Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
kittytaymar

let there be light!

Recommended Posts

What do you consider to be the base brightness of sectors in a level? For me, I use 192 as the base, with darker sectors being as much as 64 below this, and most outside areas being at 255.

One of my biggest hates is WADs which are too dark. Cue IDBEHOLDL which ruins any lighting effects in a map. People need to know that TFT or LCD screen display brighter than CRT zmzonitors.

DtAlrightt, that's myztd rant over with. What do you use as your base lighting level?z
---currently playdtd.

Damn phone keypad, hope you can make out the message. ..

Share this post


Link to post

I have not played so many wad's but in some i think it is way to dark. and yes i am using a old CTR but i have some tft's but i like my ctr best so i use it ;)

The thing i think is most that people don't use different brightness enough and just draw a 'bright' line where the light go from eg 192 to like 100. also the lack of ' where the light' is coming from. like big room can be very bright whit like zero light sources.

Share this post


Link to post

You won't like the map I'm currently working on, it's average light level is around 112.

Try adjusting your monitor's brightness and gamma with the aid of this wad - it replaces the Title, Help and Credits screens with greyscale bars.

Share this post


Link to post

I consider anything below 112 to be morbidly dark. Conversely, 255 sucks, I barely use it.

Share this post


Link to post

Outdoors and indoors can overlap, quite a bit. 255-it's a goddamn bright day. 192-outdoors normal. 160-about normal indoors. 112-dark. Anything below 96 doesn't matter as in boom it'll be too sharp a contrast to notice being in the shadow and out, with its little bubble of light, I just use 1 for dark entrances you don't go into. Mostly I stay withing the 224-112 range.

Share this post


Link to post

I would never use 256 or anywhere near it for a large area.

Around 192 or 176 is generally best for outdoor areas, in my experience, and indoor areas generally somewhere around 144 or 160, sometimes more or less depending on the atmosphere I'm aiming for and whether it's a large or small room.

I use a lot of light gradients and other contrasting lights inside rooms, though. Lights, unless they're supposed to look dim and dull and broken, should be 256 or darned near it. I used to stupidly only use around 192 for lights, and they looked dim and provided no real contrast.

I'll generally brighten stuff like computer panels and anything else that should be casting some sort of light, too. Even if lighting up the entire texture isn't always totally realistic, it's far better than leaving it dim.

I usually use a bunch of sectors around ceiling lights to gradient up from room brightness to 256 or somewhere around it, but not always evenly: the higher the light level, the more you can generally skip over without it looking uneven. If I'm mapping for a port like Eternity or ZDoom where I'm not limited to 16-unit light level increments, I might use 8-unit increments until I get to around 176 or 192, then go 192, 208, 224, 256, or something to that effect.

Well-used lighting contrast is at least as important to a good scene as an adequate base light level; don't forget about it. :)

Share this post


Link to post

Doom lighting is weird, crude and inconsistent. Personally, I'd like to be able to use a lighting scale that started at 0 where it was true and proper total darkness (nothing visible) and had 255 equal increments until it went right up to full brightness.

Share this post


Link to post

I usually stick to 160. I'll use 192 or above in deathmatch maps.

Share this post


Link to post

176 for standard outdoors
152 for standard indoors
I dont go below 64 because then on doombuilder 2 it just appears as pitch black (even though in game it doesnt).

Share this post


Link to post

Now, what about areas that ARE supposed to be pitch black? Reality can be pitch black. Live in the cabin in the woods with all lights off. Do you really SEE a difference between eyes closed and open AT ALL? A headlight can be done in GZDoom or JDoom.

Share this post


Link to post

What, then, should I set the brightness to, so the player can *just* see the pain elemental before running into it?

Share this post


Link to post
Foodles said:

176 for standard outdoors
152 for standard indoors
I dont go below 64 because then on doombuilder 2 it just appears as pitch black (even though in game it doesnt).

It's worth noting that if you're not mapping specifically for a port like ZDoom, Eternity, or something with an OpenGL renderer, the appearance of light levels like 152 won't be consistent across ports that your map is compatible with. It'll appear as 160 (or was it 144? I forget) in some software ports, and 152 in GL ports and in the few software ports that support increased lighting increments beyond the vanilla-supported multiples of 16.

Share this post


Link to post
printz said:

Now, what about areas that ARE supposed to be pitch black? Reality can be pitch black.


Oops, oh excuse me, when attempting to find a Doom forum I could talk about doom in, apparently I had signed up to realityworld.com by mistake.

Share this post


Link to post
40oz said:

Oops, oh excuse me, when attempting to find a Doom forum I could talk about doom in, apparently I had signed up to realityworld.com by mistake.

This really inspires me to make a GZDoom map where the only lighting is of the "dynamic" variety. Today's crazy computers should know how to cope with it.

Share this post


Link to post

(Snigger)... I thought vanilla doom used lighting in steps of 8? I'm pretty sure that 200 appears brighter ingame than 192. I can't test this right now though, because doom builder's 3d mode is acting up, and the level crashes doom if I try to play it.

Share this post


Link to post
kittytaymar said:

(Snigger)... I thought vanilla doom used lighting in steps of 8? I'm pretty sure that 200 appears brighter ingame than 192. I can't test this right now though, because doom builder's 3d mode is acting up, and the level crashes doom if I try to play it.

Nope. 200 appears brighter because Doom rounds up to the next increment of 16, so it'll draw as 208.

EDIT: Actually, scratch that, I'm pretty sure it rounds *down*. Hence why 255 in non-ZDoom ports is actually not fullbright (256 is a valid light level!), though the difference at that point is negligible.

Share this post


Link to post
40oz said:

Oops, oh excuse me, when attempting to find a Doom forum I could talk about doom in, apparently I had signed up to realityworld.com by mistake.

Hey, be fair. Doomworld is also about Doom 3, so light levels of 0 are an appropriate topic for discussion.

Share this post


Link to post
esselfortium said:

256 is a valid light level!

oooh, I didn't know that. That's going to affect light sources for me from now on ...

Share this post


Link to post

Indeed! I've actually modified some of my Doom Builder configs to use 256 as a default light level in place of 255. That should probably be reported as a Doom Builder bug, come to think of it.

ZDoom clamps light levels to a 0-255 range, with 255 being fullbright, and any light levels outside that range being set to either 0 or 255.

In other ports, light levels can go from, I think, -32768 to 32767. The only visible benefit to using light levels outside of the 0-256 range is to abuse the Light Glow special in vanilla maps, to make the affected sectors remain bright (or dark) for a few seconds longer before fading up or down again.

Share this post


Link to post

that sounds useful. So I could make the lights pulse from dark to bright uniformly as usual, but have it stay dark for a little longer than normal? How?

Share this post


Link to post

Pulsed light goes smoothly from min to max and max to min.

If minimum is -32000 and maximum is 32000, that'll mean that the light will spend 49.8% of the time being at full brightness, 49.8% of the time at pitch darkness, and 0.4% of the time at an intermediate level.

Except it won't work in some of the most popular source ports (ZDoom and derivatives).

Share this post


Link to post
Gez said:

Pulsed light goes smoothly from min to max and max to min.

If minimum is -32000 and maximum is 32000, that'll mean that the light will spend 49.8% of the time being at full brightness, 49.8% of the time at pitch darkness, and 0.4% of the time at an intermediate level.

Except it won't work in some of the most popular source ports (ZDoom and derivatives).


Sounds like a bug to me! And if it's not, the OP shouldn't have to worry about it anyway, it is in the constraints of the original doom. Zdoom should, once again, make the adjustment.

Share this post


Link to post
Foodles said:

I dont go below 64 because then on doombuilder 2 it just appears as pitch black (even though in game it doesnt).

If that makes working in 3D mode a pain - hit B to brighten things up.

Share this post


Link to post
40oz said:

Oops, oh excuse me, when attempting to find a Doom forum I could talk about doom in, apparently I had signed up to realityworld.com by mistake.

Regardless of that, it would still be nice - for a variety of reasons - to be able to make a totally black sector where you can't see a single damn thing.

Share this post


Link to post

MAP28's room with the only switchable light in hell comes to mind. That's an interesting case. WinDEU says that the light level is reduced to "35". The effect I see is darkness that never fades into lightness (unless you play PrBoom, ZDoom or anything else that screws it up), but is still lighter than 0-light.

PrBoom should really fix the light fading to be the same as in Doom, because it's often used as a vanilla-like port.

Share this post


Link to post
Enjay said:

Regardless of that, it would still be nice - for a variety of reasons - to be able to make a totally black sector where you can't see a single damn thing.


What, and stick loads of spctres in it?

Share this post


Link to post
Enjay said:

Regardless of that, it would still be nice - for a variety of reasons - to be able to make a totally black sector where you can't see a single damn thing.


Haha I admit I've used 0 lighting levels before, the reasoning for my post was that yet again, doom is compared to real life, and I don't play doom to be reminded of what real life is like.

Share this post


Link to post
kittytaymar said:

What, and stick loads of spctres in it?

That wasn't what I had in mind, no. I was more thinking about special effects of various types. Or just providing a completely dark place to teleport the player to when he died in a teleport trap - that kind of thing.

Anyway, if it was totally dark, any monster would be completely invisible unless it had bright frames so being spectres would be irrelevant . ;)

Share this post


Link to post

Viles, then. I can see spectres because they appear all fuzzy and stripey.

I like the sound of that, I'm off to make a dark maze.:)

Share this post


Link to post

For me 128 is the standard, while I consider 112 to be fairly dark.

Since I like dark maps, I attempt to use 112 most of the time unless there is a light source or a skybox that can lighten things up.

Outdoor areas are almost always bright unless the map takes place during the night and have a brightness of roughly 144 or something.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×