Two ideas for photography to make assets

[Blastfrog]

I have a legit ROTT-style human turntable* that I built one time because I'm insane or something, I guess. It's actually pretty sturdy and works nicely. One could get on it and take pictures of still poses when rotating in 45 degree intervals. Maybe this could be used for still and posable skeletons decorated with stuff, or people. I could try to make some kind of fucked up costume with posable extra limbs and this could be a candidate for a new Knight and/or Baron.

Secondly, Freedoom's weapons look slightly subpar in my opinion. I think maybe new weapons could be built as physical props that are then photographed being held by someone with at least reasonably muscular arms (not me, heh). I mean, it's possible to make some pretty cool props just by improvising with random materials. Maybe take and saw different toys and tools apart and stitch them back together into something that would be realistic reinterpretations of the Freedoom weapons. Maybe the gloves could be fingerless with a slitted opening on the back and look to be made of some sort of futuristic fiber instead of being leather. Should the handedness for the pistol and fist remain leftie or not? It'd be further away from directly copying Doom if Freedoomguy is a righty at all times.


*I'll take pictures of it later today, I've got other stuff to do at the moment.

[fraggle]

Hah, that sounds awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing some pictures.

I could try to make some kind of fucked up costume with posable extra limbs and this could be a candidate for a new Knight and/or Baron.

This could work. The sprites are low enough resolution that you can probably get away with something crude and people won't know any better. Reminds me of the old '60s Doctor Who episodes that had crude sets and costumes but nobody noticed anyway because everyone had low resolution televisions.

I think the real work isn't in taking the photos but in the editing to make the sprites really look nice. Not everything converts to the Doom palette very well. You'd need someone like raymoohawk who has the skills to edit them and clean them up.

[Danfun64]

fraggle said:

This could work. The sprites are low enough resolution that you can probably get away with something crude and people won't know any better. Reminds me of the old '60s Doctor Who episodes that had crude sets and costumes but nobody noticed anyway because everyone had low resolution televisions.

It probably still works, since all classic doctor who serials except for Spearhead in Space (which was filmed rather than taped) are stuck in standard definition.

Personally, I think instead of pictures, you should use models which can easily be transferred to md2, md2, dmd, or any other model formats used by source port. Why not kill two birds with one stone?

[raymoohawk]

or you could kill 3 birds by making the model first, rendering it to voxels with qubicle voxelizer, then you render the front back and side from the voxel to sprites, and the 45 degree angles from the models :-)

[Danfun64]

I forgot about voxels. Good idea raymoohawk

[Clonehunter]

The shotgun always looked like a piece of flat paper whenever it was pumped.

[Blastfrog]

Voxels seem pointless. If converting to sprites, all it will do is cause aliasing and other quality loss and will do nothing for the "pixel aesthetic". If pre-rendered 3D models are used, it is best to render them as-is than to misguidedly convert them to voxels. Best method is render in hi-res, downscale (keeping the 5:6 pixels in mind), make them greyscale and create palette translation masks to convert those greyscale areas into clean looking colorful and paletted ones.

The idea is that you work with HD content as a basis so that it's easy to work with and will look good in all contexts (including this specific downscaling workflow). id Software did quite the same thing that I'm describing, just using physical models instead of pre-renders (and only because that was easier at the time due to lack of computing power and accessible decent hardware and software to do so with).

fraggle said:

Hah, that sounds awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing some pictures.

Sorry about the delay, here are the pictures:




I made this thing a couple of years ago so it is a bit rusty but it still works. Not sure if you can see it but there are computer chair type wheels on there between the two platforms. I'll probably spraypaint for chromakey purposes it and give it better 45 degree markers.

[Jaxxoon R]

Makes me want pizza. Quality pizza. None of that freezer shit. Too bad it's November.

I'd love to see some Frankenguns.

[Pencil of Doom]

Clonehunter said:

The shotgun always looked like a piece of flat paper whenever it was pumped.

Yeah, i think that too, it should be replaced with something that looks heavier, unlike the current FDShotgun.

[Clonehunter]

I don't know, would it be too much to take a real shotgun (Or something that looks real), mock it up a bit, and photo it and modify it to fit visually? Or would that not fly because of some kind of license on the shotgun by its manufacturer?

[Jaxxoon R]

Worked for Doom, didn't it? I mean, they can't really own the image just because their product is in it, since you took the photographs, can they?

[Blastfrog]

Jaxxoon R said:

Worked for Doom, didn't it? I mean, they can't really own the image just because their product is in it, since you took the photographs, can they?

Especially if it's already physically highly modified IRL and it gets photoshopped to be even more stylized, then scaled down in resolution to 320x200.

I might as well do this. The current weapon sprites all suck. My photographer friend also has reasonably thick and hairy arms, so it'd be better than mine for space marine arms. Just gotta get the materials like toy guns, paint, appropriately futuristic sci-fi looking combat gloves, etc.

[Pencil of Doom]

Sodaholic said:

Especially if it's already physically highly modified IRL and it gets photoshopped to be even more stylized, then scaled down in resolution to 320x200.

I might as well do this. The current weapon sprites all suck. My photographer friend also has reasonably thick and hairy arms, so it'd be better than mine for space marine arms. Just gotta get the materials like toy guns, paint, appropriately futuristic sci-fi looking combat gloves, etc.

That's a great idea and for the weapons i have an idea:you could make them with paper or cardboard like i do, althrough the problem will be digitalizing both weapons and arms.
But if that dosen't work then the what you mentioned before may be the only way.

[Blastfrog]

My intentions are as follows:

1. Jimmy-rig some decent looking props and have my friend hold them in poses while I snap the photos.
2. I import it, chroma-key away the background color, make it greyscale and then scale it down to 320x200.
3. I colorize it with some premade translation tables and some masks.
4. Crop and appropriately align it as a usable Doom sprite.

I can ask my younger cousin if he still has any shitty toy guns he doesn't want anymore. I could probably take those, add and remove features and other items. Colors don't matter since that gets redone in post-production anyway.

[Clonehunter]

Some custom or chopped nerf guns would probably look slick, as long as they don't look to obvious. Maybe you could even go beyond guns and maybe find something that bears a resemblance. For example, the Plasma Gun in Doom, while photo'd from a nerf gun, it was from only a piece of the gun.

Better example, I was carrying a portable heater the other day, and it looked like a rocket launcher (THough I actually like the current RL). I dunno, I don't suppose hands could just be added later, could they?

[fraggle]

I used to work in an office where there were a LOT of nerf guns of all different types. One of the things I always meant to do was take appropriate photos of them to make a Nerf weapons doom mod.

My plan was just to make a literal Nerf mod emulating the darts and all, as an amusement rather than a serious mod. Certainly the (normal) look of Nerf guns wouldn't be appropriate for a more serious project like Freedoom. But I can certainly imagine that they might look good if repainted. Repainted Nerf guns have already been used as props on the "Terra Nova" TV series: