MrFlibble

Very nice recolour, thankies! :) The extra stuff can be placed in the attic. There's nothing wrong with having alternate versions of assets, especially if Freedoom is to be a resource repository for mod/game development as raymoohawk suggests.

Scuba Steve's pistol, in my opinion, is an excellent example of Freedoom art. It manages to capture the feel of the original game while being completely different from its Doom counterpart. However, while making comparisons I've noticed something: To the left is a Freedoom image without aspect correction. The central image is from Doom with aspect correction, to the right, Freedoom with aspect correction. All screenshots were made in MBF running with DOSBox, and aspect correction was accomplished using the built-in DOSBox function. It seems to me that the image on the left (without aspect correction) is more similar to the proportions of the Doom pistol as it looks in-game (with aspect correction), whereas the image in the right is overly stretched. What do you think? Should the sprite be "squashed" to appear as it does on the left image when the game is run with proper aspect ratio?

If the shapes are different, there shouldn't be much of a problem, especially if the 200% armour has large shoulder pads similar to the player sprite.

That sort fo reminds me of Rise of the Triad: The shading indeed needs some adjustment. BTW, what does that pistol look like (from another angle)?

I never suggested that (although I don't think there's anything wrong with sharing assets). I merely asked if you, being in contact with people at ZDoom forums, could ask or check if there was something usable for Zauberer, completely independently of your inquiries and/or search for new textures for Freedoom. That's a nice idea generally, but it is my understanding that many updates are either of vastly superior quality, or fix various errors in previous submissions. Because of this,moving older versions to Phase 1 would probably result in noticeable quality deterioration compared to Phase 2.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever implied anything like that. The main dichotomy here is "PWAD compatibility" vs. "independent game". I completely agree with Xaser that Don't get me wrong, I'm in the "PWAD-compatible" camp myself because I mostly use Freedoom for exactly that purpose. However, I got the impression that the creative drive behind the new monster concepts is getting restricted with the PWAD compatibility goal. At this point, the project can very well go beyond Doom to become a truly unique game of its own (what exactly it is going to be is another question). I believe there is no reason to reject the possible benefits of creating a fork as outlined by esselfortium, or at least consider them before doing so. Also I think it needs to be emphasised yet again that "dropping PWAD compatibility" does not mean that Freedoom will become PWAD-incompatible in its entirety. Quite the contrary, the split is intended to do exactly the opposite - keep compatibility while removing some restraints for further development of game concepts. Nor does the idea of a fork imply in any way that Freedoom in its current state is somehow "inferior". I was thinking, whatever the implementation, Freedoom's identity as a game will probably depend on its story and the levels that narrate it. So maybe the focus needs to shift, for now, to developing a more consistent, detailed plot, and a corresponding set of levels to reflect it? Once the story is established, it would serve as a base for further development/enhancement, and the decision on whether to implement extra features by moving to a custom version of the engine would come naturally if the game itself demands it?

I think the OP did not mean to say that Dark Forces runs on the Doom engine, rather that the game's engine and visuals are pretty similar to Doom. I've heard/read somewhere that LucasArts (or even Lucas himself?) got motivated to create Dark Forces after a couple of user-created Star Wars-themed Doom PWADs were released. Also there are rumours that the developers might have reverse-engineered the Doom engine (or parts thereof) to create their own Jedi engine.

The custom texture thread at ZDoom Forums has some great assets. I've noticed zrrion the insect posted one for Hexen too. Maybe there are more? It is my understanding that the Zauberer project is currently in a major need of texture submissions.

That is a good question, and I've been thinking about it for a while. The new art direction brought by raymoohawk's work clearly goes beyond simply higher quality monster sprites and decorations. A true story has begun to develop itself from monster designs, with a potentially sophisticated plot and deep lore, to which Maz Hades contributed with the Zamanthyte concept. However, the attempt to implement some of these ideas in the form of Zam powerups (which were intended to represent the player rescuing Zamanthytes from captivity) was struck down as conflicting with the goal of PWAD compatibility. If this alone is not a heavy argument enough, here's more:it was decided to not implement a tweak to improve the game's visuals simply because it might break compatibility with a hypothetical Doom TC it was decided that the Freedoom player should keep gloves on, even though it's inconsistent with concept art, for the sake of PWAD compatibility everyone seems to like orange muzzle flashes, but they're inconsistent with Doom-style onesOn top of that, while Freedoom apparently strives for its own unique identity as a stand-alone game, the goal of PWAD compatibility inevitably limits it down to what is essentially a reskinned Doom with different levels. Sure, you can create a great mapset, add new textures and generally attain a degree of uniqueness within these limitations, but why restrict yourselves to this when you can do much more? Consider the advantages of a fork not restricted by the demand to be PWAD compatible. If such fork is an IWAD only, then it will become possible to:alter the behaviour of weapons, items and monsters via the DEHACKED lump alter certain aspects of gameplay logic, e.g. make breakable decorations change or replace the palette if desired If the fork gets a dedicated executable, I suppose that it will also become possible, based on the code of other Doom engine games, to:add an inventory system add new items with different effects add friendly NPCs with the possibility of conversations with them add friendly combatant NPCs to assist the player create hub levels/seamless transition back and forth between different levels Additionally, I'm assuming that using a stand-alone executable should allow to also change gameplay logic in entirely new ways if desired. For example, I think it would be not impossible to allow the player to actually rescue captured Zamanthytes, either as an optional objective or the main target of a level/mission. raymoohawk asked if a fork would allow to add new monsters, which should be also possible with a stand-alone executable. There could be mission briefings and even in-game cutscenes if desired, and the levels could be changed from the simple "find keys and get to the exit" to actual missions with different objectives. Of course, all of this are optional features that might be considered non-essential. However, my question here is why reject these possibilities simply for the sake of maintaining the status quo? Especially since, as far as I'm concerned, no one is proposing to drop the PWAD-compatible part of the project. There is absolutely no reason not to "backport" new assets into the PWAD-compatible IWADs when necessary.

About the armour, I like your pieces, however Mechadon's armour sprites from the Vela Pax project made me think that the "colour-coded" design could be avoided altogether. I never really liked how Freedoom changed the 200% armour from blue to red. It seems like a superficial change that does not really add anything to the game expect of being an attempt not to be like Doom in all aspects. Mechadon used different visuals for his sprites in addition to colour: The 200% armour has shoulder pads, suggesting greater coverage of the body and hence, greater protection. In fact, many of the more recent FPS games use the same approach, with armour pickups visually reflecting the amount of protection they offer. In this respect, colour-coding is a relic of the earlier arcade era which still carried over into Doom. Now, the Freedoom player sprite has very pronounced, metal shoulder pads in addition to the green body suit. What if 100% armour is the green body suit without the pads, and the 200% one the body suit with grey pads? That would certainly more original than the green vs. red or any other colours.

I did not mean their shape in respect of the new monsters they are supposed to portray. I mean that these torches look unmistakably like statues and not monsters. I think that this whole concern about the player possibly getting confused with fancy decorations is slightly exaggerated. In fact, the player does not have to immediately distinguish between a monster and a decorative object. Have you never had this situation when you stumbled upon something you thought was a monster in a FPS, only to realise seconds later that this was just a harmless static sprite? That's one of the staples of the horror genre, which is not entirely alien to the Doom games. This only may become problematic if some decoration resembles an enemy so much that the player consistently mistakes one for another. However, this is not the case with raymoohawk's sprites under discussion. None of them is actually overly similar to any animation frames of the respective monsters. I think the blue flame is OK, the green one could use some editing. What's wrong with the brazier? I think it is very tasteful, and generally the serpentipede torch seems to be the best one of out of the three to me.

BTW, I remember Minigunner made a modified version of the pistol, found here (in the weapons spoiler-hidden section). Perhaps this one should be used if you decide to scale it down?

Personally I don't mind if Freedoom uses maps not originally created for it. In fact, it would then be a truly crowdsourced project, and with such creative community this certainly means quality. However, as far as unique identity is concerned, I believe that simply retexturing maps taken from other projects will not be enough. Take HacX for example. While it is essentially a Doom II TC, I tend to think of it as a separate game (albeit still derivative from Doom). Its uniqueness does not only lie in completely new art, or rebalanced weapons, monsters and items. I think that the main thing that makes HacX an independent game are the levels. Each level in HacX has its own very distinct, pronounced theme, emphasized by the use of detail, including textures, layout, props etc. Even within the first level, you have very recognizable areas like office building exterior, security room, offices, lab, some underground chemical processing facility, and a subway station. The you have a prison, some sort of geothermal station inside a volcano, cyberspace, a city level, Chinese/Japanese gardens and palaces etc. etc. Even the obligatory sewer level has memorable moments like the android assembly line. This kind of level design is not only a great thing in and of itself, but it also serves as a meta device to narrate the plot in the absence of other means like mission briefings or cutscenes. Many Freedoom levels have a level of detail comparable to that of HacX, however the storyline is still pretty vague and the environments remain largely generic. I believe that to address this issue, texture/environment development should go hand in hand with level development, perhaps even to the point of mappers requesting resources for their work from the art department. Well, I use MBF with DOSBox, and there are people who still play on real DOS machines. In fact, an updated version of MBF was released rather recently that has been specifically optimized to work with real 486 hardware. What I mean to say is that because some people use new ports and modern hardware, it doesn't mean those who don't should be entirely excluded from any consideration.

Doomhuntress, that's a very cool track! Sets quite the right mood for action and exploration :) Thanks!

The logo is still clearly divided into Free and Doom. What about using the same font for both parts? Also, can you stylize the oo part into an infinity symbol, instead of superimposing the letters over it? I suppose that would make the logo appear like more like "Freedom spelled with double o" and not "Free Doom"

I only played the demo of Half-Life and I should say that it is indeed well executed. This is probably a major dilemma with demo versions in general: a good demo/shareware often showcases the best the game can offer, and in a very concentrated way, whereas the full version has all the same elements stretched across a much greater length of gameplay. Conversely, if the demo is limited it may not be the best advertisement to motivate potential players to buy the retail version. I suppose that the most proper approach to demo versions is to put extra content into them that is not included with the full game. That should ensure the novelty factor still stays when the player gets the full release. However, this also means extra efforts spent on the new demo levels. I've heard that Half-Life actually recycled cut content for the Uplink demo. BTW, I've also read somewhere (Wikipedia?) that the demo version of Gunman Chronicles actually includes extra levels that were specifically created for it, although they were later incorporated into subsequent releases of the full version. All playthroughs of the full game on YouTube that I checked have these demo levels. Can anyone confirm that earlier retail releases did not include demo levels?

The change of the first quest in the retail version seems like a last-minute decision. They took parts of the original quest and carved from it another one for the "good guys". The character whom the player is needed to silence in the retail game is a plot device in the demo, hinting the player that the questgiver was not to be trusted. He also does that in the retail game, but in the demo this encounter was optional, and presumably could be missed by players, resulting in a bad ending. The demo also includes a different sequence after the player gets the comm unit and is contacted by Blackbird. The player gets a quest to sneak into the Governor's mansion's basement and retrieve a flamethrower. After that the player has to fend off lots of guards and Crusader robots. The entrance into the rebel base is also different: it's a teleporter found in some kind of warehouse instead of a hidden passage in the town hall, as in the retail version. In short, the demo quest is more complex, but its successful completion depends on the player knowing the right sequence of things to do. Perhaps the developers wanted to minimize the amount of trial and error for the players at the beginning of the game and simplified the starting quest for this purpose.

Greetings to the good community. I was wondering if there's an effort to archive rejected and incomplete assets that were made for the project. I am aware of the attic, however it is my understanding that it only contains assets that had once been committed but then replaced by newer ones. Which means that, for example, the rejected versions of the medikits that were discussed here are not in the attic because they were never committed. This is not optimal for at least two reasons. First, these resources are scattered throughout the forum and are not easily accessible. Secondly, many images were uploaded to various third party image hosting services, and in some of the older thread here they have already vanished (in some cases without even having been archived by the Wayback Machine). The same applies to incomplete assets. They are scattered across the threads, and some have disappeared because ImageShack or some other service decided to remove them. For example, this sprite sheet was apparently close to completion, according to its author (in a subsequent post in that thread). However, the image is only salvageable through the Wayback Machine. In other cases, files at ImageShack have not been preserved. I assume that incomplete assets could still be of interest, and there's a real possibility of another artist (or even the original author) of completing them.

Guys, while making a reply here I noticed that I cannot find fredrik's old armour sprites in the attic. I've checked all sub-folders and the files seem nowhere to be found. Have they been put somewhere else?

There's a topic for this: https://www.doomworld.com/vb/freedoom/84868-freedoom-maps-still-needed/

It is my understanding that if PWAD compatibility only meant creating a new set of art that would not conflict with the custom levels (e.g. so that a water flat is not replaced by a solid surface flat etc.), there would be no restrictions whatsoever in this respect. However, since many PWADs are partial conversions that may add or replace items, monsters, textures etc., there have been concerns that these custom resources will conflict with the IWAD ones if they are sufficiently different, e.g.: I guess I'm 10 days late saying this but I agree the colours of certain items would be better if they matched the originals - green invulnerability, white megasphere and in particular blue combat armour. There is a tendency in really old Doom maps to put a soulsphere and blue armour in a room textured entirely in blue, so the armour being red looks quite odd :) Adding new textures may certainly solve part of the problem. However, consider the assets which you cannot simply switch between. Maz Hades' concept of Zam pickups is actually pretty cool, and adds depth to the storyline. However, many objected to these because they felt it conflicts with the "neutrality" of IWAD content in respect to custom PWADs. There have been similar discussions concerning the player's gloves and muzzle flash colour. I don't think there's a way to include two variants of such assets in a single IWAD. Besides, you have voiced concerns yourself that the IWADs are larger than necessary (that is, unless you have changed your mind on that subject since). Undoubtedly, so far Freedoom has managed to balance between compatibility and originality. However, at this point forking/splitting the project into a PWAD-compatible part (preferably compatible with all source ports as well by moving to limit-removing-compatible or vanilla maps) and a stand-alone independent game as per esselfortium's suggestion, with Boom (and possibly other) extensions, gameplay changes if necessary (like the trooper firing animation lighting fix), own cheat codes etc. The split/fork should provide a solution to controversial issues like Boom compatibility, plot development or art quality that is satisfactory to both sides. Also, there have been discussions of possible future Freedoom-specific map-making. It seems to me that such map-making is more likely if part of the project is a truly independent game, rather than an all-in-one IWAD with restrictions concerning PWAD compatibility.

That would certainly make sense to not limit the game with one theme. For Egyptian assets, I remembered that the open source Cube engine games have some Egyptian texture sets, although you might need to check the licenses for those (IIRC some assets have a different license to them, but not sure). There should be no problem contacting the author to clarify the details anyway. You might also find textures for other themes in those sets too. I'm not sure how well they convert to the Hexen palette though, but it should be doable. BTW, maybe you would consider having some Ancient Greece themed levels as well? I have a feeling that this setting is generally underused in FPS games - I can only name the Ancient Greece episode in Daikatana, Will Rock (one of my favourites), and a Duke Nukem 3D TC called Secrets of the Acropolis (incorrectly named Secrets of the Necropolis at ModDB).

Personally I like all of them. I don't think there's a need to redo the torches. Heretic and Hexen have plenty of decorations that with irregular shapes, like statues and braziers, and there's absolutely no problem with that. You can may the statues a bit darker indeed, but they are sufficiently different from actual enemies, so I think they're unlikely to confuse the player.

BTW, there are some Egyptian textures in the Freedoom Phase 2 IWAD, added as counterparts to the textures in one of the expansions that has a secret Egyptian level. They are not numerous but could be used at least as temporary placeholders: https://github.com/freedoom/freedoom/tree/master/patches/fraggle/egypt

Thank you very much for that! I should say that after reading Richard Stallman's opinion on (open source) game engines vs. game art that you have recently quoted I find it a bit hard to think of Freedoom as a completely independent game. It doesn't just run on the Doom engine, it uses the Doom engine in exactly the same form as Doom does. So from the playing mechanics perspective, it's exactly the same game, just with different art and levels. Frankly, I don't think this should be regarded as a negative thing at all. I believe that the community is entitled to put together such IWADs from resources that they have created, especially since the project was endorsed by John Carmack (and I suppose the rest of id Software as well?). By comparison, if the plan laid out by esselfortium here is carried out, the resulting fork would certainly be an independent game - not only by the merit of having its own executables (although certain modifications to monsters, game behaviour etc. should not be ruled out), but because the removal of restrictions imposed by the PWAD compatibility goal will allow it to flesh out its own storyline and develop a thematic framework within which all elements - monster and item design, textures, levels etc. - will be consistent with each other. For example, raymoohawk's armour and other pickups, or Maz Hades' reptilian candelabra are very high quality art. However, I don't think that they make a perfect match with Episode 1 textures that have been created (very skilfully indeed) in a style reminiscent of Doom. I cannot explain it better, but I think Catoptromancy referred to more or less the same thing here: Maz Hades' reptilian candelabra for instance looks like it belongs in some exotic alien palace, and it feels out of place in Episode 1 surroundings. raymoohawk's work is characterised by a lot of fine detail, which contrasts with more gritty, less detailed textures and switches currently found in Freedoom. I do not mean to say that Freedoom, in its current state, lacks identity of its own. On the contrary, I believe that its identity lies exactly in PWAD compatibility and the "similar but different" feel that is characteristic of the best textures, sprites, music and sounds which are made in the Doom style. There doesn't seem to be a problem to me to admit that the art style of the PWAD-compatible project was specifically chosen to be in harmony with that of Doom. Neither it is a problem that a desire for a more coherent artistic direction has led to the present turning point when a fork, or a split of the project, is being discussed. However, I agree that the term "replacement" is probably not the most appropriate, as it may indeed convey a certain negative connotation of an Ersatz with no value of its own. I did not mean to say anything like that, and I apologise for using that term in my previous posts without considering these implications. Back to Mechadon's armour sprites, while I do agree that the blue version with shoulder pads might indeed be considered as being "too close" to its original counterpart, in this respect the one with straps isn't really that much different from fredrik's earlier work (BTW, I can't locate his armour sprites in the attic for some reason).