Why no Doom vanilla green key?

[natashanightmare]

So green is a common color just like red and blue, why did ID go with yellow instead or not add a 4th green key? I have just been thinking about this for a long time (yes i have autism XD). I know any color keys is possible in pwads but this is about vanilla Doom. :)

Edited August 26, 2023 by natashanightmare

[Lucius Wooding]

https://www.crayola.com/faq/another-topic/what-are-the-primary-colors/#:~:text=Primary colors include red%2C blue,other on the color wheel.

 

[natashanightmare]

What about RGB then?

Edited August 26, 2023 by natashanightmare

[baja blast rd.]

Think about it: red can be distilled from demon blood; blue can be distilled from, uh, carpet. But to get ample amounts of green, that requires nukage, and since nukage is damaging it needs to be processed unlike the other substances, which alters its color somewhat. (edit: into yellow! if that's not clear)

[natashanightmare]

23 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

Think about it: red can be distilled from demon blood; blue can be distilled from, uh, carpet. But to get ample amounts of green, that requires nukage, and since nukage is damaging it needs to be processed unlike the other substances, which alters its color somewhat. 

So where is yellow distilled from? XD  nvm :)

Edited August 26, 2023 by natashanightmare

[s4f3s3x]

Archvile tears

[Devalaous]

14 minutes ago, natashanightmare said:

What about RGB then?

 

We need a key factory map where you need to find the blue, green and red keys, then use them to build cyan, magenta and yellow keys, collect them in offshoot wings, then return to build the One True Key to unlock the final battle.

Edited August 26, 2023 by Devalaous

[Mr Masker]

9 minutes ago, natashanightmare said:

So where is yellow distilled from? XD

The UAC cheese supply

 

What were you thinking?

[DoomPlayer00]

All the green paint went into green armors.

[DuckReconMajor]

this thread is making me re-live this nightmare (4:30)

 

 

[Clippy]

Anybodu rememebr the green giant

[natashanightmare]

3 minutes ago, Clippy said:

Anybodu rememebr the green giant

The corn brand? XD

[Gregor]

Sounds like a question for John Romero. Someone hit him up on Twitter!

[natashanightmare]

8 minutes ago, Gregor said:

Sounds like a question for John Romero. Someone hit him up on Twitter!

If anyone does they might aswell ask why there isn't a third bronze or copper key in quake while they are at it :D

[Individualised]

54 minutes ago, natashanightmare said:

What about RGB then?

Red, green and blue are the primary additive colours (think light). Red, yellow and blue are the primary subtractive colours (think paint).

 

As for the question in the OP, worth noting they were originally bronze, silver and gold keys (like Wolf 3D and Quake's silver and gold keys.) They were changed late into development.

Edited August 26, 2023 by Individualised

[DynamiteKaitorn]

WDYM there's no green key?

Looks normal to me. >_>

 

 

 

 

 

Spoiler

In all seriousness I wouldn't be surprised if they just chose Red, Blue + Yellow for speed. Also, could the HUD even handle a 4th key?

 

[natashanightmare]

@DynamiteKaitorn I would say the hud could fit a 4th key slot yeah :) maybe moving the other stuff alittle bit to the sides and making it a cube like the weapon numbers. But at that point i am content with the way the keys are. I'm just very curious since to me green just feels like a more common color than yellow, but visually i like both green and yellow.

[Devalaous]

Fragport and several other wads by Stephen Clark replace the yellow key with a green key, if you want to see it in action. I think Kuchitsu does as well.

 

Also in the above screenshot, that green key bar blends with the green textures too much, yellow was probably chosen as it stands out more

Edited August 26, 2023 by Devalaous

[Astar]

1 hour ago, Devalaous said:

We need a key factory map where you need to find the blue, green and red keys, then use them to build cyan, magenta and yellow keys, collect them in offshoot wings, then return to build the One True Key

Then it will be a skeleton keycard, huh!

[Devalaous]

2 minutes ago, Astar said:

Then it will be a skeleton keycard, huh!

 

The white keycard unlocks a fight with a pure white revenant, who drops his head as a...white skull key, ha

[DJVCardMaster]

Why no ultraviolet color in real life? I hate that bees can see it but I can't, even some women with tetrachromacy. Screw them bees>:(.

[Maximum Matt]

What about a purple key, so we can make Prince-themed megawads??

[plums]

My issue isn't the lack of a green key, but the lack of a torch/key combo for whatever colour the 3rd key should be. Blue and red have torches and keys, and the torches get used as key markers sometimes, but when it comes to the other one you have to recolour one of the sprites (or use candelabras which just looks weird).

Edited August 27, 2023 by plums

[Boaby Kenobi]

3 hours ago, Clippy said:

Anybodu rememebr the green giant

 

 

[Dark Pulse]

The technical reason is that you can get a hell of a lot more mileage out of yellows than you can in green.

 

Key to remember (no pun intended) is that Doom was limited to a palette of 256 colors. For those familiar with tinkering of wads, they will be well aware this is stored in PLAYPAL, which contains the colors for every single graphical asset.

 

Yellows got applied for item pickups and so on, but really, the only greens I remember were certain wall textures (the vines), the rad suit glow, slime of course, and small bits like the automap pickup.

 

Plus, I think yellow would stand out a bit more.

 

It's also possible they were still influenced by Wolf3D, where the keys were gold and silver.

[plums]

5 hours ago, Lucius Wooding said:

https://www.crayola.com/faq/another-topic/what-are-the-primary-colors/#:~:text=Primary colors include red%2C blue,other on the color wheel.

 

Sounds like propaganda from Big Crayon.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_color

 

Quote

In physics, the three primary colors are typically red, green and blue, after the different types of photoreceptor pigments in the cone cells.

Quote

Of course, the notion that all colors can be mixed from RYB primaries is not true, just as it is not true in any system of real primaries.

 

[lafoxxx]

Because RYB looks better together than RGB (pretty sure you can ask every designer and they'll confirm), and 4 would be too redundant for the game (how about making that already boring maze of a level even longer?).

Edited August 27, 2023 by lafoxxx

[BeachThunder]

3 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

What about a purple key, so we can make Prince-themed megawads??

I'm sure this has been done many times before, but here's some green and purple cards. There's not really enough purple colours in the palette, so it's

a little off.

[plums]

If we're making a Prince-themed wad, shouldn't the keys look more like this?

[BeachThunder]

1 minute ago, plums said:

If we're making a Prince-themed wad, shouldn't the keys look more like this?

What's this I hear? A Prince-themed community project???