The DOOM perspecive

[Hitscanning_scumbag]

how do you guys feel about dooms guns? my main thing about dooms weapons is that they appear to be way to close and way to high for a "realistic" experience.  personally i liked in quake 2 where you could shift your guns (via options) to left, right, or center.

 

i am aware this is a common thing in First Person Shooters to be way too close, but honestly this is something im struggling with in my game

 

does anyone else feel the same way?  like the guns are all wrong, perspectively? do you think they should be on one side of the screen?

[zmodder]

The first-person weapon display in FPS are mainly for giving the players the sense of what weapon they are using. In some games (Doom 2016) they are intentionally exaggerated, more like a gun porn, so that the player can find satisfactory. Game is not about realism. It's about fun and looking good. If the perspective was done right with the weapons, it wouldn't look good.

Edited September 4, 2018 by zmodder

[Hitscanning_scumbag]

hmmn. i had not considered that...so, as long as the game looks good, it doesn't necessarily have to be realistic...

 

i honestly wasn't expecting such a congruent answer straightly.

 

kind of amazing how game deisgn, by this very definition is all about balance, balance of graphics, game play, and story.

balancing what looks good vs what looks real. am i making any sense?

 

in any case, this is a most suitable answer, thank you.

[Bauul]

ZModder pretty much nailed it.  In real life, very rarely would someone move about with a gun pointing forwards while at nipple height, as FPSs show them.  It's completely impractical for both firing the weapon and running with it.  Unless you like really sore nipples.

[Hitscanning_scumbag]

true. just wondering how to make the game...better? DOOM in particular to me has (for modding purposes)always been too short(player height) been too slow(weapon attack time ((and that's not even mentioning my grievances with the bullets) monsters are, well, stupid. and the mapping is not too complicated. not that any of these things are bad! I love DOOM and on it own, everything is balanced and perfect, from weapons, to sounds, even down to the fairly simple(decorational) mapping. BUT 25 years has not been kind in terms of growth. most(if not all) of the work that has been put into making it better has been by the modding community.  otherwise, it (for modding purposes) can be very difficult (in my opinion) just because it feels like im making a fresh game from scratch every time. and every ttime i have to re ajust the perspective.

 

which brings me back to the weapons. it's perspective. frankly, it's bugging me that in my mod, no angle looks right.(this is probably why every game does weapons in the center) but me, i prefer to have a choice(left, right, center). but no matter what i do, it just looks wrong. i know im harping and maybe by now it's a moot point,(and perhaps entirely in my artisic skills) its just bothering me, or else i wouldn't have said anything, ya'know?

 

**and thank you these are good answers*

[geo]

People are dumb and they want their shooty stick to be lined up what with they're shooting at.

[Phoby]

Permanent ADS? Jokes aside, are there any mods to change the sprites to an uncentered perspective?

[kb1]

Personally, I can't stand non-centered weapons. I rely on the centered gun as if it were a crosshair (but prefer no0t not have a crosshair, usually.) Realistically, you would not see the gun at all, or just maybe the tip of it. As zmodder said, this is exaggerated for the gamer.

 

There are lots of weapon mods that have angled guns - some even with the original guns redrawn. But, because I tend to avoid the angled guns, I cannot offer much advice other than to try to not obsess about realism, and instead go for a more-obtainable goal, like consistency and beauty.. In other words, if you're going to go with angled guns, use a similar angle for all of them. I'd also suggest using only a small bit of angle - your gun arm is not that far away from your body.

 

Maybe imagine what it would look like if your screen was a window, and someone was pointing a gun at you from outside the window.

 

If you're a good artist, maybe try out some sketches. The funny thing about Doom is that people walk and move a lot different in real life. In Doom, it's more like you're driving a 35 mph wheelchair, so it's ok for it to look a little bit off.

[Hitscanning_scumbag]

to answer what stood out to me the most is that an angled gun would have the same cross hair. it would just be angled. the most prominent example i can think of is this sprite ive been working on. its angled, but still will shoot towards the center.

a good gun will always point where the cross hair is, no matter the perspective...

[kb1]

11 minutes ago, zaszthedestroyer said:

to answer what stood out to me the most is that an angled gun would have the same cross hair. it would just be angled. the most prominent example i can think of is this sprite ive been working on. its angled, but still will shoot towards the center.

a good gun will always point where the cross hair is, no matter the perspective...

Well, that's good (and expected) if the player has chosen the option to show a crosshair (and if the port supports that option). But, when I go to fire an angled weapon, the assumption I feel is that I need to be the proper distance away from the monster, or the missile will follow that angle and fly off to the side of the monster.

 

Using your example above, it looks like, if I am too far back, and I fire, the bolt will fly past the left side of the monster. And, if I'm too close, it will fly to the right of the monster.

 

In reality, the bolt will shoot perfectly straight (is that true?), which defies the visible angle of the weapon. That's what makes angled weapons troublesome for me. Nice looking design, though!

[Hitscanning_scumbag]

3 minutes ago, kb1 said:

 

 

In reality, the bolt will shoot perfectly straight (is that true?), which defies the visible angle of the weapon. That's what makes angled weapons troublesome for me. Nice looking design, though!

that's a valid point i had not considered.  (yes the bolt will shot straight)

hmmn. i wonder if there is **some** way to make it work? 

like pressing a button changes the postition of the gun...?

 

i know im really on this but i feel it has real potential

 

also, thank you so much!!!! im always nervous when i upload stuff like that!

 

[kb1]

1 hour ago, zaszthedestroyer said:

i wonder if there is **some** way to make it work? 

like pressing a button changes the postition of the gun...?

Well, yeah, I usually change the gun angle by changing the player's angle :) Really, I'm not trying to be sarcastic. Again, that's why I don't like angled guns - I can't figure out a way to make them work better than non-angled guns. I mean, yes, you probably could assign some keyboard/mouse buttons to control the gun angle separately from the player angle. You'd need to be able to change the angle of the gun's image as well, I would think. I don't know how to do that, except with a bunch of sprites or models. But, maybe I don't understand what you're trying to achieve.

 

There are many weapon mods with angled weapons, that don't really worry about allowing the player to change the gun angle. Instead, mods just use the player's angle to control the weapon angle. What exactly are you trying to accomplish?

[elarmadillo3]

I don't like angled weapons that much when they still shoot in the center, makes it a bit hard to aim sometimes.

[Hitscanning_scumbag]

1 hour ago, kb1 said:

 

There are many weapon mods with angled weapons, that don't really worry about allowing the player to change the gun angle. Instead, mods just use the player's angle to control the weapon angle. What exactly are you trying to accomplish?

i dont really understand what you mean by "change the players angle"? (if the underlined is a link its not working for me)

 

@elarmadillo3 yeah.  much to my dismay, i tried my Twinbow, and another custom weapon i made and neither one aims right. i found myself relying on my experince in doom playing to kill everything in sight.

[elarmadillo3]

I hope you find a way to make it work, so nobody is forced to use a dumb crosshair.

(By crosshair, i don't mean something like iron sights, i'm talking about something like the green crosses)

Edited September 5, 2018 by elarmadillo3

[Hitscanning_scumbag]

i have a theory, im not sure how well it works yet, but...if the weapon's tip is close enough to the vanishing point, perhaps it would correct the issue at hand.

 

other than that, im out of ideas. (for now)

[kb1]

2 hours ago, zaszthedestroyer said:

i dont really understand what you mean by "change the players angle"? (if the underlined is a link its not working for me)

Nevermind, I thought you might have meant something else. (It's not a link.)

 

2 hours ago, elarmadillo3 said:

I hope you find a way to make it work, so nobody is forced to use a dumb crosshair.

I'm not too big on crosshairs either, unless you're actually supposed to be looking through a scope, or if the weapon is supposed to be fitted with a laser (which is of course similar to, but not the same as a crosshair.)

 

@zaszthedestroyer: I think the best you can hope for is to use a small angle. Assume that the player is about 10 to 25 feet away from the monster, and draw your gun at that angle - no more than, say 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock, and offset the gun to the left or right, so that, at that angle and offset, the gun looks like it would hit a target 10 to 25 feet away, straight ahead.

 

Something like this:

                       M      <-- (M = monster, about 10 to 25 feet away)

(gun at 1:00) -->    /   \    <-- (gun at 11:00)
                       P      <-- (P = Player, looking North)
                   

This can work ok, with either or both guns. It's those 3 variables that will make the difference between a satisfying weapon, or an awkward one:

1. Gun angle
2. Gun left/right offset from the center of the screen
3. Average distance to the target

The distance to the target doesn't matter when you're looking straight down the gun, but when the gun is angled, the average distance becomes important.

If we assume that you have already drawn your basic gun shape, you have already defined #1 - the gun angle, and it points to the left. So, now offset the gun to the right, until it points towards a straight target, at a comfortable shooting distance.

 

Good luck!

 

[SaladBadger]

for what it's worth some games with angled weapons aim the shot projectile at the crosshair, and with modern gzdoom modding features simulating this should be entirely possible