Attn Experts: I don't know what I'm doing, and could use your help.

[Rick]

Ladies and gentlemen, I call upon your artistic skill for something...  I'm working on putting together a Windows Startup screen, and possibly, a different start screen for Maximus Arcade.  For that, I would LOVE to get a great image of the 'turkey', from the pic below, and was hoping this might be an easy ask.



Here's my problem.  Every image I've been able to find on the web is AWFUL.  The turkey is small, the resolution is bad, and I really want to blow up the image to a size of (I'd say) 600px-900px square, so I could use it on pretty much any resolution, and as a full-screen image, if I ever wanted to.  I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) that a "vector image" of a picture would allow you to scale it infinitely, without any quality loss, but I don't know how to do that - and I'm pretty sure that the image provided (unless someone can find one better) doesn't really lend itself to a 'simple solution', by way of vectorizing it.  (Is that even a word?)

My ask is this.  Is it a simple/fairly simple task to get a fair size image of the turkey, with a transparent background, so that I can use it in my artwork?  PNG is what I'm used to, but I can get access to Adobe Illustrator if the situation demands it.  (Of course, I'd pretty much export it from the program to PNG anyway, as I'd need to to amalgamate it into my present work.  (I really wish I had some skill in art, as I'd happily redraw the entire bird, but my turkey would likely come out looking horribly, horribly awful.)

Can anybody tell me my best course of action here?  Thanks, in advance!

[Billy_Goatfeet]

  If I was taking this one on, I would look for the best (largest) image of the turkey I could get my hands on as a guide.  Bring it into Photoshop and cut it out from the background.  Take that cut out Turkey into Illustrator and trace your vectors over top of it.  If you can get your hands on Illustrator you can probably get Photoshop as well. 

 You have the basic idea down though, you want to vectorise your bitmap image.  Illustrator does have an automatic trace option but I highly doubt it would yield you any usable results.   It may be a bit difficult to replicate the highlights/shadowing but it isn't anything that couldn't be done by an experienced Illustrator artist.  Hope this helped a bit.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

The original file is only 128x128. Not much to work with.

Here's the original from the .PK4 (in PNG), a simple enlargement, and an autovectorized version in a variety of formats.

[Rick]

If I was taking this one on, I would look for the best (largest) image of the turkey I could get my hands on as a guide.  Bring it into Photoshop and cut it out from the background.  Take that cut out Turkey into Illustrator and trace your vectors over top of it.  If you can get your hands on Illustrator you can probably get Photoshop as well.  You have the basic idea down though, you want to vectorise your bitmap image.  Illustrator does have an automatic trace option but I highly doubt it would yield you any usable results.   It may be a bit difficult to replicate the highlights/shadowing but it isn't anything that couldn't be done by an experienced Illustrator artist.  Hope this helped a bit.

That's the problem - there's really no good source material out there...

The original file is only 128x128. Not much to work with.  Here's the original from the .PK4 (in PNG), a simple enlargement, and an autovectorized version in a variety of formats.

Awesome!  Exactly what I needed.  Thanks so much!

 

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

I've got a friend who works for id, I should see if he can track down a higher resolution version of the original

[Billy_Goatfeet]

  Nice one cotmm68030!  I didn't think you'd get results with an auto-vector.   Live and learn.

[Rick]

I've got a friend who works for id, I should see if he can track down a higher resolution version of the original

You have a friend who works for id?

 

Any chance you want to put in a good word about my blog outlining the build?  I figure, after all is said and done, if I get good reviews on the techie sites (Engadget, Gizmodo, Kotaku, etc.) I'd hit up anyone at id who wants to put my visage into Doom 4.  Heck, let them make me an NPC in-game!  (Imagine that: me having a cameo, repairing the STTP3 in the opening scenes.  I'd kill for that!)

 

(A man can dream, can't he?)

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

"Works for" might not be the best description. I can't say I fully understand his relationship with id, other than he works on the Linux port of QuakeLive.

In regards to a higher resolution original:
(1:50:05 PM) LordHavoc: honestly I'm not sure who to contact about that
(1:50:25 PM) LordHavoc: id is divided up into divisions for each game in development
(1:50:36 PM) LordHavoc: and my contacts are all in the QuakeLive department

[Rick]

"Works for" might not be the best description. I can't say I fully understand his relationship with id, other than he works on the Linux port of QuakeLive.

Regardless, this is still very cool.  All my "Industry Contacts" pretty much have to do with knowing a guy on the "Space Channel"...

In regards to a higher resolution original:
(1:50:05 PM) LordHavoc: honestly I'm not sure who to contact about that
(1:50:25 PM) LordHavoc: id is divided up into divisions for each game in development
(1:50:36 PM) LordHavoc: and my contacts are all in the QuakeLive department

Appreciate the effort!  Even if nothing ever comes of it, having someone go to bat for the project is definitely cool.  Thanks for that.

 

I know Roo had somehow gotten me high-res images using a Developer's Kit, but I haven't seen him online in a bit, and he hasn't responded to my last E-Mail...  Hope he's ok, too!

[Namco]

When you read the credits for Doom 3, these are the guys who show up as the artists of the game (below). I googled them and got the emails you see below except for two of them which I can only guess at:

Adrian Carmack   acarmack@idsoftware.com
Kevin Cloud           kevinc@idsoftware.com
Andy Chang            andy@idsoftware.com or achang@idsoftware.com or andyc@idsoftware.com
Pat Duffy           pat@idsoftware.com
Seneca Menard   seneca@idsoftware.com
Kenneth Scott   kenneth@idsoftware.com
Patrick Thomas     patrick@idsoftware.com or pthomas@idsoftware.com

Try emailing all these guys and see what happens. I think someone like Kenneth or Seneca who joined around the time of Quake 3a would be your best bet. Pat Duffy was a Media artist which may mean he worked on the box, the fake ads and terminals scattered around the levels, or maybe he was the guy who drew the turkey, who knows?

If you're lucky you may get someone cool with the artwork on a CD somewhere... or you may get unlucky and find out they're all buried in Zenimax and the emails don't work anyway. LOL

[Rick]

GODLIKE!!!  Omg, thanks!  I'll send off an email and see what shakes loose!  Updates forthcoming!

 

[Rick]

SUCCESS!

Hey Rick,

You are in luck...I created the Turkey Puncher game, so I should have the source art around somewhere. I can't remember if I created the art at the low res used in game, but I seem to remember coloring in the sketch a bit bigger. It's probably not very high res, but should be better than the tga sprites in the base folder. Let me dig through my archives a bit.

patd

How cool is that?  It's not every day you get to talk to the people who BUILT one of your favourite games!

 

[Namco]

WOW! That is beyond awesome! 

SUCCESS!

Hey Rick,

You are in luck...I created the Turkey Puncher game, so I should have the source art around somewhere. I can't remember if I created the art at the low res used in game, but I seem to remember coloring in the sketch a bit bigger. It's probably not very high res, but should be better than the tga sprites in the base folder. Let me dig through my archives a bit.

patd

How cool is that?  It's not every day you get to talk to the people who BUILT one of your favourite games!

 

[yotsuya]

Rick-

I'd be interested in reading the message you sent to them. I'm curious how you brought it up to them.

[Rick]

I'd be interested in reading the message you sent to them. I'm curious how you brought it up to them.

Twas a total suckup moment...

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I hope this doesn't find it's way into your spam folder, but I wanted to send my appreciation for such a fantastic game - Doom 3 - and I wanted to let you know that, as an homage, I am in the middle of building a full-size arcade cabinet based upon "Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3".

(I'll just let that sink in for a moment.  If you're laughing right now, I'll count that as a good sign.)

My plan is to build my arcade cabinet to be as close as possible to the one seen in the opening level of Doom 3, and for that, I have tried to get as many pictures as possible of the game itself.  A friend of mine was able to send me some good in-game screenshots of the game from every angle, and from those, I have created a 3D render of what I hope the game will look like, once complete.  (I tried to embed the graphic, but had to attach it instead.  See: "Doomed!.png".)  This render is my 'construction diagram' that I'm using to build the cabinet.

I was hoping that someone might be able to point me in the right direction for some of the artwork that was created for Doom 3, in particular (don't laugh) I'm looking for a higher resolution of the "turkey" from the actual 'game inside the game'.  I'm trying to incorporate it into a startup screen for the game, and all I can seem to find are small pics of it.

I would really (really!) appreciate your feedback on my project, if you would be so kind.  My project plans are posted here, presently: http://durhamdev.wordpress.com.  I've completed much of the work on the control panel, as seen in the attachment named "control panel 1", and hope to have some artwork applied shortly.

As you will see, I'm trying to be as honest to the original as possible, while implementing my own personal style.  It's a 'version 2.0', and thus, I've put in a two player scheme, containing a joystick and six buttons each (unfortunately, 8 buttons isn't necessary for the games I'll be playing) but everything else will be 'true' to the original.  I've kept the same shape and the same lines, as closely as possible.  I'm planning on creating a lot of 'supplemental' information as well by way of 'backstory' - e-mails to/from the new Mars Base Shipper/Receiver about the cabinet being shipped back after the 'incursion', sales and marketing brochures, and other stuff like that.  I'm trying to give the cabinet 'a life', and integrate it into the original Doom 3 storyline, somewhat.

Again, I'm hoping this E-Mail gets to you, and I hope you like what I'm trying to build!

Thanks, in advance.

As you'll notice, I'm not above groveling.

 

[wp34]

(I'll just let that sink in for a moment.  If you're laughing right now, I'll count that as a good sign.)

That's funny.  Nice email.  Really awesome that you got a response.

[yotsuya]

Nice job there. How could they say no? 

[drventure]

Now that makes for a great backstory!

[skinz]

Unbelievable - Bad ass.  Groveling pays off!

[Silverwind]

Nice work! 

Will love to see the final product when it's done!