enderandrew

Does anyone want to test this with a sample map with some dynamic (and ideally moving) lights? It can be a single room or two. I'm not sure I'm seeing the effect of the specular, normal, height and bright maps.

I'm just using Photoshop. What I uploaded earlier wasn't working because my definition file wasn't correct. I'll fix it and upload a working version tonight if someone wants to test it.

Fixed here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gGCDF_No1-G0AexKknDqMijp7udYrStO

So you've created these truly amazing textures. And GZDoom recently added support for PBR and materials. This looks like a great opportunity to really show off how amazing your textures are. Your main texture package is several hundred textures, so I started with your Doom 1 override package. I optimized your PNG files, and then compressed them in DDS format (with pre-generated mipmaps). This should actually help performance as the DDS file can be loaded directly into your GPU without having to convert it, and mipmaps are pre-generated. Then I created normal maps for all of your textures. This I did in batch with a tool. I manually created bright maps and specular maps by hand for the 71 or so textures in this package. Then I created a definition file that tells GZDoom to use these textures. I've never created a Doom map before in my life. I'm going to just test this in existing Doom 1 maps and see if I can see any of these 71 textures in use, but someone could perhaps make a test map to showcase these specific textures. If these are working as intended and look good, I may do all the other hundreds of textures as well. The amazing thing is that your PK3 package was 280 MB to start. I added bright maps, normal maps and specular maps. It is more than 3 times the number of previous textures. But the new PK3 file is actually smaller at 256 MB. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_MYVBULSkJ4aakl8yCBdb4vtHYL8o5ih

Thanks!

I love the concept and the use of GZDoom features to put out some really impressive looking maps.

Agreed. @NightFright can you upload it again?

Honestly, it surprises me a bit. I can't draw or model for shit personally, but Doom has a huge community and 25 years of contributions. I'd love to see 3D models that are faithful to the original designs of the Doom 1/2 monsters.

Glad to hear your health is improving! I love these textures! Some people really just like the classic look and don't enjoy when others try to improve the graphics. But I love giving a fresh coat of paint to old games. There are tons of new sprites, voxels of texture options for items and walls in the game. It gets me however that no one has made a faithful set of monster models or sprites. What I'm using currently I believe is ripped from Doom 3. It somewhat matches the quality of your textures, but it isn't faithful to the Doom 1/2 designs. The Doom community has done a lot over 25 years. And there are tons of modelers/artists out there who like working on fan games. So why has no one created faithful HD Doom 1/2 monsters as sprites or models (to my knowledge)?

I'd love to see a community megawad using this texture pack.

I like to understand and have an appreciation for the classics in every genre. I'm old enough that I played a bit of Shareware Doom when it first came out in 1993. I backlashed against it a bit, feeling like it got all the credit when really Wolfenstein came out before it (and Ultima Underworld was first). I never bothered purchasing the full version (or pirating it) for years. FPS games are perhaps my least favorite genre (putting me in a very small minority it seems). But I like to play all the classics. With all the love for the 2016 reboot, and fancy source ports keep the legacy of the originals around, I thought it was time to revisit Doom. I used GZDoom to play the original in 1920 x 1080 with all kinds of modern sexiness (dynamic lights, anti-aliasing, BRX filters for sprites, HD texture packs, etc.) I wanted to preserve the design and gameplay, but spruce up the looks a bit. I eventually compromised a bit on the original aesthetic and went with a completely different HUD though. I know most people in the Doom community seem to suggest that if you're not playing "Vanilla" Doom then you're doing it wrong and they insist all HD improvements make the game look worse, but to each their own. I think this: http://i.imgur.com/XFbV8JC.jpg Looks a bit better than Vanilla DOOM: Does it hold up? Well, it must for some because people are still releasing new WADs, people are still adding features to source ports, people still play the multiplayer, etc. I was a little disappointed that on Ultra-Violence (second highest difficulty) I could get 100% on every level without too much difficulty if I was patient. Enemy AI is next to non-existent. It is easy to lead enemies to a corner, doorway or bottle-neck where you can pick them off and quickly turn back behind a wall for cover. Enemies have no sense of cover. They're generally not that fast. Very few moments were tense or scary. A few moments were almost artificially unfair when you start a level with multiple enemies in your face, or you open a door into a room full of monsters directly in your face. Part of the appeal may be the lack of difficulty in a sense. Doomguy feels like a god in the way he can tear through legions of demons and shrug off most attacks. What amazed me is that punches were sometimes more powerful than shotgun blasts. He also runs very fast without ever getting tired. I conserved most ammo for the big guns and played through all 4 episodes (technically the 4th episode wasn't part of Doom 1 initially, but was added two years later for Ultimate Doom) using only my shotgun and punches for probably 98% of the game. The BFG in episodes 2, 3 and 4 made the end boss fights rather trivial. The aesthetics were a step up from the odd bright blue walls of Wolfenstein (though I still love the concept of killing Nazis and eating dog food for health). The soundtrack is great. Watching most videos it seems like this is a game meant to be played at a fast pace rather than the safe and plodding way I played it. My intent was to play all the Classic Doom titles before moving on to Quake. I'm a few levels into Doom 2 currently, but I might take a break before revisiting the series. It was worth playing Doom 1. I'll eventually play the rest, but the gameplay is already wearing thin a bit sadly. I tried jumping up to the highest difficulty. I started Episode 4 on Nightmare initially. I beat the first level but it was a massive pain starting with a pistol, little ammo and having to deal with a Baron of Hell very early on in very limited space. Later when you unlock a secret it traps you in a tiny room with multiple Barons of Hell. Some people play each level as its own thing with a pistol start. But I like to play games as complete experiences. Doom offered very little in the way of story or narrative. There was one page of ending for each game with no real prologue or efforts at setting up a story. Episode 4 was a lazy ret-con when Doom 2 starts at the end of Episode 3, but then Episode 4 was squeezed in after the fact with no real explanation. I know criticism of Doom may not go over well on a site celebrating a love of all things Doom. Let me say I'm grateful for the visual mods and source ports. I do intend to try some fan-made megawads in time. Though I do wish there was a little more to the gameplay of Doom.

I think that is a very fair observation.

Doom 2 map 9 was when I walked away so that particular aspect was fresh in my mind. You start off surrounded by unavoidable slime and it looks like you'll have to cross it repeatedly.

I welcome a different perspective. Though I think if you have to do a pistol start on each map individually on UV to create any challenge (and even then a novice can beat that) it does suggest the game doesn't have much challenge. If you play through the Episode select screen, then weapons carry over from level to level. It would seem this is the default/intended game mode. Even Pac-Man has rudimentary AI where each ghost behaves a bit differently. Good players learn those behaviors and can master the game, but there is a rewarding challenge. I do need to revisit and finish off Doom 2 and then move onto Final Doom, which I've heard is much more challenging. But one of the minor quips that did really irritate me about Doom 1 and 2 was areas where you were forced to take damage via the floor. I do greatly prefer the Quake/Half-Life approach where you can jump and avoid the damage with skill, or potentially take damage. Forcing damage that the player can't avoid seems cheap and unfair.

Thanks for putting in the time!

I didn't know if you included them when making your pack.

Did you see this? https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=54248

My criticisms of Doom were related to AI, difficulty, etc. Visual mods don't affect that. As for Quake, I'm admittedly compromising on vanilla gameplay a little with a monster add-in, but I know I'll probably want the tougher monster AI. I've also realized that most people don't care what my feedback is so I'm not going to bother.

I said it throws errors out of the box (with no mods). And the errors are missing DLLs, as well as saying it can't load font files (even if you're not putting in any files from mods). So the engine is expecting DLL files that aren't included in the build. But apparently that bug report won't be passed on to Lord Havok. As for who I reported it to, I posted it in the Darkplaces Engine Bug Reports thread. With a full log uploaded to pastebin. Lord Havok doesn't list contact info on his site. It appears to be the place to post DP bug reports. Someone there passes on the reports to Lord Havok and he fixes them, but my report doesn't count as a bug. http://quakeone.com/forums/quake-help/quake-clients/6978-darkplaces-error-reporting-thread.html

I haven't really played it enough to get a feel for difficulty. I literally only played E1M1 to test out mods as I'm installing them. So I can't really speak to Quake on the whole, only a brief initial impression that I like the ability to jump and levels designed for it. And the intent with my Quake install again was to focus on vanilla gameplay and just only improve visuals, but since people will likely criticize me for visual mods anyways, I said screw it and I'm going to include one gameplay mod. I'm using the "small mod compilation" with Quake with adds in some new monster, monster variety, improved AI, etc (as well as a bevy of visual improvements).

I guess it is hard to say what Doom is precisely when you largely have 3 very different representations of Doom, if not more. I did say that it was suggested the notion of Doomguy being this total bad-ass doesn't apparently start until the end of Doom 2 when you're slaughtering larger armies with a BFG more frequently. Some people told me the reason I didn't get Doom yet is because I hadn't reached that point yet. Doom 3 was certainly more atmospheric. I played a bit of that on release but it felt cheap with near total darkness and then spawning monsters behind you in previously safe places (though I didn't realize this at the time that Classic Doom does the same thing differently by opening up doors to hidden monsters in previously safe places). But I thought it was widely accepted that Doom 3 was a major shift tonally and in gameplay from the originals (to the extent that some call Doom 64 the real Doom 3). So I'm not sure we can hold up Doom 3 as an example of how to view Doom 1 and 2.

FWIW, it would be useful to have normal, height, spec maps as well. Over on the ZDoom forums dpJudas was saying they'd need a working set of such maps to use as a basis if they wanted to try and add support for them in ZDoom/GZDoom. http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=54539&start=30#p965991

I'm a Software Engineer (though oddly enough not really a coder, though that is a rant for another time). I just posted some bug reports over on QuakeOne forums about DarkPlaces only for someone to jump on me and tell me not to report it, because error messages in the log on start-up out of the box don't constitute a bug. And if I think that is a bug, then I must not understand Windows, software or what a DLL is. You'd think developers would encourage the community to report bugs.

I want to toss out another unpopular video game opinion I have here and compare it to how I view Doom currently. Star Wars: KOTOR is generally considered to be one of the best Star Wars video games of all time, and perhaps the best video game story. Some specifically suggest that Revan is the best character from a Star Wars game, and one of the best characters overall in the Star Wars universe. I personally love KOTOR, but perhaps differently than many others. I like the character of Revan in how he was a Jedi who fell to the darkside, had his memories wiped by the Jedi and once again has to decide between the light and the dark. In asking a lot of other players what they liked about KOTOR and Revan, many cite that they love how powerful he is. You start the game creating your own character, and only later realizing you are Revan. This is a unique situation in gaming. In most Western RPGs you create your own character and become powerful, but often the world doesn't recognize you for becoming high level. Bandits decide they can take you in Skyrim even though you're slaughtering dragons. JRPGs have very specific characters in the narrative and you're often handed a character you didn't create. These stories CAN then work that character more directly in the narrative, but even still, said character isn't always described in the narrative as being the best because stories are supposed to be about underdogs persevering. (Some games are the exception, such as FFVII routinely talking about Cloud being a bad-ass, though I think that is part of the reason some people loved playing Cloud.) Revan is arguably the Mary Sue of Star Wars. You're injecting yourself with whatever character you create of your choosing in the universe and then you are told that you are the most powerful, bad-ass and interesting character in said universe. For anyone not familiar with the term, Mary Sue is a common trope in fan fic, but clearly a pejorative term. There is obvious appeal for the writer of a Mary Sue fic to envision a parallel version of themselves in their favorite universe, even more bad-ass and important than established characters. In film-making, I sometimes refer to this as Woo-ism. John Woo is certainly not the first person to use this tactic, but he is very much style over substance. He loves to establish how bad-ass one character is only as a benchmark to make the next look even more bad-ass in comparison. The more I've spoken to people about Doom (and my experiences) the past week in various places, I'm seeing a lot of consensus that the appeal of Doom (which starts more in Doom 2) is playing this bad-ass. You're strong, you're fast and you can take out an entire army at once with the BFG. A silent first-person protagonist allows the player to imagine themselves as the protagonist. Valve has spoken why they went with that specific design for Gordon Freeman. The game is telling you the player that you're a bad-ass in this universe. It is a Mary Sue emulator in a way, in much the way that KOTOR/Revan is a Mary Sue experience for the player. I personally prefer a really challenging game/experience where I overcome something difficult and feel bad-ass because I accomplished something, not just because I pressed the win button and the game told me I'm awesome. I think there is a fine line here. I love playing the Batman Arkham games because it is fun playing a really kick-ass character and feeling like I'm Batman. Their marketing advertises that very experience. So I do enjoy games where I'm made to feel like a bad-ass, but I feel like that still has to be earned. It has been suggested to play more difficult levels (and I'll get to Plutonia after Doom 2, as well as some fan-made megawads). It was said in this thread that I ignored that suggestion and never responded to it. I'm carrying this conversation on in parallel in a few places, but I thought I did respond to that here as well and thanked people for that suggestion. Still I feel like there was an antagonistic response from people here merely because I offered criticism of Doom at all here, and frankly, that doesn't really foster a lot of desire to be part of the community long-term or keep playing Doom. I'm taking a break to work on a visually modified Quake 1 install (via Darkplaces) and running through the 4 episodes of Quake 1. Then I'll come back and finish Doom 2. My initial impressions of Quake are quite good and I suspect I may enjoy it a bit more than Doom. If nothing else, having levels designed around jumping feels fun. I hate how Doom sometimes forces you to take floor damage rather than giving you an opportunity to jump and avoid it. It is perhaps not surprising that in my initial attempt to play Doom 2, I got to and stopped at level 9, The Pit. The beginning of the level forces you to take damage and I feel like part of the challenge of the game is doing your best to avoid damage. Why bring any of this up at all? Why post any criticism to begin with? I think if you discuss what and why you enjoy or don't enjoy aspects of certain games, it helps you appreciate game design and pick other games in the future that you'll enjoy even more. With books, movie and TV it seems to be that people really enjoy breaking down and debating the merits of things they enjoy or don't. With music or video games, people get rather pissy and personal that things must be objectively good if they liked them, or objectively bad if they didn't.

You responded to the exact same to me when I reported the same issue a month ago. And it says this TC can work with anything newer than 1.8.6, not that it will only run with 1.8.6. https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1696624 GZDoom will continue putting out new releases and people will more than likely keep hitting this bug since people aren't going to be running legacy versions.