Overview
- DoomPaint, released earlier this week on GitHub by Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich, publishes code and instructions under an MIT license for anyone to run.
- The tool runs the real DOOM engine headlessly via ViZDoom, captures each rendered frame as a bitmap, and supplies it to Paint by updating a single OLE clipboard object so Paint pastes each frame as a genuine document edit.
- Russinovich added Windows-specific workarounds including a low-level keyboard hook to capture input while Paint is active and a clipboard update protocol to avoid race conditions when Paint reads pasted frames.
- The experience uses the shareware DOOM1.WAD with BSD-licensed FreeDoom files for missing levels, includes converted MIDI music and sound effects, and displays at Doom’s native 35 Hz with frame-rate variability tied to resolution and machine performance.
- The release highlights both a playful continuation of DOOM port culture and a practical demo of Windows internals, showing how clipboard and OLE behavior can be repurposed and likely inspiring similar tinkering by developers and hobbyists.