Creating custom graphics

I'd like to try my hand at constructing some TITLEPICs/textures (though I'd probably suck at it). Is there a program any of you would recommend for creating custom graphics from scratch?

first program you need is Photoshop.
I have made tons of Doom sprites and graphics for doom and its really a lot more simple than people make it out to be.

Go to the Adobe web site and download the photoshop trial and it will help you do all your graphics. I think the trial is like 30 days or something. I would recommend buying it or finding a download for the full version somewhere, but thats up to you. Once you do you just need to start learning photoshop cuz its going to take a while to learn to use it, but once you get used to it, you will open a whole new world of graphics design.

Once you familiarize yourself with Photoshop, you have to get used to the graphics for the doom engine. Doom uses a color palette that you will have to go by and lots of other things like that.
Get an editor like XWE, and extract the interpic graphic and any other graphics from the doom2.wad and you can edit them like that to get used to making graphics.

Right now I just recommend just learning photoshop though.

If you need help with any graphics design for Doom, just send me a pm.

Hope this helps

There are free alternatives you can use to Photoshop, if you choose not to buy it or to "find a full download somewhere" (which is illegal).

Paint.net
and
The GIMP

Are both the most popular free image manipulation programs. I prefer Paint.net, personally, as it's a little more user friendly. But GIMP is arguably more powerful.

your not going to find a free alternative that will even come close to the tools you will need to make proper graphics.
Ive used paint.net and gimp.

You've heard the phrase "you get what you pay for"
Photoshop is well worth the money

A cheap alternative would be Paint Shop pro, and it does just as good, I used it for 3 years designing doom graphics.

Photoshop is totally not needed to make gfx for Doom. ID did not use PS, they used Deluxe Paint afaik.
Photoshop also does not make you magically better at making art.

A really nice free pixeltool is GrafX2 which has versions for lots of platforms.

And there is also Cosmigo Promotion which is not free but very powerful for pixelart and has also great animation capabilities. There is a free version tho which has some features removed.

depending on who you are, windows paint could produce amazing results, but powerful tools do make it much easier and faster... Especially for beginner artists. Besides, I just stated that its what I would recommend because I was used to it, I never said it would make you magically better at making art. The creativity is ultimately in the artists mind.

But resampling to indexed color from true color is always a ugly result.

id did use Deluxe Paint indeed for the graphics. No adobe software was involved in the making of Doom.

(Except for a later Doom's credits screen, which has obvious Photoshop 2.5 light filter)

Ptoing said:

Photoshop is totally not needed to make gfx for Doom. ID did not use PS, they used Deluxe Paint afaik.

And also the "Fuzzy Pumper Palette Shop".

I use the GIMP for all of my graphics editing needs, including new graphics here. If all you're doing is placing pixels, virtually any program will work provided it has decent palette abilities. Photoshop is not really designed as a pixel editing program though it can certainly be used as such. Its strengths lie in its ability to filter and modify photographic images. Paint Shop Pro is more designed for pixel art...or at least pre-8 versions are...it sort of went the way of Photoshop starting with version 8.

Thanks for the advice. I was just wondering what you would recommend.

e: I already have GIMP. Is there a way to use the Doom palette with it?

Yes. Actually you can download GIMP palette files for Doom, Heretic and Hexen from the ZDoom wiki. http://zdoom.org/wiki/GIMP

Dee said:

your not going to find a free alternative that will even come close to the tools you will need to make proper graphics.
Ive used paint.net and gimp.

You've heard the phrase "you get what you pay for"
Photoshop is well worth the money

A cheap alternative would be Paint Shop pro, and it does just as good, I used it for 3 years designing doom graphics.

you are obviously not very good then and making graphics. All the textures I did in the dhtp are done in gimp

There really are some programs that make it easier to do certain types of graphics. But all the programming wizardry in the world won't help you if you have zero artistic talent. Case in point:

http://www.loneoceans.com/lo_main/art/pixel/index.htm

Pure talent.

KuriKai said:

you are obviously not very good then and making graphics. All the textures I did in the dhtp are done in gimp

You shouldnt say that about someone if you have never seen any of their work. I just now got registered on Doomworld and i'll be posting up stuff soon.

And as I said before. you can make good graphics in windows paint... Depends on how much patience and artistic ability you have. I was just suggesting tools to use...

Dee said:

You shouldnt say that about someone if you have never seen any of their work. I just now got registered on Doomworld and i'll be posting up stuff soon.

And as I said before. you can make good graphics in windows paint... Depends on how much patience and artistic ability you have. I was just suggesting tools to use...

I was just going on what you said, you said that free alternatives can't do anything remotely close to programs you pay for. And that is just you making shit up to sound smart

KuriKai said:

I was just going on what you said, you said that free alternatives can't do anything remotely close to programs you pay for. And that is just you making shit up to sound smart

what the hell is your problem? Its called an opinion. I was just trying to help this guy out. Im not trying to sound smart. I'm obviously smart enough to not go around trying to piss people off for no reason. I dont know you and you have to reason to act like such a jerk...

Gez said:

And also the "Fuzzy Pumper Palette Shop".

That's a inhouse tool that remaps colors en masse iirc (it was a pain enough to do that in Deluxe Paint one frame at a time). Not a real paint program.

Dee said:

You've heard the phrase "you get what you pay for"
Photoshop is well worth the money

If all you're after is a 256 colour pixel editor, Adobe CS4 is ridiculously expensive while GIMP is at the right price but suffers from feature bloat.

Dee said:

what the hell is your problem? Its called an opinion. I was just trying to help this guy out. Im not trying to sound smart. I'm obviously smart enough to not go around trying to piss people off for no reason. I dont know you and you have to reason to act like such a jerk...

Honestly I think the part about suggesting finding alternate means to acquire a full version of photoshop without paying is enough to be upset.

I had no idea the thread would last this long. Anyhoo, GIMP wasn't working for me, so I thought I'd try another program. Could somebody post a .txt file of the doom palette for use in Paint.NET?

Not a practical proposition - PAINT.net's custom palettes are limited to 96 colours.

I was lucky enough to be given a legit copy of Photoshop CS2, and I have to say there isn't a day that goes by where I don't find it essential. There are lots of programs that are great for graphics editing, but when it comes to the color-matching algorithms in Photoshop (for palette conversions) or the various filters and options, it doesn't get any better. Your best bet for a cheap copy of Photoshop would be an older, most likely, used version. Any version 4.0 or later would be a sufficient alternative to the free software you will find.

Paint Shop Pro is good too, and affordable, and works great with palettes. (If you can find it)

PSP3 is the minimum for serious editing in PSP. It starts getting really great by PSP5. PSP7 starts to feel bloaty. There are shareware versions of PSP available for you to try.

I think Paint Shop Pro 3 is freeware, isn't it? It's pretty lightweight, but it should get the job done. I think I have a palette file laying around somewhere for PSP too.

PSP4 has a free lightweight edition that has almost all the features of the normal package but lacks LZW support (which is fine...who the hell uses GIF these days anyways?). I got it years ago on a driver disc for a ZOOM modem. PSP7 is the one I have always used...it starts up fast and has the nice integrated image browser, plus most older Photoshop plugins will work in it. 8 is rather a turd with its slow-ass startup time and "I'm a Photoshop tew!" overall look, feel, and function.

Are there any of those plugins you would recommend? Also, how good is PSP7 at converting true color pictures to a 256 color palette like Doom's?

PSP7's color reduction methods are pretty decent, but perhaps not quite as on-par as Adobe's. It really depends on the color pool though; I've gotten some amazing reductions in PSP7 that Photoshop couldn't come close to matching, and some 64 color reductions in Photoshop that PSP7 couldn't get right with a full 256. PSP7 uses several different reduction methods so you can try out a combination of things. If I have problems reducing to 8 bit color directly, I'll first reduce to 16 bit color using a nearest neighbor method and then drop to 256 with a dither method and things usually come out alright. In those cases though, it's usually better to try Photoshop's reduction method. Windows itself has a color matching function but it is based on hue averaging so the results aren't always accurate, though it is fast (and needs to be since Windows uses it in realtime on low-color displays).

As for recommended plugins...can't really think of any since it's been ages since I've actually had to use any, sorry.

Thanks for the info; I'll keep that in mind.