Darkcrafter07

If you want instant classic doom experience now, crispy doom, the closest, best looking on modern monitors and fastest you can taste it without fiddling around bs settings, renders, drivers, etc. Eternity for specific projects like Heartland, also very reliable and fast. It also loads boom stuff, so it's nice. DSDA-Doom - is like prboom on steroids but still has infintely tall monsters which I hate, fastest of them all though but only supports Boom maps. GZDoom comes last when a WAD like mine was specifically made for it. LZDoom when you need to run GZDoom on an old computer, still needs a graphics card with OpenGL 2 at least (2005 + cards and adapters), install your video drivers. ACE engine when you need GZDoom on DOS but it also doesn't support UDMF unfortunately.

Nah, if done doomish way, they look good. See how great that Cheelo voxel pack is. The thing I don't like is that they're voxel, they're too resource hungry and they're blocky and you can't upscale their texture if you will. As soon as I'm finished with upscaling regular Doom sprites I'm getting on polygonizing Cheelo efforts. Believe it or not but converting one of Cheelo voxels to a low poly was super simple. I just grabbed a copy of Noesis64, converted the kvx to obj and imported it in 3ds max, merged all vertices within 0,1 range (default) and applied "Relax" modifier to smooth it out, then "Multires" modifier to trim it to 1200 polygons like Quake models had. Then retopology plugin to 8000 quads, then multires again (800 polygons). The only thing I don't know how to do is how to perform texture transfering from a voxel to the polygon model. If anybody know the software to do it please let me know. Oh yeah, I removed gun from the playa1 hands just to see how it is, the most tedious task was closing the holes but it's something quiete normal day in working with such models. Totally possible to be done, thanks to Cheelo efforts again.

v0.24a update, it's pretty minor: * some unused music added to the main game archive, not used mostly, except for interepisode; * brutal doom v21 being replaced with v22 beta 2, also compressed and repacked (4mb more than v21); * launcher update to depict playing options as brutal doom v22 b2

Hell Renaissance : The Great Mindsucking Machine (v0.24a) - December 22, 2023 Thanks to *.ogg sound files and *.png graphics files compression (PNGQuant + Ken Silverman's PNGOut) now comes with Smooth Doom, Brutal Doom v22 beta 2, Project Brutality 3.0 and some hi-res packs, all made compatible with the mapset and embedded to it. A much easier installation and custom *.bat files provided as launchers for Win7+ and WinXP machines. Source port: GZDoom and LZDoom Renderer: Hardware only IWAD: Doom 2 Jumping: heaps of and required (jump out of map11 pit) Crouching: required (map11 exit path) Main idea: huge extraordinary maps Fake contrast: smooth Sector light mode: software Dynamic lights: on Shadowmaps: on (turn off on Map15 for better lighting effects) Mouse free-look: recommended Sprites clipping mode: optional Sprites face camera: optional, may enhance the overall picture at maps 3, 15, 16, 17 and others; MIDI Device: libAdl (AdlMIDI), 3 chips, Nuked OPL3 1.8, DMX volume model, OPL Bank #16 (Doom, MUS play, Doom1 in other words.) Levels at the moment: 17 A new UAC experiment on creating a machine to backup human mind into a digital image and transfering it via quantum entanglement to the cloud data center located in a different dimension failed. The machine got it hard and started sucking and subverting minds of everyone it could reach, leaving armies of demonic forces behind. The mindsucking process failed to do it with your mind perhaps because once hell couldn't handle your presence before. The mapset for GZDoom in making since May 8 2018. System Requirements: Installation: "License": Feel free to share, modify and spread unless it violates someone rights. The main goal now is optimizing what I currently have, so sorry about gameplay not being paid that much of an attention yet. DOWNLOAD THE MAPSET HERE: The latest version, v0.24a (449.4mb): download mirror #1, download mirror #2, download mirror #3. Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/GBknYQZ September 6, 2023. The initial version - v0.1 (408mb): download mirror #1, Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/bs0ycMf October 11, 2022.

A new ChaiNNer preset available. The upscaling is based around the 4x_Struzan (pencil drawings) model. Additionaly, a lite-edition mode of TTA mode has been added, the image splits to 4 rotated and flipped versions of itself and processed via neural-networks in order to supress artifacts. Usually this happens by making 8 copies but it's too slow and kills too many details. I decided to stay at 4 as it supresses enough artifacts and preserves some details. The processing also occurs in RGB mode, e.g. 3 separate processing nodes, it slows down the work but makes high contrast colored details handled better. The alpha channel also gets its special treat and upscaled separately with some bit of anti-aliasing that does least rounding (no painting-alike effect) but preserves angles sharp while supressing jaggies.

Darkcrafter's 4x Doom ChaiNNer Pencil Style Dec 19, 2023 upd: My latest and most successful attemp at upscaling Doom actors such as monsters, pickups and etc. Needs a decent computer with nvidia cuda capable graphics to work and ChaiNNer, the preset "Upscale_PyTorch_4x_pencil_style.chn" and all necessary models included. The upscaling is based around 4x_Struzan (pencil drawings) but with additional 4x rotation-flipping neural-network filtering (TTA mode but 50% TTA not to kill too many details and supress enough artifacts) and RGB mode. The same attention is still given to alpha upscaling. It's SLOW but it's absolutely worth it. Mirror #1 Deprecated (old)

Alright, thanks anyway, works really great even this way!

That's a bit too extreme but really a good question you raised. 1) Because you want to create something new inside the limitations engine provides; 2) Because you want your game to work on slower machines, maybe even on DOS and 486; 3) Because you don't want to make it overdetailed like modern games are, keep it simpler; A golden middle is what I seek here. They do have an interesting look and you have an option to "skew" your textures too, it comes at more cost to handle though, both for mappers and engines (performance).

Why is that having a feature that GZDoom has making it GZDoom too? Is Duke Nukem 3D and Eternity engine are GZDoom? The point is practicality, ease of editing and performance, you don't have to wank over millions of such microsectors in order to imitate a damn slope.

Why wouldn't devs add slope support? Duke 3D did them fine and even worked faster than Doom, well ACE engine also runs faster than Vanilla.

v0.24 has been uploaded, key changes: * integration of 3rd party mods like Smooth Doom, Brutal Doom, Project Brutality 3.0 - - all thanks to new compression techniques, the process is described and compression tools provided in an encrypted file with a password supplied, if needed (PNGQuant). PNGOut by Ken Silverman is not included due to the licensing limitations. All sounds were converte to OGG ABR 48kbps, all 48,44kHz ones resampled to 32kHz and also converted OGG. * integration of my carefully upscaled and redrawn onscreen animations of guns for Vanilla and Smooth Doom; * a custom *.bat file launcher that allows choosing 12 options to play the mapset.

Layouts are interesting but combat is an absolute meh, fight cacodemons, monster closets full of shotgunners with a pistol and 20% hp. Maybe it's made for Brutal Doom?

Thank you, I didn't think about it! Btw, do you have any plans on adding UDMF support though? Added: I think GZDoom's software renderer supports sloped terrain, well, 3D models in the near sight too, maybe that helps. What GZDoom doesn't support is sloped 3D-floors in software mode, a workaround for this could be rendering them as 3D-models.

You know, I was playing with Quake models and stretched zombieman on the soldier model in photoshop, then hooked up Noesis64 to see what it looks like...

It's visplane overflow issue being the #1 then it's a fact ACE doesn't support UDMF? I have not figured a way to load GZDoom UDMF maps into ACE yet and with it I can assign multiple tags over a sector and there's no support for sloped terrain unfortunately. https://imgur.com/a/JzXBgx8 Btw, could you please provide a complete ACE cfg file that can be put in a WAD so noobs like me could use it easier instead of reading the manual?

I updated Hell Renaissance to v0.23a and even had to reupload it a few times in a row fixing some bugs: - fog sprites now are based on the low-res and then enlarged in a map editor to a desired value, hi-res are still provided for sure; - metallic fence on map 16 was not being rendered from the back side now fixed; - some new music presented and more planned to be added; - an alternative tall tech pillar model presented; - doors on map08 are now of standard size; - doors now retrigger most of the time; - finally, a wadinfo txt file added; So far, it's getting clearer to me on how I'd like to work on Map17 further.

@hobomaster22, barrels work well now, really good job! The chainsaw deals damage nicely too but it still doesn't pull you to the monsters, instead, some monsters like imps start to get pushed back as soon as you saw them. Seems like it works in the opposite direction?

Some other vid in making

This was made by me for a pure fun. The thing is that I really dig PCem, it allows me to enjoy playing my favorite DOS games of childhood like Doom, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D in their best form, 320x200, 4:3 screen ratio, CRT shaders, SB16/OPL3 emu, DOS 7.10. I thought Pentium 133 was all you needed back in the day to be happy but later discovered older and newer processors I didn't know about. That's how I got interested, fast doom also inspired me a lot. A few months ago somebody brought me their old PC they prepared for a dumpster, it had Celeron 1.7GHz CPU, 128mb FX5500 GPU, 512mb RAM, FDD, lacking and thorn out CD-ROM and a really bad 40GB HDD. I washed it all entirely a few times and thought to upgrade it a bit as I had another mobo with a bit newer Celeron 2.4GHz laying nearby but with bad caps, so I recapped it with the ones found in the former mobo and could also put my old DVD-RW in there. It was a long remapping process, fro and about, few times with a victoria tool. I had to keep the first most bad 4GB unpartitioned, and dedicate 8GB to Win98SE and other 28GB to WinXP SP3, both being formatted as FAT32. First I installed Win 98SE and WinXP SP3 so I could boot into both and even boot into Win98's DOS 7.10 if I press F8 as soon as the choice was made. I had some USB issues with Win98 but could fix them by installing unofficial USB support drivers and unistall them, then install again but select "default" USB hub driver and it worked. The other drivers installed well. WinXP had no issues at all. It's such a flexible powerhouse PC and a gaming monster for older games. The only issue here is a lack of proper OPL3 emulation and SBEmu doesn't seem to work properly with the AC97 chip the mobo has. I hope they will fix their thing soon. I thought my FPS was literally unlimited, any reasonable resolution that was available back in the day. That's how an idea to create the video with a name corresponding to 90's popular song was born. I found a MIDI somewhere and mixed it in my own way but not just that, I could synthesize samples that sound almost like original Quake soundtrack and recorded some guitars. Well, machines like these have a lot of unused potential, I wish the developers of software for such older systems more power.

The slow progress on the wad is still going: - I'm fixing some doors that don't retrigger; - high resolution pack is in works but it's more like universal HD project for dooms; - an alternative tall tech pillar model is in works; - minor visual bugs on maps like doors are being fixed; - more midi music to be added; - some maps are being pro-longed; - map17 is being worked on further. I'm also considering on enhacing and saturating the gameplay. I know the maps are more like "environments" now but it's better to be done like this before gameplay saturation comes in place later. Some other vid I made on editing Map16

@kgsws, Is a map like this could be ever made into ACE? It seems like even GZDoom's software renderer can not handle it in all the glory as some bugs show up like when a sidedef mid texture gets scaled it doesn't get rendered anymore. It's UDMF only unfortunately and works in GZDoom/LZDoom hardware renderer the best. Would be really cool if you implemented more features and still kept it DOS. I'd be really glad to make maps like this. D2_M23_intensified.zip

There's no such Doom texture that left unused. The guys at iD wanted to save as much space as possible and that's one of the reasons textures are not images but a collage of pre-fabrished pieces called "Patches". Why create the same wall texture with different switches placed on it if you can have one patch for a wall and another for a switch. I'd even say that textures in Doom are scarce as there's no color variations in them. The lack of scaling, skewing, sidedef-independent offseting, unified flat-wall texturing - made it a pretty poor collection to choose from. You couldn't draw lighting gradients on those, you couldn't change their tint or colors, you couldn't desaturate, no colored sectors and so on. It's only when GZDoom came out I grown a steady interest in mapping for Doom as it fixed it all. I hope ACE engine at some point will reach the same feature richness so it could be ran on your grandmas 486. Duke Nukem 3D theme and textures were like Doom ideas brought way way beyond and sometimes looked better than Quake which I absolutely hated to play cause it appeared looking way to choppy and vomit palleted to me. The first impression I had when launched Quake was like what, medieval bs? Meh... The Doom theme made an impression of watching 90's cartoons, Duke looked much more solid, modern and raw and simply wonderful, it was like those 90's thriller and brutal action non-stop, you the best, you here, you got a gun, shoot to solve the problem and swear. Launching Quake was like "Black Knight" experience, exactly the "do you want peas" moment? I think it would have been amazing if all those three games textures were merged into one pack.

Lots of post-soviet ones look boxy, some skyscrappers do too, that's why planisphere2 was possible in the boom engine.

The ChaiNNer preset now has an RGB mode added, thus offering substantially better upscales in some cases, especially with highly contrasting colors like red wires, blue slimes on cacodemons and etc.

Deal braker #1 - infinitely tall monsters not fixed. I can't run under or above flying assholes to dodge their products of hate more effectively. Deal braker #2 - no OPL2/3 music. I don't like how roland-gm sounds, especially the fact it's the same sound font in every game that wasn't used to voice these midis. Deal braker #3 - no free mouse look and crosshair. I know my perfect order at aiming those crowds, when to hit a ground based one first and when the flying another second. Deal braker #4 - original resolution only. In the age of big monitors it's becoming a bit of a pain staring at those 10x10 pixels you know. 512x384 or 640x400 are the least resolutions that source ports must support out of the box. Deal braker #5 - no widescreen support. We got wide monitors and having that black space not used is something I can tolerate only on vanilla exes. Deal braker #6 - vsync can not be turned off. I absolutely hate vscync slaying your reaction time on slow hz monitors. Deal braker #7 - there's no jump and crouch. I play vanilla campaign with jumps as it gives me more freedom. I crouch sine Duke3D times to dodge some attacks ffs.