Just to be clear to people not following the link: physical 3D models. But today you could also make electronic 3D models (in, say, Blender) and shoot them from various angles to get sprite images. Later 3D-looking sprite-based games did this.
I assume they rotoscoped over those photos because the images are definitely look hand-edited. Blizzard went similar for Starcraft and Diablo - start with 3D model renderings and then hand-paint over them to get the art pixel-perfect.
They were definitely hand-edited and de-babelized. Would be interesting to have high-res images and edits for the later versions of Doom ports for today's screens, considering Doom ran on a 320x200x256 display.
http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/0/2807/1702120-...