Thoughts on the "abstract 2-color void" visual trope?

[Kwisior]

I'm talking about stuff like certain Sunlust maps, Dimensions map02-03, Swim With the Whales, Stardates, stuff from Flotsam, Cryogenics map01, Capybara, or Toilet of the Gods map01.

 

Do you see it as tired and bland or do you like it?  What made it so popular among hard mapsets? Who started it?

Edited April 10, 2023 by Kwisior

[Bloodbath Giraffe]

I think its good in moderation. I think making a full megawad using only the same 2 color would be difficult to make and bland to play. I made a megawad and used a theme that change every 5 maps for a total of 6 different color themed episodes. I like using it as it ties the episodes together and makes it feel more connected then just 32 maps randomly put together. 

[Kwisior]

6 hours ago, Bloodbath Giraffe said:

I think its good in moderation. I think making a full megawad using only the same 2 color would be difficult to make and bland to play. I made a megawad and used a theme that change every 5 maps for a total of 6 different color themed episodes. I like using it as it ties the episodes together and makes it feel more connected then just 32 maps randomly put together. 

Understandable. I like to think of this as the "Scythe II approach".

[baja blast rd.]

The lineage, like so much, probably begins with Alien Vendetta, which used these Redwall highlights a bunch in some of its later maps.

 

 

 

Deus Vult took that and ran with it. 

 

 

Sunder it seems has a bunch of Deus Vult in it, and also Scythe 2, whose late-third design is heavy on duo-tone too in both of its episodes. Sunder map13 especially rolled with this highlight- and sector caligraphy-based look. 

 

 

And then Ribbiks made a whole style out of that motif early in his mapping. 

 

 

Flotsam, Dimensions, and Cryogenics hew closer to Sunder. Capybara is middle-era Ribbiks of Stardate 20x7 and Magnolia rather than his early approach. While Toilet of the Gods has certain things in common, imo it's more interesting because of the various ways it is different, especially from the oldschool version of this look, which is a point I'll return to in a bit. 

 

The reason it is common in hard wads is that years back, there were many fewer very good, very difficult wads, so a lot of authors who ended up being the 'next gen' also used the same aesthetic style. This is not really my favorite aesthetic, but I can't fault people for doing what they like. 

 

That being said, it is a look that is very noticeable, because it boils down to pure color and shading. So there's definitely a thing going on where it's what people notice about these wads, even when they are doing other things too (often more interesting ones). 

 

Like, going back to Stardate 20x6, one of my favorite things about it is not the color highlights, but how a lot of Stardate is darkwave Speed of Doom with the arresting brown and purple combo. 

 

 

 

...which would exist with other colors thrown into the mix.

 

It's hard to look at Toilet of the Gods and see just that style? In fact I only noticed it after a while. Benjo's approach is really idiosyncratic. This is the person who brought us The Egg of Human Endeavors and TotG's color play is defined less by the duochrome and more by the pastel look imo.

 

There's also different approaches to fidelity within the same style. Dimensions is stark and minimalist, kinda just wants to get to the gameplay. Ribbiks early-career stuff and Cryogenics also leans more minimalist, and low-to-mid detail (yeah Cryogenics -- thousands of sectors don't automatically make something high-detail). Then we have something like Fractured Worlds, which feels like outsider art made by someone who happened to fall in love with the style; its art style is "sketched" like one of those hi-fi Doomcute maps from JPCP that have tons going on despite being definitely being very much in this tradition. It also meshes lots of styles, not just Sunder-20x6-Sunlust but also 20x7+. 

 

 

I love Fractured Worlds' look, Stardate 20x6 caves, Toilet of the Gods, also Capybara (which is also way more diverse artistically than just this tradition and even when it hits on these styles it feels more like 'outsider art' again due to the wildly different approaches authors use -- like map03's void has flower sector art).  But aesthetically Swim with the Whales map03 (but not map02 which is <3), a lot of Vrack-tech Stardate 20x6, Cryogenics (gameplay though is <3), and Dimensions leave me pretty cold. And I think a lot of these are very different.

 

My honest take is that if someone plays a lot of these wads and all they take away from it as the defining visual characteristic is the color look, they must not have been really looking or paying enough attention. That is an important trap to avoid. 

 

For some context some of my other favorite aesthetics are : 

 

  

 

 

 

So I like numerous colors. I also strongly prefer voids with representation of some kind to them, like:

 

 

 

And my favorite abstract void is the 180mpv / Tangerine Nightmare gothic style.

 

So I guess the thing is it's less about the color approach to me, and more about whatever else is going on in the look. 

[Catpho]

Gonna do @Andromeda's job and do the impromptu guess the map at the end of rd's post there. Clockwise, top left: Lost Civilization M2, Counterattack M1, Eviternity M26, Spidersilk
 

@baja blast rd. Where's the last two shots from? I wanna play em.

[baja blast rd.]

1 minute ago, Catpho said:

Gonna do @Andromeda's job and do the impromptu guess the map at the end of rd's post there. Clockwise, top left: Lost Civilization M2, Counterattack M1, Eviternity M26, Spidersilk
 

@baja blast rd. Where's the last two shots from? I wanna play em.

 

Nova 3 m10 and Skulltiverse m27

[Kwisior]

57 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

The lineage, like so much, probably begins with Alien Vendetta, which used these Redwall highlights a bunch in some of its later maps...

Thanks for the informative essay, Baja blast. I thought the style began with Sunder map13 and earlier ribbiks wads like Spoons, but apparently not.

 

My favorite visual styles are something akin to The Mucus Flow, the last Scythe 2 episode, Skillsaw's megawads and BTSX E2. Feels really sleek and "Doomy". Abstract voids don't do much for me unless there's some really cool texture work like in Fractured World map32.

 

Edit:I'm also a fan of flesh,meat aesthetics (in Doom).

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Kwisior

[mouldy]

Bold contrasting colours are nature's hard-mode signifier, as seen in various poisonous creatures and challenging mating rituals

[Klear]

 

6 minutes ago, mouldy said:

Bold contrasting colours are nature's hard-mode signifier, as seen in various poisonous creatures and challenging mating rituals

 

Like disco for instance.

[Biz!]

It can look beautiful, at least in software, as OpenGL doesn't do the lighting justice.

[LadyMistDragon]

It rocks, although it's effectiveness over the long term is much harder to speak to. At a certain point, players' expectations would be raised to ridiculous levels so it's probably good that the quantity of these maps is fairly sparing, since otherwise, there'd be far more mappers that would end up making something disappointing. That's just a guess, though. But it's become associated enough with slaughter stuff generally, it's hard to speculate what could change that.

[gudermannian function]

19 hours ago, mouldy said:

Bold contrasting colours are nature's hard-mode signifier, as seen in various poisonous creatures and challenging mating rituals

Worth noting Ribbiks is fan of Frogs. This is relevant because Poison Dart Frogs are most poisonous animals on earth. This and his penchant for combat/progression puzzle, makes his name that much more fitting

Ribbit + Rubik's Cube = Ribbiks

Edited April 11, 2023 by gudermannian function

[Grassy chunks]

On 4/10/2023 at 7:48 AM, baja blast rd. said:

The lineage, like so much, probably begins with Alien Vendetta, which used these Redwall highlights a bunch in some of its later maps.

 

 

 

Deus Vult took that and ran with it. 

 

 

...

I love those alien vendetta redwall textured wall highlights in a diamond-esque shape. Those red pillars in deus vult are one of my favourite mapping tropes too.

Edited April 13, 2023 by baja blast rd.
shortened the quote to not have the entire post :P

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

I'm very much a visuals first kind of person as a player, and also mapper to some extent. The maps that live rent free in my mind are those with very unique and/or striking visuals. The maps with a strict vivid single-colour theme like Sunlust latter parts are a sight to behold. But it's a double edged sword. It's also really easy to make a map with the limited colour palette really boring and dull. Light and shadows, ideally with boom sequences, and elaborate linework are a must if you can't rely on texture variety to keep the map look interesting. 

[erzboesewicht]

I'm generally of those who like this style. However, in a megawad it should not be the one and only style, as it can become tiring. Sunlust did it exactly right, imo.

 

For the question "who started it" there could be another candidate besides Alien Vendetta: In Eternal Doom MAP05 by Sverre Kvernmo, most of the last section is (almost) completely in blue and black. It's meant as a futuristic section with a "time gate".

 

 

So it's possible that this trope in one or another way is around since the start of Doom modding. However, I think Alien Vendetta (AV also in MAP31 "Killer Colours") and Deus Vult may have started the association with "harder" maps. One could perhaps cite Hell Revealed MAP26 too for the idea of a hard map in the void. It is generally much more colorful, but has an underground 3-color section (blue-red-black) with quite stark color contrasts.

[Nefelibeta]

I'm surprised that you mentioned Capybara given the maps usually have way more than 2 colors :P

Spoiler

 

I personally think opinions about "abstract neon highlighted" maps are easier to make and detail are rather wrong. In fact any sort of minimalist designs could greatly reduce the work time and lines spent (And minus the part where you add a million lights to your maps!) As long as you have good textures to back it up. The sole reason is probably Sunlust influence since it's just too famous. I've even seen an easy wad without too many set-pieces that used mainly the metal and light textures from Sunlust but have sadly forgotten the name.

 

Despite seemingly creating this trend, Ribbiks himself has been avoiding this kind of things (maybe?) you will notice it if you give a crap about visiting his primitive doom site. Here are my favourite shots.

Spoiler

 

[baja blast rd.]

48 minutes ago, Nefelibeta said:

 

This is a pretty screenshot of Newt ;)

[Azure_Horror]

Just a short note for now, I hope to get enough time to write a more detailed text on that topic.

 

Dark + Bright color is well-known thanks to Ribbiks and friends.

 

But there is a much less popular visual style:

White/Silver + Bright Color.

 

Off the top of my head, I can only remember 3 such maps, all with some type of White+Gold coloration.

- @Deadwing's Ozonia map 13 "Obseravtorio" looks somewhat like that.

- @antares031's map "Alpha Scorpii Supercluster" (map 05 from Antaresian Reliquary) also includes some sections of this type.

- But the purest example is @WH-Wilou84's map 31 "Brexin" from "3 Heures d'Agonie 2". For bonus points, this particular level can be even called Sunlustian in its gameplay (implying first 12 levels of Sunlust in this case)