An earnest call for more colored lighting

[june gloom]

To preface this, I've always been a big fan of good lighting. You can do a lot with a strong sense of lighting (see for example Doom's first episode and a lot of John Anderson's maps) and adding color to that lighting is, in the right hands, a huge enhancement. A good non-Doom example (at least for me) is playing Quake 1 with the realtime lights mod for DarkPlaces -- the game already had some pretty fantastic lighting in places but it's a whole other vibe with rtlights. Maybe rtlights aren't for everyone and maybe adding color to official/stock maps is a controversial choice but I think if nothing else it illustrates what colored lighting can do for a scene, far more than high-res textures or hyper-detailed polygon models. Even PSX Doom, for all its foibles, really showed how colored lighting can help make up for stripping down a map to its bones to run on limited hardware.

 

Anyway, I'd been thinking about this since DBP64 came out and I was struck by how... desaturated it was. Doom 64's textures are a lot of browns and greys -- far more than vanilla Doom ever was -- because they were intended to be under the game's colored lighting. To see them in the stark lighting of a vanilla Doom engine really lays bare how almost monochromatic they are as a whole. Further, there are a lot of great mapsets coming out these days with strong variety in theme and design ethos, but one thing most of them have in common is that they all take vanilla Doom's approach to lighting, that is to say, it's all stark white/colorless lighting, on occasion faking it with certain colored textures (Absolutely Killed's E1M4 being a good example) but still being quite obviously faked. And while I understand that the community is, at least currently, somewhat fixated on creating vanilla or near-vanilla experiences, I feel like without a good use of colored lighting, something is missing a lot of the time, on an aesthetic level if nothing else.

 

With this in mind I'm making a call for... well, two things, one is for mappers to use more colored lighting in their work -- and to be clear, this is not a call for mappers to stick with GZDoom! Which I suppose is a good segue into the other thing: knowing the popularity of DSDA and similar ports, I'd like to see more "classic-focused" source ports implement colored lighting as part of the mappers' toolset. I don't feel as if adding colored lighting as a mapping tool takes away the "classic" or "vanilla" feel -- it's still the same gameplay and that's what people want, yes? Or am I wrong, and people value vanilla aesthetics just as much, if not more than, the gameplay? (I suppose I might be, considering how often I see promising new mapsets all using the stock textures... but that's a rant for another day.) It would still be on mappers to implement colored lighting, obviously, but I can't be the only one who feels that even an otherwise purely vanilla experience -- even going so far as having infinitely tall actors -- would be enhanced with a little color here and there. It's not as if it's some new thing, with software implementations having been around as far back as the mid to late 90s with Duke Nukem 3D and the Boom engine, but it's gone pretty underutilized.

 

And I think that's a shame.

[LadyMistDragon]

I have seen a few wads using MBF to create some kind of colored lighting not unlike that of GZDoom....although I think you have to have some fair knowledge of importing said lighting to SLADE to use in your map - to say nothing of DeHacked trickery to get the light levels you want.

 

That being said, I fully agree. I know Cacodemon187 did some kind of map (I believe it was Baphomet's Satellite) that used colored lighting quite well. If anything, it feels like the next frontier but the current crop of MBF21 mapping seems more focused on finely-honed challenge maps. People are waking up to other possibilities of MBF though, and Eviternity II merely happens to be the best current showcase. 

[Plerb]

I've wished I could use colored lighting in a classic-style port like DSDA for a while. I hope the sequel to MBF21 allows you to set a specific COLORMAP to a specific sector (and not the whole screen), I'd go to town with that.

[blueyosh43]

I agree. Little things like the colored lighting go a long way into making the graphics look alot more interesting and cool. 

[Edward850]

2 hours ago, Plerb said:

I've wished I could use colored lighting in a classic-style port like DSDA for a while. I hope the sequel to MBF21 allows you to set a specific COLORMAP to a specific sector (and not the whole screen), I'd go to town with that.

Uhhhh.... MBF already has this. Boom already has this.

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/COLORMAP#Boom_colormaps

 

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/themes/TeamTNT/boom/boomedit

 

Your request was fulfilled 25 years ago.

Edited April 5, 2024 by Edward850

[Plerb]

@Edward850 Doesn't that make it apply to the whole screen though, and only when you're in the sector? I'm talking about if it affected individual sectors the same way you can set the light levels of sectors individually.

[Edward850]

No. You are thinking of a ZDoom exclusive feature that changed the palette entirely. Boom colourmaps work identically to any other colourmapping feature in the Doom engine, there is no restriction on it applying to the whole screen at all for the same reason diminished lighting works at all.

Edit: Or wait, does Boom itself have this restriction? It'd be an odd one, it doesn't need to be there. I'll have to go back and check it seems.

Edited April 5, 2024 by Edward850

[Plerb]

What I'm talking about is if you can have a sector with colormap A and another sector with colormap B on the same screen at once, and I'm pretty sure you can't do that with the Boom colormap thingy, which I assume just swaps out the current colormap for a different one. I'll admit I don't know much about this feature, I've played no more than one map that used it and I haven't attempted to use it myself.

Edited April 5, 2024 by Plerb

[Edward850]

Right, okay I see what happened. SMMU changed this, which means Eternity changed it which is what I was testing with (ZDoom has as well), but Boom/MBF did not which means PRBoom+ and by extension DSDA hasn't either. Basically this is a renderer limitation of the particular port you are using rather than to do with the Boom specs, the renderer pipeline needs to support using the sector colormap per vis drawer rather than doing it exclusively on the player view property.

Edited April 5, 2024 by Edward850

[whybmonotacrab]

I love playing around with UDMF Dynamic lighting, but everything else I prefer mapping in Boom/MBF/Doom format just because it often forces me to just make a map and focus on encounters rather than extraneous stuff. I'd love an easier implementation of coloured lighting to some sourceports though.

[Major Arlene]

I've got good news for you!

[taufan99]

I know this thread is more of a call for those using Boom-based ports to use more colored lighting on their maps, but Elegant Agony 64 has some of the best use of D64 colored lighting in custom D64 maps so far. Might be able to serve as an inspiration for others here.

[Hydrus]

I'm working on a map with colored lighting right now! ;)

[ALilGrayBoi]

I’m making a map full of colored lighting. I feel like colored lighting makes the same textures look different 

[Li'l devil]

Colored lighting is a Quakism and is antithetical and heretical to Doom's design! What's next, you're gonna ask people to make maps with jumping in mind!?

[Professor Hastig]

4 hours ago, Edward850 said:

(ZDoom has as well), but Boom/MBF did not which means PRBoom+ and by extension DSDA hasn't either. Basically this is a renderer limitation of the particular port you are using rather than to do with the Boom specs, the renderer pipeline needs to support using the sector colormap per vis drawer rather than doing it exclusively on the player view property.

 

In ZDoom there is a difference between colored lighting and Boom colormaps.

Colored lighting, i.e. the one where you specify a color and not a colormap, is per sector and Boom colormaps are still per player viewpoint as they always have been in Boom. What I do not know is how many maps there are depending on this particular behavior, but with 26 years of history there surely are some.

 

 

2 hours ago, Li'l devil said:

Colored lighting is a Quakism and is antithetical and heretical to Doom's design! What's next, you're gonna ask people to make maps with jumping in mind!?

 

Quake had no colored lighting. So at best it's a Quake-2-ism! :P

 

[redEYE]

There's an old-old demo wad rainbowstar.wad in the samples directory of Doom Legacy 1.42. It demonstrated Legacy's 3D floors, scripting and colored sectors: 

 

Spoiler

 

Legacy software renderer

 

GZDoom hardware:

 

The Legacy 1.42 itself doesn't run on Windows 7-11 in opengl but software renderer should still play. The latest 1.48.14 and GZDoom of course do.... :P
 

[Pancrasio]

@OceanMadman Hacé tus gnomerías, Gnomo

[Plerb]

14 hours ago, Edward850 said:

Right, okay I see what happened. SMMU changed this, which means Eternity changed it which is what I was testing with (ZDoom has as well), but Boom/MBF did not which means PRBoom+ and by extension DSDA hasn't either. Basically this is a renderer limitation of the particular port you are using rather than to do with the Boom specs, the renderer pipeline needs to support using the sector colormap per vis drawer rather than doing it exclusively on the player view property.

That makes sense, thanks for clearing that up. But yeah the next iteration of MBF21 should have a colormap feature like this that's consistent across ports.

[fraggle]

15 hours ago, Plerb said:

What I'm talking about is if you can have a sector with colormap A and another sector with colormap B on the same screen at once, and I'm pretty sure you can't do that with the Boom colormap thingy, which I assume just swaps out the current colormap for a different one. I'll admit I don't know much about this feature, I've played no more than one map that used it and I haven't attempted to use it myself.

I recommend checking out ffi_b.wad which devised a pretty clever workaround for this.

[SilverMiner]

26 minutes ago, fraggle said:

I recommend checking out ffi_b.wad which devised a pretty clever workaround for this.

cool stuff

[june gloom]

16 hours ago, Li'l devil said:

Colored lighting is a Quakism and is antithetical and heretical to Doom's design! What's next, you're gonna ask people to make maps with jumping in mind!?

I know you're joking, but I actually would like to see more overlap between Doom and Quake influencing each other's communities. Admittedly I think Doom's first golden age was 1997-2000 and there was a lot of Quake influence at the time so I'm biased.

 

In retrospect I guess a lot of what I want to see -- more colored lighting, more use of non-stock texture sets (especially industrial or urban flavored) and in general just achieving different vibes -- is to go back to the aesthetic wild west of late 90s FPS games. In a weird sort of way, I understand the vanilla fetishizing, but I'm more holistic, in that I fetishize the entire mid to late 90s era of shooters.

[taufan99]

3 minutes ago, june gloom said:

I know you're joking, but I actually would like to see more overlap between Doom and Quake influencing each other's communities. Admittedly I think Doom's first golden age was 1997-2000 and there was a lot of Quake influence at the time so I'm biased.

Fun fact: Ethereal Breakdown's hub system is highly influenced by Quake map jams. Sure, it's not a late 90's FPS thing as it's a much more recent phenomenon, but still.

[OceanMadman]

17 hours ago, Pancrasio said:

@OceanMadman Hacé tus gnomerías, Gnomo

Lo mejor de amehtanA son las lucecitas jijiji

[DaliVinci]

On 4/5/2024 at 3:47 AM, Plerb said:

I've wished I could use colored lighting in a classic-style port like DSDA for a while. I hope the sequel to MBF21 allows you to set a specific COLORMAP to a specific sector (and not the whole screen), I'd go to town with that.

it's possible, even in vanilla. albeit the same as the boom implementation except for the multiple colormaps. the big bummer for me is the fact that the implementation could benefit from a relatively small fix so not everything on the screen is colored inside the color lighted region. only doom legacy, smmu and by proxy eternity provide the fix.

Edited April 6, 2024 by DaliVinci
nvm doom legacy does it too

[DankMetal]

This could sound funny, but the only reason i wanted to map for psx and doom 64 was for the colored lighting. I didn't care for the limitations or the other fancy things that doom 64 has, like macro script and fake 3d floors. I know there's workarounds to simulate this effect in boom and vanilla, but i want the real deal. It could be even cooler if crispy doom could support it like sky transfers. I would be the only one using that feature, but i don't care.

[taufan99]

4 minutes ago, DankMetal said:

This could sound funny, but the only reason i wanted to map for psx and doom 64 was for the colored lighting. I didn't care for the limitations or the other fancy things that doom 64 has, like macro script and fake 3d floors. I know there's workarounds to simulate this effect in boom and vanilla, but i want the real deal. It could be even cooler if crispy doom could support it like sky transfers. I would be the only one using that feature, but i don't care.

You can refer here for Doom 64 mapping and here for PSX Doom (PsyDoom) mapping.

I also managed to build Doom Builder PSX with the playtesting feature commited by @fenderc01 (not yet reflected in the latest stable release of the Github page) a while ago. If you're interested in it, let me know so I can send you the files (also required are the PK3 resources from the PSX Doom Master Edition thread).

[DankMetal]

Just now, taufan99 said:

You can refer here for Doom 64 mapping and here for PSX Doom (PsyDoom) mapping.

I also managed to build Doom Builder PSX with the playtesting feature commited by @fenderc01 (not yet reflected in the latest stable release of the Github page) a while ago. If you're interested in it, let me know so I can send you the files (also required are the PK3 resources from the PSX Doom Master Edition thread).

Thanks, but i already know all of this!

I'm knee deep in the doom 64 community, and i've read these tutorials a lot of times.

I think you even played my psx doom map, but i could be wrong.

I will check your version of doom builder psx tho, that playtesting feature is must- needed for me

 

[patrickbartman11]

I agree, although i dont like psx doom as much as ultimate doom, doom 2, or doom 64, it has absolutely mesmerizing lights.

[taufan99]

1 minute ago, DankMetal said:

Thanks, but i already know all of this!

I'm knee deep in the doom 64 community, and i've read these tutorials a lot of times.

I think you even played my psx doom map, but i could be wrong.

I will check your version of doom builder psx tho, that playtesting feature is must- needed for me

Yes I did, but are you at the D64 Discord server as well? I don't recall seeing you there a lot, but it could just be me.