OpenGL Lighting Preference

[Zulk RS]

You know how there is a option to change the sector light mode in the preferences menu under the OpenGL options in Zandronum and GZdoom? Is there a widely accepted light mode in the community? Is there a light mode I should be using as a standard when mapping?

Personally I prefer the "Standard"  sector light mode. Which one do you prefer?

[BloodRage]

I prefer using software

[Bauul]

I personally use "Doom", which if I recall is a little darker and higher contrast than Standard. No idea what the consensus is though.

[Zulk RS]

When I enter a darker room in any map, I find that some modes let you see clearly while others make it to dark to see. "Standard" makes most rooms bright enough so that you can see what you're doing while "Doom" and "Dark" make it too dark to see. Because of this, I sometimes feel like I'm cheating and more importantly, make me feel like I'm making areas in my maps too dark because I use the same sector mode when I test the map.

[Gez]

The one called "software" is closest to how the software renderer does it. It uses shaders to pretty much replicate the light falloff algorithm used by id software.

 

"Doom" is an eyeballed approximation. It should give roughly similar, but not identical, results as "software". "Dark" is like "Doom" but without brightening of the player's surroundings (yes the player faintly glows in vanilla Doom).

 

"Standard" is named because it uses an industry standard formula. It's not a Doom standard thing.

 

So basically you should generally want to use "software" unless you're playing something that is not going for "traditional" Doom aesthetics. Note that mods can specify a lighting mode to use for each map in MAPINFO, so when it's really important for how a map looks and plays, the mappers should take it upon themselves to set it so the user doesn't have to.

[Graf Zahl]

Always keep in mind that not all monitors are being created equal. For some 'dark' is too dark, for others it's not. For some 'standard' is too bright, for others it isn't. In any case, 'standard' is probably the worst choice for Doom considering how it calculates fog.

 

[Da Werecat]

I feel the need to mention that "software" doesn't support radial fog, if that's important to you.

[dpJudas]

1 hour ago, Da Werecat said:

I feel the need to mention that "software" doesn't support radial fog, if that's important to you.

Actually, I added support for that about a month ago or so. It should be included in the next official release.

Edited September 22, 2017 by dpJudas

[TootsyBowl]

Standard, sometimes Doom if I want something more atmospheric.

 

 

[Zanieon]

I always use Dark because being the darkest preset i can know where i should tone up the sector lighting when mapping that way who also plays in Dark doesnt need to crank up gamma or switch light modes while the people who plays in the other options will see these room a bit brighter, but it's better leave bright as small issue than pure black.

[Urthar]

There isn't a standard everyone adheres to. Even id don't appear to have been consistent (in my opinion.) Constrast how bright the lit areas are in Knee Deep In The Dead with how gloomy the first American McGee maps are in Doom2 and it feels almost as it American was using a completely different monitor and gamma setting altogether.

 

My personal approach ended up being to light my maps in software mode, and letting the GL modes take care of themselves.

[Shadow Hog]

"Software" (the lighting mode, not the literal software renderer), always. It's what I design my maps against, even (though I do tend to forget to force the lighting style in MAPINFO, I guess).

 

Hell, even GLBoom+ appears to have it now, so even better.