Tweaking Freedoom guy's face

[Ferk]

One thing I find very annoying whenever I use Freedoom vs Doom is how juvenile and thin is the HUD face of the default Freedoom guy stance. His jaw is narrow, and his chin sharp. It feels like a teenager, it doesn't really speak "badass" to me like the Doom guy does.

 

My problem is only with the default idling face, the rest of the faces are totally ok, since they are in an angle it does make sense for them to be sort of stretched.

This is worsened by the fact that Doom engines actually stretch the HUD images with 20% extra height. I suspect this wasn't taken into account when these graphics were made.

 

It also looks like his mouth is a bit too high up his nose, like he's constantly pulling his lips.

 

I've taken an attempt at improving on this, below you can see the original next to the tweaked version I made, both aspect corrected to match how the engine renders it. If you agree with this, I'll tweak also the bleeding ones and submit a PR.

 

Edited May 19, 2018 by Ferk

[Dragonfly]

I also note that you've fixed the excessively dark outline along the chin - all good changes from my perspective! :D

[fraggle]

Thanks, I've noticed this too and I think your theory about the aspect ratio / 20% stretching is probably correct. By the way, the zombie sprites suffer from the same problem. But it would be nice to get the status bar have fixed at least.

[Erick]

Very good changes! Nice to see the Freedoom HUD face look more like an adult and match with Doom's aspect ratio, other touches like the mouth and dark chin outline are good improvements too.

[MrFlibble]

I like it! I think it's a very nice improvement that, while not a radical change of the original design, indeed makes the face more proportional.

[The Nate]

good

 

now he looks even more like Karl Urban

[Manuel-K]

Very nice. That's a huge improvement.

[Ferk]

Thank you for all the positive feedback on this!

I did open a pull request shortly after the post, which includes the 2 bleeding stages that are based on the same face: https://github.com/freedoom/freedoom/pull/532

The other bleeding stages remain unchanged, which I think it's ok, since the face is looking down slightly:

(Hmm.. the forum does not allow me to resize linked pictures any bigger)

Edited May 21, 2018 by Ferk

[MrFlibble]

Could you please post a screenshot of how this looks in-game?

[DoctorGenesis]

Those look very nice. I like them. I wouldn't really say he looks like a teenager, more like some contemporary standup comedian.

[Ferk]

18 hours ago, MrFlibble said:

Could you please post a screenshot of how this looks in-game?

 

Here you go, in-game screenshot from the modified hurt states.

It might not be a massive difference from how it was before. But it looks better to me.

 

Hmm.. should I get rid of the outline in the chin entirely?

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by Ferk

[Ferk]

Here's with less of a noticeable outline.

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by Ferk

[Ferk]

I've toned down the black outline around the chin in all the faces (not just idle and bleeding but also the rest, otherwise it looked weird).

I've built a freedoom1.wad with them in case someone wants to check it by themselves:

   https://mega.nz/#!Y84jVJKR!dNIPaFfRjJPPpx8BHhqNmlcH3Ng5K37NwZkTj1Bd6aA

 

However, for some reason the menu text graphics were not generated (some problem in my build setup, unrelated to the change), so just smash the buttons in the menu to start a new game.

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by Ferk

[Manuel-K]

9 hours ago, Ferk said:

Hmm.. should I get rid of the outline in the chin entirely?

I'm not sure. Without the outline it looks more natural, but the outline makes the head stand out from the rest of the HUD.

[Ferk]

Any more opinions on the outline?

Maybe it's because I've been looking at it too much, but the dark outline was annoying me. I had also pushed that change to the github pull request (which has been sitting there for a while), as separate commit.

If the general opinion is that it's better with outline I can just revert that one commit.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Ferk

[Death Egg]

Personally I like it with the outline more.

[Teivman]

Leave out the outline.

[Erick]

Personally I find the outline to be unnecessary and is (or was) too easily noticable. Doomguy's head don't have an outline (at least one I know of) so not having an easily noticable one for the Freedoom guy might be more preferable.

 

Also may I ask, were the "OUCH" faces left untouched intentionally for a similar reason to the bleeding faces? Not sure if the "OUCH" faces can be considered to be at an angle compared to the bleeding idle faces.

[Ferk]

3 hours ago, GuyNamedErick said:

Also may I ask, were the "OUCH" faces left untouched intentionally for a similar reason to the bleeding faces? Not sure if the "OUCH" faces can be considered to be at an angle compared to the bleeding idle faces.

 

Hmm.. at first it was because I thought that having the mouth open would anyway make the face be more pearl-shaped.

But I can see why it would make sense to change this one as well, since the angle is actually the same so it looks like the head suddenly narrows.

 

Ok, I'm having a go at tweaking that one as well:

 

            Before - After

 

Edited June 6, 2018 by Ferk

[Ferk]

Bleeding stages:

 

Edited June 6, 2018 by Ferk

[Ferk]

I'm thinking that maybe I should tweak the other faces even in an angle as well... I did a quick test and it actually looks better if I do.

The transition is weird otherwise.

I'll continue in the weekend when I have more time.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Ferk

[Erick]

The bleeding OUCH faces look nice! Looking forward to how the rest of the sprites will turn out, good to see the weird sprite transitioning ironed out. I still stand by having no noticeable outline as I think it's one of the things that helps keep the head sprites consistent with how Doomguy's head sprites appear.

[Memfis]

Hmm, this guy kinda looks like a disturbed drunkard hobo that doesn't take care of himself, even on 100% health. And he has weird cute tiny eyes. I think more tweaking might be necessary.

[Ferk]

On 6/7/2018 at 11:04 AM, Memfis said:

Hmm, this guy kinda looks like a disturbed drunkard hobo that doesn't take care of himself, even on 100% health. And he has weird cute tiny eyes. I think more tweaking might be necessary.

 

The eyes are a similar size as in the original doomguy: a line of 4 pixels (+ additional 3 pixels above when fully open in surprise).
I don't think giving him big cartoony eyes would be an improvement.

I don't want to massively rework the face either. If anything, maybe we could try tweaking around the eyes a bit without actually making the eyes bigger,I bet the feeling you get is more of a visual illusion than anything. But honestly the size looks natural to me.

 

There are also not a lot of bathrooms in the demon infested levels he's dealing with, full of toxic waste. I'm amazed that the original doom guy was able to keep himself clean-shaven and with nice haircut.

I could give it a try at improving the haircut a bit for the unhurt state, but I don't promise anything.

Edited June 8, 2018 by Ferk

[Ferk]

I didn't get to change the haircut in any way that I liked, so I've let it be.

 

But I've updated the PR tweaking the other faces that are looking in an angle slightly down.

I've also updated the wad file (I still don't know why the build has the menu text missing...)

I think the smile looks more sadistic now:

 

Edited June 9, 2018 by Ferk

[LouigiVerona]

I would redraw the Freedoom Doomguy completely. This face is just not badass at all. Looks like a hipster. And if you change the chin - looks like a hipster who overeats. That's it.

[Ferk]

5 hours ago, LouigiVerona said:

I would redraw the Freedoom Doomguy completely

Please go ahead and do it.

Don't let me stop you.

 

I was just doing tweaks to improve on details that I find a bit annoying, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't welcome someone wanting to redraw it completely.

Edited June 14, 2018 by Ferk

[LouigiVerona]

I want to redraw it. But I am not an artist. If I could do it, I would not refuse to help.

 

And I do find your version actually an improvement. So, I would definitely change the current Doomguy to the version you've shown us here.

[MrFlibble]

On 6/10/2018 at 1:29 AM, Ferk said:

I've also updated the wad file (I still don't know why the build has the menu text missing...)

Or you could just throw together a small PWAD only containing the face sprites, that would be way easier I suppose.

 

On 6/14/2018 at 2:53 PM, LouigiVerona said:

This face is just not badass at all.

Personally I've always found it appealing that Freedoomguy's face is decidedly unheroic. For me this evokes sympathy for what would otherwise be just a placeholder "hero" type of character.

 

And come to think of it, he must be pretty badass if he's single-handedly taking on an entire army of eldritch spawn and alien minions while apparently suffering from a permanent hangover :)

[luckypunk]

13 hours ago, MrFlibble said:

And come to think of it, he must be pretty badass if he's single-handedly taking on an entire army of eldritch spawn and alien minions while apparently suffering from a permanent hangover :)

I'd really like that as a part of freedoom's backstory. There's a huge party at AGM, everyone gets extremely drunk and the next day everyone but freedoomguy has turned into a monster. So FDG grabs a pistol and an empty liquor bottle (instead of fists) and starts shooting and beating the monsters.