This is the game I'm making using Freedoom's assets

[masterneme]

Hi,

 

Some time ago I made a thread asking about the licensing terms of Freedoom and since then I've been using the assets to complete my game, a sprite based FPS using Unreal Engine 4.

 

Here it is the result of my current build:

 

 

[no longer being used]

Nice job! Could I help do sounds and sprites?

[Ferk]

It looks really awesome!

I know you described the basic idea of your project already in your previous thread, but I was wondering what are your plans on the license for the assets and code?

It would be really nice if there could be a collaboration between your project and Freedoom in such a way that any new sounds and sprites to your project could also be used in Freedoom and vice-versa.

I guess your engine doesn't have the limitations in number of different monsters that Freedoom has, so it could allow for more creative freedom and be sort of a Freedoom++, you could have more than one different kind of imp for example (the ones you are using are from an old version of Freedoom).

Edited August 28, 2018 by Ferk

[Erick]

The OBLIGE levels are placeholders to see how the game runs and test things right? Just want to clear the confusion a bit, because otherwise this looks great!

 

And with what Ferk said, running on UE4 means there is no need to limit the number of enemies (and weapons?) to the number vanilla Doom has. With these limits out of the way, it's a great opportunity to get some ideas on sprites, sounds, and overall gameplay. I noticed in the video description that this game will be up on Steam, but I still wonder if it may be possible for Freedoom to use your game's resources.

[masterneme]

Yes the levels are to test things out and have some screenshot and other media to show.

 

Right now I don't have plans to make new assets at least for this game. BUT if it does well I'd like to make a sequel with pre-rendered graphics. Think Doom 64 but with today's tech.

 

Maybe I could create a repository and adapt the sprites and textures to Doom's requirements like resolutions, offsets, palette and such. In this case it should be possible to make WADs out of this content.

 

Whatever I make and use will be shared. The code will be released as CC0, with the Unlicense or similiar, I haven't thought that much about it. I just want it to be available for anyone. And I also want to port it to Godot Engine.

 

So yeah, there could be a Freedoom++ using UE4/Godot and the available game content.

[EngineerKappa]

This looks very promising so far!

 

I don't use UE4 so I don't know how the sprites work, but I have a nitpick/suggestion.

Could you base the angle of sprites to be perpendicular with the camera and not pointing at it? That would make it so sprites don't do that weird turn near the corners of the screen. Here's a little diagram of what I mean.

 

I just bring this up because I've made a few 3D projects in Game Maker, and I can easily notice that effect. It should even take less time if you use the same camera angle for every sprite instead of calculating a new one.

 

[masterneme]

On 10/7/2018 at 5:49 AM, EngineerKappa said:

This looks very promising so far!

 

I don't use UE4 so I don't know how the sprites work, but I have a nitpick/suggestion.

Could you base the angle of sprites to be perpendicular with the camera and not pointing at it? That would make it so sprites don't do that weird turn near the corners of the screen. Here's a little diagram of what I mean.

 

I just bring this up because I've made a few 3D projects in Game Maker, and I can easily notice that effect. It should even take less time if you use the same camera angle for every sprite instead of calculating a new one.

 

This change is already added on my latest updates ;)

 

I didn't do it before because with UE4 you can use shaders to transform sprites in different ways but I don't know how yet.

 

But one person from the forum told me a way with some code and I implemented it.

 

What's the difference with his method and using shaders? CPU is heavily involved and I'm not sure how will impact the game with many characters on screen and gibs and stuff. It shouldn't matter much with modern CPUs but still...

 

Everything looks much better now:

 

 

I'm working on a 4 map demo with random generated maps to test the gameplay, would you like to try it when I finish it?

[masterneme]

Hi there,

 

I want to talk about something.

 

I've been receiving some comments about my game saying that it looks too similar to Freedoom, which is not surprising, so I decided to start working on making stuff by my own with my own style.

 

I like the textures and sounds so I'll keep them but anything that has a sprite will be substituted. Another reason to do this is because there are characters in Freedoom that are placeholders or not totally finished and overall it doesn't look cohesive.

 

My drawing skills suck so I'll use Blender to make 3D models and then sprites out of renders.

 

Here is the thing, if you want I can make models for those monsters that are placeholders and use them as reference to finish them. As I stated in the past I was going to share some of my stuff anyway so this can be a great opportunity to cooperate.

 

Maybe I can fork Freedoom and put the models there and then we can decide how to make use of them.

 

And there are ways to make renders without looking "realistic" with some toon shaders and we can reduce the amount of work greatly. Then with GIMP or whatever change the palette to use the one from Doom.

 

The problem I see with Freedoom right now is that for sprites there's a dependency to raymoohawk, and because he's no longer here, the monsters that are left and need work will be permanently a work-in-progress and/or will look out of place.

 

But if there are 3D models and instructions on how to use them we can streamline the production and make it all, what's the word, accessible?

 

Let me know what you think,

Cheers.

Edited June 29, 2019 by masterneme

[luckypunk]

There are Doom mods that can use 3D models instead of sprites, so that would be a great contribution anyway. I doubt that automatically generated sprites will look better than what we have right now, but they could be a starting point.

 

I see one problem with your plan: If you remake the sprites to look different from Freedoom, then donate the sprites to Freedoom and get all your new sprites into Freedoom, your game will once again look exactly like Freedoom.

 

[masterneme]

I want my sprites to look different, they have to or the story won't make any sense.

 

What monster do you think is the one who needs more attention?

 

For what I've been reading it seems like it could be the Archvile.

[luckypunk]

17 hours ago, masterneme said:

What monster do you think is the one who needs more attention?

 

I don't know, if that's a singular or a plural you. I'm really not much of an arts guy, but in case it is a singular you:

 

I'm generally quite happy with the current state of the Freedoom sprites. Of course, every sprite can be improved, but nothing currently seems so bad that it desperately needs improvement.

 

Are you using a current version of Freedoom? Is your Archvile a red skeleton or a big walking eye?

 

If it's still a skeleton you should probably grab a more recent version.

 

The Archvile could use some reshading to better fit in with the rest of the sprites. Otherwise I see nothing wrong with the current version.

I'd like to see a new design for the Lost Soul. That's the one sprite were we're still blindly following Doom's path. And that could bring some legal troubles in the future. Of course redesigning the Lost Soul would make a redesign of the Pain Elemental necessary. On the other hand a new Lost Soul could just go into Phase 1 until someone redesigns the Pain Elemental.

 

I always thought that a big flying cockroach (or something else insect-like) would make a nice Lost Soul replacement. The Pain Elemental could be a swarm of these.

 

Another thing that bugs me a little is the Revenant. It's just a dark silhouette with red eyes. Not very scary.

 

Again my personal opinions are probably not very relevant for this project. I'd say just pick whatever gets your creative juices flowing.

[masterneme]

I have the version with the skeleton but I read that the walking eye is missing a couple of animations.

 

The Revenant is my second option. As long as it's an anthropomorphic biped it's all fine.

 

I guess the next step is to start another thread with my progress. Let's see if I can do something next week.

[MrFlibble]

I think it would not be much of a problem if there were more alternate sprite sets for monsters than Freed∞m needs. I mean, they could be used by modders in other projects as well if you're willing to contribute. Personally I'd be interested to know what alternate designs you come up for monsters.

[masterneme]

That sounds good @MrFlibble.

 

I'm going to do every monster (and other sprites like weapons) in 3D, this will give me inspiration for my own stuff.

 

Then with material adjustments create sprites for Freedoom. I can render 2 versions for each creation, one "cartoony" (by this I mean with similar look to Doom which by today's standards looks cartoony) and one similar to Doom 64, so people can decide.

 

And share the models too, so they can be modified, rendered with different materials, higher resolutions, extra angles, used as reference for drawing or whatever.

[MrFlibble]

That would be super awesome I'd say :)