problem on updating the whole Doom graphics and making a Choco-like port supporting them.

How large are the graphic units when seen point-blank? Maybe the Doom sprites and textures could be scaled in order to completely end the pixelation.

EDIT: I love the anomaly around the 150% demon's eyes! They make the monster look angrier.

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Like enjay asked, how many ports would even support use of these sprites appropriately, and then of those ports which ones won't support using an independent palette? Edge maybe? I don't think the doom palette should matter so much because you're not going to be able to use these in boom or vanilla or choco anyway.

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Nice work...need hi res everything in doom.Kinda like the texture relacement in Risen 3d.Maybe replace textures and sprites?Just a thought.

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I was thinking of one day "filling in" and "smoothing out" pixels on the standard "double size cyberdemon with two guns" sprite. But never could be bothered. I did once see somebody's "improved" version but it was the same size as the regular cybie. A better scaling-up of that would be awesome.

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Upscaled sprites usually look like crap, but these don't suck. The imp and demon's faces still look a little off (see the eyes and especially the teeth) but that shouldn't be too hard to fix...

I'd like to see this done to some of the patches and flats, too.

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These don't suck, but they also don't look like much of an improvement to me. Then again, I only play Doom in 320x200, so I'm obviously heavily biased towards sexy large pixels.

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There's already at least 1 high-resolution texture pack available, so I don't see any reason to start another.

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