Plasticine sprites [WIP] -> NOW WITH DEMO .WAD!

Nonetheless, an actual original design would be preferable.

Here are the front frames of all positions except death (which I didn't do yet).

They look nice. The sprites look a bit uneven though, but some quick rotation of the sprites in PSP could fix that right up.

On a related note, those caco sprites reminded me of some old platformer from the 90's that used extensive clay sprites. I can't seem to remember the title of it, though, what was it?

Clayfighter? Although that was a fighting game, not a platformer.

No, no, it was a DOS game from the mid to late 90's; I remember some sort of barbarian-type character, and it had a generally humorous tone through out.

e: http://www.squashysoftware.com/ The games there are a bit similar to what I was describing.

double e: Found it. http://www.squashysoftware.com/bert.php Bert the Barbarian. I think a humorous Doom mod could make use of clay sprites like that. I couldn't do it, but someone could.

Hmm...not quite a classic DOS game. Weird that the author chose to author a game with a DOS version of a game-maker engine (puke) in 1999, when there was practically no market for DOS games (Win98 was all t3h sh1t) and many lusers who jumped on the WIn95 bandwagon hadn't even heard of it.

Anyway...I will eventually finish cropping the sprites from the original photos, and when I'm done I'll come back looking for some ideas on how to release it. Needless to say, anyone is free to use the so-far released pics. Probably I will have to make a dual hi-res and doom-res release.

BTW, is there any source port out there with support for truecolour sprites yet? I remember that some time ago that didn't end up well.

Maes said:

BTW, is there any source port out there with support for truecolour sprites yet?

I think GZDoom does, if I'm not mistaken.

Yup

Nice dude, at 200-odd pixels, even the cyberdemon is dwarfed by your hideous gasbag.

Probably obvious, but it'd probably be more efficient to put the model in the first stance/position (ie. mouth closed) then take all 8 frames around it.. then do the next one with the mouth open etc, take all 8 frames again.. etc (instead of re-positioning it for all face-on, then repositioning for all side/etc).. unless that's what you're doing already.

One thing I've thought of doing is making a doom creature where in each 360 degree frame, its eyes (and maybe head) are constantly looking at you (even though its body turns.. I guess until its facing away from you or maybe even then it could look over its shoulder). Might look weird as it stares at you while it infights someone else in another direction though.

This is funny as. Can't wait to see it in an actual PWAD.

gggmork said:

Probably obvious, but it'd probably be more efficient to put the model in the first stance/position (ie. mouth closed) then take all 8 frames around it.. then do the next one with the mouth open etc, take all 8 frames again.. etc (instead of re-positioning it for all face-on, then repositioning for all side/etc).. unless that's what you're doing already.

Yeah that's what I'm doing. However I haven't yet mastered the positioning and posing procedure, and getting a proper pedestal for something slightly smaller than a ping-pong ball, that also lines up with the camera proved harder than I though. Also the background I use causes different light level adjustments to the camera...a lotta work, in any case :-p

gggmork said:

Might look weird as it stares at you while it infights someone else in another direction though.

Especially if it doesn't even have a neck :-p

You could mount the cacoball on a wire attached to a sturdy base assuming that's not what you are doing now.

Here's how it's actually held:



That's why I think a biped model will actually be easier.

With a C battery, for scale:



It looks way more disturbing when incomplete e.g. lacking a few teeth and its eye ;-)

You might want to make a simple lightbox to get the lighting more consistent.

Good tip! I'll use it on the next models though, as this one is already at the limit of consistency as-is.

Looks like Hissy's got some competition :P

Handling a 3D mini-cacodemon can be disturbing in weird ways: its shape reminds me sometimes of a fish, sometimes of a cancerous growth of sorts or a mollusk, with those pseudopoda and bulges.

mammajamma said:

On a related note, those caco sprites reminded me of some old platformer from the 90's that used extensive clay sprites. I can't seem to remember the title of it, though, what was it?

That would be the Neverhood.

Maes said:

sometimes of a fish,

Oh dear, the fish avatars...

sometimes of a cancerous growth of sorts

Like isn't that the idea behind the Cacodemon?

Put it's head on a stick with a base, that way it'll be easier to rotate, and you can just photoshop out the extra bits.

You can already see the "stick" in the first of the two photos (it's a blue marker with a stable enough base).

Just so you can keep up with updates, you can check the finished frames in my WIP directory, as I add them.

Animations A to C are complete, D is halfway done (which means attack is almost complete). Just two pain sequences and one death sequence to go.

So far the response has been positive, and I welcome any constructive criticism. I built a new lightbox so the next sprites won't have the lighting and backdrop separation issues of the Cacodemon, which is more like a proof of concept. Anyone who wishes to retouch the finished hi-res sprites or assume the responsibility of creating a Doom-res version of them, will be very much welcome, as that would speed things up a bit, especially if they already have experience in this area.

I don't know if it's more proper to make a new thread at this point, but here is the first functional demo of my efforts:

PLASCACO.WAD

A simple sprite add-on for Doom and/or Doom II, at vanilla resolution.

The scaling down was made with 27% relative to the full-res models, keeping close enough to the originals in overall sprite volume. They look much slimmer though.

Known issues:

1. Imperfect color reduction (the eyes and firing frames will probably need retouching or a color reduction method that doesn't suck).
   
2. "Toothpicks" may need recoloring (?)
   
3. Squishy death frames are missing for now.
   
4. Yeah, I know it's vanilla resolution, but it's the only way to quickly put it to the test.
   

the wad looks amazing. i guess the PE and loast sould could be done in the same way.

also, so make the caco look even better, it wouldnt be too hard to make a simple cacodemon plasma ball in plastacine, right?

That's cool. One of the diagonal-forward frames appears to have more white pixels around the perimeter than other frames. Maybe the fireball would look better in clay too.

Sure, a plasticine (or other materials) fireball is possible. It doesn't have to be a simple translucent ball though (that would look ugly) but it can be something with 8 directions.

Speaking of which, the Caco sprites have 8 distinct directions (there's no left/right reuse, and thus they look different from left/right.

Must say, good job! Turned out a lot better than I expected, just cant wait to see the dying scenes!

Yeah, it looks cool! simple test map

Now it has death frames, too. They turned out pretty gruesome, I must say.

I updated the previous link.

Update: I merged your test map with the updated version.

PLASCACO.WAD