New Sprites and Adrian Carmack

As far as I know, all the new Doom sprites that are circulating through the community in the Monster Resource WAD, among others, are all made through copy and paste, or converted from 3D models (Lil' White Mouse's work, for example). Most copy/paste sprites come out looking less than perfect. In the beginning, though, Adrian Carmack started from clay models and then scanned them into a computer, correct?

Here's my question: once scanned, Adrian would have the sprite in a single position from all different angles -- so how did he then animate walking and firing/throwing projectiles? The original clay models couldn't be repositioned, could they? If they could, this thread is pretty much moot.

What I'm getting at here is if you can make a single frame of a new sprite, which isn't too hard, it then becomes a daunting task to follow through and churn out forty or fifty more from different angles and positions. It also seems to require a fairly artistic person, which I'm not sure I am. Am I missing something that makes the process easier or is my lack of artistic ability just going to cause it to be very difficult?

Is there any advice that can be given on shading and redrawing objects from different angles?

RoneKyakone said:

Here's my question: once scanned, Adrian would have the sprite in a single position from all different angles -- so how did he then animate walking and firing/throwing projectiles? The original clay models couldn't be repositioned, could they? If they could, this thread is pretty much moot.

There are photographs of the Baron of Hell clay model in different positions (one walking, the other attacking) - so it's probably safe to assume that he did remodel them for each animation (or at least, animations with major changes to the pose).

FYI, the marine, Baron, and Cyberdemon were clay. The Spiderdemon, Mancubus, Revenant and Arch Vile were latex and metal models (which could be easily bent into different poses, since they probably had internal wire skeletons).

The remaining monsters (Demon, Cacodemon, Imp, Lost Soul etc) were drawn from scratch without any physical reference model.

Perhaps an easier way to visualise the different angles of a sprite during a particular animation, would be to render a rough 3D model of it - take a screenshot of it at the appropriate angle, then trace over it in your graphics program.

For a simple 3D editor, try QMe:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~renep/quakeme/download.htm

Trilinear said:

The remaining monsters (Demon, Cacodemon, Imp, Lost Soul etc) were drawn from scratch without any physical reference model.

Here's part of what I was asking. I don't understand how a sprite can be made without some sort of model to refer to. Cacodemons and lost souls, perhaps, but something like a demon or imp would seem far too complex. The whole process hardly seems feasible to me.

I will try to get the hang of the program you linked to, though. At the moment, I'm completely confused by it.

RoneKyakone said:

Here's part of what I was asking. I don't understand how a sprite can be made without some sort of model to refer to. Cacodemons and lost souls, perhaps, but something like a demon or imp would seem far too complex. The whole process hardly seems feasible to me.

I guess it just comes down to artistic talent, honed from years of practice. I'd say the artists would have initially sketched each character on paper in different angles and poses to help them draw the digital versions.

RoneKyakone said:

I will try to get the hang of the program you linked to, though. At the moment, I'm completely confused by it.

A few tutorials and a FAQ for QME available here:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~renep/quakeme/

[EDIT:]
One version of QME contains some sample models, specifically "human.mdo". You could start with this, provided the monster you are wanting to render is vaguely humanoid in appearance. One important point: Notice that the model is comprised of individual "objects" (arms, legs, hands etc) - you can move these around using the object selection tool to pose the character for various animation frames (you don't have to move each individual vertex, just the objects themselves).

Yeah, you're probably right.

I'm beginning to get the hang of this program. Thanks a lot for the help.

A bump for this thread, really nice program you've hinted me to. Blender just seams to hard to get a hang on for me, so thanks!

If you look at the Imp sprites closely some of the angles do actually change quite obviously, in one its jaw seems to be missing. Obviously in the game things are usually moving too fast for this to be obvious...

I've actually been contemplating on whether or not I should try using Lego models for sprites, hehe.

Be afraid. Be very afraid :)

http://www.doomwadstation.com/main/lego/

Martin Howe said:
http://www.doomwadstation.com/main/lego/

Russell Pearson used some of that stuff to make a LEGO textured level.