Beautiful Doom

The Civ said:

This is really good!
Although I REALLY have to ask that you please include HD sprites separately?
You're doing a great job with them, but I'm just not a big fan of HD sprites in DOOM in general. They contrast a little too much, and I honestly like the pixelated style of the originals.

Uhh, you know, I would actually have done that in the first place but there's a big problem with it. You see, when I use HD sprites I have to use a different sprite from the original one (e.g. original rocket pickup sprite is ROCKA0 and my is ROCKY0). Why? Because (G)ZDoom uses these sprites in the HUD. And if I use the same name for HD sprite and you use fullscreen non-alternative hud, these big sprites will cover huge space and that will look really bad (only alternative hud can resize sprites on screen).

At the same time, as you understand, the sprite definitions are part of the item code. So I cannot really put the weapon pickup sprite in one wad and the weapon itself in another because it's the same piece of code. So far I'm not really sure how to solve this problem.

Wad updated. Now the debris toggle function should work fine and I also fixed the key definitions (they should work in multiplayer properly).

Updated to 6.0.1. I think you'll like this.

* Fixed keys acting wrong in multiplayer
* Added BDoom_weapsounds WAD: if you don't use it, the weapons will have standard sounds.
* Fixed Debris Toggle function so that it properly affects all weapon


UPD:

Tested mod with ZDoom. It works but I recommend turning off debris and fire effects because PNG-sprites with renderstyle Add cause significant lag.

P.S. sorry I'm not using Edit function often enough.


UPD2:

updated to 6.0.2

* Blood pools are now limited to the amount of 50. They start despawning starting from the earliest one when more appear. Helps to conserve memory.
* SSG shells falling position is more varied
* Some small fixes in weapons original/alternative sounds

Do you plan on doing more HD sprites, like the soulsphere and megasphere, and maybe the blood sprites over time?

Oh! And will you be adding the Doom 2 Minor Sprite Fixing Project's fixes in? If you haven't already, I haven't bothered checking.

Makes me think... Which is better... Brutal or Beautiful?
You should also have a single WAD for all these features in case you want them all at once, but still having the separate WADs included too (for who uses ZDL).

Gustavo6046 said:

Makes me think... Which is better... Brutal, Beautiful or Smooth?

fixed

Beautiful doom is my favorite gameplay mod. A relief to finally see new versions.

Death Egg said:

Do you plan on doing more HD sprites, like the soulsphere and megasphere, and maybe the blood sprites over time?

Oh! And will you be adding the Doom 2 Minor Sprite Fixing Project's fixes in? If you haven't already, I haven't bothered checking.

I'm not sure about HD sprites. I hadn't been sure before, but those drawings of weapon styles seemed so nice... Now I'm not much of an artist myself. I don't think I'd be able to draw a soulsphere and make it look really good. So what could I do? Well, I guess I could just enlarge it, give it more round, trimmed edges and blur it a little. That wouldn't really look good, trust me. I actually started doing the Invisibility sphere and I didn't like what I was getting. But I may think about it when I have more time.

I'm not sure I've heard of that mirroring project. I'll take a look.

Gustavo6046 said:

Makes me think... Which is better... Brutal or Beautiful?
You should also have a single WAD for all these features in case you want them all at once, but still having the separate WADs included too (for who uses ZDL).

Brutal and Beautiful Dooms are different mods as you can see. Brutal Doom tries to create new stuff, building on Doom's foundation, while Beautiful Doom attemps to make stuff look new but keeps the old gameplay. So I honestly think that both mods have their own niche.

Now, do you mean that I should make a single wad with weapons, monsters and objects? Oh, there's no need, just launch the game with this zip file without unpacking it, like gzdoom -file BDoom_60.zip. You do know that (G)ZDoom can run wads from inside zip-files, right?

joe-ilya said:

Beautiful doom is my favorite gameplay mod. A relief to finally see new versions.

Thanks! :)

I once attempted an HD spriting project that went nowhere due to my spriting skills not nearly being high enough to match what I wanted, but of all the things I did for it I think the keycard sprites came out the best. (which were based off of, with permission, DoomJedi's skulltag HD sprites) If you wanted to use them, feel free to.

Death Egg said:

I once attempted an HD spriting project that went nowhere due to my spriting skills not nearly being high enough to match what I wanted, but of all the things I did for it I think the keycard sprites came out the best. (which were based off of, with permission, DoomJedi's skulltag HD sprites) If you wanted to use them, feel free to.

I might. That's a good resource, thanks :) If I do the skull keys, then who knows... We'll see. I'm working on a way to define HD sprites in a separate wad. Haven't found one so far but I have an idea that I'm going to check.


Meanwhile another update:

VERSION 6.0.5
* HD and hires sprites are now in a separate Bdoom_HDsprites.wad. Those who do not like the new sprites can simply not use the wad. Those who like everything can just load the whole BDoom_60.zip as usual
* SSG main fire sound is not cut off by reload sound anymore
* SSG alt.fire sound is not quiet anymore
* Fixed a few missing GL-lights definitions
* EvilEye code looks slightly different

VERSION 6.0.5.1 (mini-update)
* BFG ball explosion is now original size (was smaller before)
* Decapitation death (losing head or arm but not gibbing) now doesn't appear as often
* Demon's head flies in the correct direction in the rare death animation where he loses his head
* Fixed wrong version showing up in GZDoom starting screen (can only be seen if loading unpacked wads it seems)

This is fantastic. Beautiful Doom was the first mod I spent a lot of time with, back in the day. Thanks so much for continuing it.

Personally, I'd enjoy a Bdoom_Tweaks.wad in which you simply indulged your ideas for adding a small amount of polish to the gameplay. You could confine the alt attacks and the shootable decorations to this file, as well as bringing back the faster pistol and maybe some more of the other little ideas I'm sure you must have.

Macblain said:

This is fantastic. Beautiful Doom was the first mod I spent a lot of time with, back in the day. Thanks so much for continuing it.

Personally, I'd enjoy a Bdoom_Tweaks.wad in which you simply indulged your ideas for adding a small amount of polish to the gameplay. You could confine the alt attacks and the shootable decorations to this file, as well as bringing back the faster pistol and maybe some more of the other little ideas I'm sure you must have.

Well, the decorations are specifically moved to the objects wad. Splitting them further... I'm not a fan of that idea. I think I've already provided a lot of customization (the mod already has 5 wads) and things are bound to get cluttered and even buggy if I go further. After all, some people mod the mod themselves. Like you can open BDoom_objects.wad and delete the BD_DEAD lump (or open this lump and comment all +SHOOTABLE strings) and you would have no shootable decorations this way).

In fact, it's never a good idea to split things belonging to the same category in more than one wad. E.g. having weapons in one wad and weapons' alt. attacks in another one is a problem and I definitely wouldn't do it. Because they either wouldn't work if wads weren't loaded in one specific order, or they would require specifically removing one of the wads to make things work. Neither is good. I want people to be able to just download the zip file and run it as is to get all the features and only after that, if they really want to, they may go about unpacking it and only using the wads they like.

I was thinking about creating 2 player classes, one of which would have a slightly modified weapon set (including silent fist, faster pistol and alt. attacks for SSG and chaingun) and the other one would have fully standard weapons. But I think there are people who enjoy having, for example, all vavnilla weapons and only SSG alt. attack. So I'm not sure if splitting them would be a totally good idea. But I'm thinking on it.

Wow, I remember playing this back in '09. Great to see its revival and will play it when I get back home. Will try to remember to give some feedback!

Where can I download the HD sprites WAD? It doesn't come with the v6.0.5.1 download for me.

Also, I made skull keys to go with those keycard sprites, if you want them:

Death Egg said:

Where can I download the HD sprites WAD? It doesn't come with the v6.0.5.1 download for me.

You know, you're right! I'm an idiot. I uploaded a new version and it has them.

Death Egg said:

Also, I made skull keys to go with those keycard sprites, if you want them

Those are soo-weet. They are included now, thanks! Also you're credited in the txt.

VERSION 6.0.6
* BDoom_HDsprites.wad is included in the archive again (forgot it in the previous version)
* Added keycards and skullkeys HD sprites (thanks Death Egg)
* Added missing blue skull key dynamic light
* Fixed SSG main attack alternative sound (has more punch, sounds like pre-6.0.1)
* Cacodemon's fireball now looks better and also has correct coloring if fire effects are turned off

Did POB2A0 since it was super easy.

Death Egg said:

http://i.imgur.com/LXfUVoJ.png

Did POB2A0 since it was super easy.

That's nice, but I sort of already use an alternative crushed sprite. Also, I try to stay away from anything monster/gore-related. I mean, I do use some sprites that have somewhat higher resolution than original but I don't go far with it, it's usually around 20%-30%, like gibs and animated blood, and if I start including HD sprites for these elements, they'd look very much out of place. I try to keep the more or less vanilla look of the sprites.
I'm only really sticking to pickups now.

Is the rocket launcher selection sound effect is made when I enter menu intentional?

Also, the skull keys aren't visible on the HUD and the blue key is yellow in the HUD.
The sound a door makes when you don't have the correct key makes a knocking sound instead of the previous locked door sound.

I only made my above comments because Beautiful Doom is the greatest combination of fancy graphics and purist appeal. I think it might get more overall play time among the community if it can advertise itself as having 100% vanilla-faithful gameplay. Personally, I like the little tweaks and I'd love to see what more you might do. Maybe something a little closer to Doom Forever?

I really like that you're keeping consistent resolution across all the monster-related sprites.

I've always liked your blood splats and decals best. I'd love to see them get used in more projects.

Have you looked into rolling the minor sprite fixing project or smooth doom into Beautiful Doom? Could be a lot of work, but it might produce the best-looking doom ever.

Do you have any ambitions to make beautiful versions of the other games? I'd love to see your techniques and design principles applied to Heretic.

This is fantastic to see all this development. I say just go wherever your creative energy is leading you right now. Thanks for all the releases!

Macblain said:

I only made my above comments because Beautiful Doom is the greatest combination of fancy graphics and purist appeal. I think it might get more overall play time among the community if it can advertise itself as having 100% vanilla-faithful gameplay.

indeed. smooth doom had some glitches lately (shotgunner variants disappearing, archviles remaining in their "revive" position when dead) and i'll try beautiful as a graphics mods instead.

Macblain said:

Have you looked into rolling the minor sprite fixing project or smooth doom into Beautiful Doom? Could be a lot of work, but it might produce the best-looking doom ever.

Do you have any ambitions to make beautiful versions of the other games? I'd love to see your techniques and design principles applied to Heretic.

This, also i tried Beautiful Doom and it's spectacular, really well done, a great alternative to those who are bored of Brutal Doom.

joe-ilya said:

Is the rocket launcher selection sound effect is made when I enter menu intentional?

Also, the skull keys aren't visible on the HUD and the blue key is yellow in the HUD.
The sound a door makes when you don't have the correct key makes a knocking sound instead of the previous locked door sound.

The rocket launcher sound — yes.

You're right about the keys in the HUD, that's very weird. I haven't noticed that before probably because I almost always use alternative hud. I'm pretty sure it worked fine at some point. I'll check this out.

The locked sound — I made two different locked sounds, one for card-locked doors (the old one) and one for skull-locked doors (from Hexen). However, while Doom does contain different definitions for these cards (so actually there are 6 types of keys, not 3), most Doom-format maps use doors that accept both types of keys, and these 'universal' doors also use the skull-locked sound. I still prefer this variant because to me it sounds extremely weird when some kind of door in hell suddenly makes a computerish locked sound.



Macblain, everything is possible, but it all takes time and I don't have it that much (lots of work at the moment), that's why I mostly make minor fixes only. Creating something like Beautiful Hexen/Heretic sounds like a nice idea but I think it should be done by somebody who knows these games better. I've only beated Hexen once and I haven't beaten Heretic, I am a Doom-guy, so to say. Also, I personally think that Hexen and Heretic both have lots of effects and look pretty good, while Doom, as an older game, was naturally more plain, so enhancing its looks seemed like an obvious idea. When I look at Hexen/Heretic I don't really get the feeling that it needs improvement. Although Heretic does look simpler. But again, I think that should be somebody more deeply familiar with the game. When it comes to Doom, I know most in-game actors by heart. I don't have even a remotely similar knowledge of Heretic.

I don't think I'm going to incorporate Smooth Doom because that would majorly increase the size of the mod plus it would require lots of work: for example, my new death sprites would look rather jaggy in comparison to its smooth animation. Again, it's possible, but that requires lots of time which currently I don't really have. Maybe I will, some time. Same goes for mirror-fixing sprites.



UPD:

VERSION 6.0.6.1
* After trying and failing to change keys so that there would be different pickup sounds for keycards and skull keys as well as doors requiring cards or skulls, I stopped doing that. Now there's only one locked sound and one key pickup sounds, but keys work properly.
* Added missing XY sprite billboard flag to Invisibility Sphere
* Fixed correct version showing up in load screen (seems to be seen only if loading wads unpacked)
* Correct release date in txt :)

Have you got anywhere else to upload this like Dropbox? Google drive doesn't seem to agree with me and loads a white screen.

I'm not at my computer so I can't load it up to check if you already did this, but you should make it so dead marinesand monsters that are spawned are randomized so there's multiple different possible sprites.

EDIT: Got another sprite done:

Death Egg said:

I'm not at my computer so I can't load it up to check if you already did this, but you should make it so dead marinesand monsters that are spawned are randomized so there's multiple different possible sprites.

Good thinking. Although not many people would notice, but I should do it, yes.

Death Egg said:

EDIT: Got another sprite done:

Sweet, thanks!

SavageCorona said:

Have you got anywhere else to upload this like Dropbox? Google drive doesn't seem to agree with me and loads a white screen.

That's weird. Yes, I have dropbox, I added all versions there https://www.dropbox.com/sh/53q6yvqi959xm5t/AAD_IWvAxrZmySHppoyuRMmva?dl=0

I decided to touch up some of the hi-res items:



I also took the liberty of adding the red stripes to the rocket, though I don't know if you'll want to use it. I figured like you said this mod strives for a perfect balance between adding realism while keeping very close to vanilla Doom, and I always thought it odd that whenever you fire a rocket it has red stripes but when you pick it up it doesn't. It looks less bland now. If you want a brown version instead though I could do that.

I'll probably do the rest of the ammo tomorrow.

Death Egg said:

I decided to touch up some of the hi-res items:

I also took the liberty of adding the red stripes to the rocket, though I don't know if you'll want to use it. I figured like you said this mod strives for a perfect balance between adding realism while keeping very close to vanilla Doom, and I always thought it odd that whenever you fire a rocket it has red stripes but when you pick it up it doesn't. It looks less bland now. If you want a brown version instead though I could do that.

I'll probably do the rest of the ammo tomorrow.

I was always thinking the same about the rocket. I don't really get why the red stripes only appear on the fired locked. I mean, what possible logical explanation could be there?

I think it wouldn't be a crime to add stripes on the basic rocket too.

And thanks, those look really nice. Naturally, since HD sprites were a last-minute idea I was too lazy to work on them properly. Also I'm not that good with them in general.

You can actually send the new sprites directly to me to jekyllgrim@gmail.com

So now the mod has two playerclasses which are actually weapon sets. You can see details on F1 (help) screen. Let me know what you think.

Why am I so bad at spriting??? Death Egg makes such beauty! I am still staring at that striped rocket: "Finally, a solution for this headache!" I always though the rocket should be striped like the missile...
Look this mice and you'll understand what "my bad sprites" I am talking about. If I improve my skills I can make a better mice though...

Neither class seems to have the pistol at the start.

Also, the chaingun HD sprite doesn't appear.