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Grimm

Heh, idea

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This an idea I had just a short while ago. What if in an editor, instead of the usual numeral values for light factor a sector had, there was something different, something cool and kick-ass? My idea is this: Instead of numeral values, there would be a window. On the top of the window would be a slider that controlled the light value. In the window would be a full size or compressed picture of the sector, fully rendered with the its sidedefs. The viewpoint would be placed at one of the ends of the sector, or you could even choose it yourself! Then by moving the slider, the window would show how the sector looked in real-time! So, whaddya think? Cool? Impossible to do? Already been done? (Heh, and if someone wants to use this, just give me credit. :P)

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Heh, obviously it'd be hard. But since the Doom source is released, someone who makes source ports might be able to hack up some code for people who make editors to use.

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When you edit enough, you begin to see clearly in your head how the room and whatever lighting would look before you even test the map.

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Well, obviously, but, I, at least, only think in a few incriments: 150, 255, 230, 200, etc. With this, you can *exactly* what you want, 'cause, face it, no ones gonna try out 256 different light settings.

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You should always use increments of 16. I.e. 0, 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160, 176, 192, 208, 224, 240, 255. Those are the only ones Doom really supports - everything else is just rounded off to the nearest multiple of 16. 208 is the same as 209 (or is it the same as 207? I never remember heh).

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So, why does it round it to the nearest multiple of 16? It'd be nice to have finer lighting control so sector lighting is smoother.

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Rellik said:

So, why does it round it to the nearest multiple of 16? It'd be nice to have finer lighting control so sector lighting is smoother.



There are many issues in Doom where you could ask that question. Most likely answers in all cases:

1. Performance is better
2. Uses less memory
3. Programmers were just lazy


Choose the one that suits you most... ;-)

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Grimm said:

This an idea I had just a short while ago. What if in an editor, instead of the usual numeral values for light factor a sector had, there was something different, something cool and kick-ass? My idea is this: Instead of numeral values, there would be a window. On the top of the window would be a slider that controlled the light value. In the window would be a full size or compressed picture of the sector, fully rendered with the its sidedefs. The viewpoint would be placed at one of the ends of the sector, or you could even choose it yourself! Then by moving the slider, the window would show how the sector looked in real-time! So, whaddya think? Cool? Impossible to do? Already been done? (Heh, and if someone wants to use this, just give me credit. :P)



That won't work. Light values in Doom aren't really light. They just determine how quick the fade to black in the distance will occur. So this idea is totally unusable.

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Graf Zahl said:

There are many issues in Doom where you could ask that question. Most likely answers in all cases:

1. Performance is better
2. Uses less memory
3. Programmers were just lazy


or, like 1000 more probable than those; DOOM uses an 8-bit palette and thus cannot display an infinite number of shades of each colour. So thats why there aren't 256 light levels supported in the engine.

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Actually, Doom doesn't utilize its palette optimally. The fadeout function uses some kind of fixed lookup that prevents all colors from being used.

This is particularly obvious if you put a white texture in a very dark room and walk up close to it - there'll be very few grey shades between the black and white.

This is fixed in ZDoom (I know because I requested the fix).

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Fredrik said:

Actually, Doom doesn't utilize its palette optimally. The fadeout function uses some kind of fixed lookup that prevents all colors from being used.


...and the fact that there are only 240 unique colours in the palette (or something close to 240, at least). but I still argue that the 8-bit palette is the primary reason as to why they didn't implement more light levels.

I believe the engine does in fact, at some level, try to support increments of 8 for light levels, but that it gets fucked somewhere along the way in the renderer. I'm not quite sure about this though, read about it many years ago.

edit: spelling

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249 colors to be exact. Anyway, since more light levels evidently (as done in ZDoom) can be implemented even with an 8-bit palette, the reason must be either laziness or because of performance concerns. Probably the latter. Sure, it isn't causing any noticable slowdowns in ZDoom, but ZDoom also has a lot more free space to move around in. They were probably willing to trade those few extra levels for an ever so small speed increase back in 1993.

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Fredrik said:

You should always use increments of 16. I.e. 0, 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160, 176, 192, 208, 224, 240, 255. Those are the only ones Doom really supports - everything else is just rounded off to the nearest multiple of 16. 208 is the same as 209 (or is it the same as 207? I never remember heh).


heh, I used those before I ever knew about that. :P

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I've always used multiples of 15-20, except for fading light effects, where increments of 16 work best.

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boris said:

I think ZDoom got completely rid of this light step limitation.

Yeah, now it's just limited by level designers' laziness :)

Personally I doubt I'll ever use anything less than 8 units difference.

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This has been covered recently in the ZDoom forums. ZDoom can go in increments of 1 for lighting if you really feel like doing that. This was added just after 1.22, AFAIK.

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Yeah, an example WAD on the XWE site has an example of very small light incriments. It actually looks just as good as lighting in modern games.

That won't work. Light values in Doom aren't really light. They just determine how quick the fade to black in the distance will occur. So this idea is totally unusable.


No shit. But if you were to put a view point somewhere in the sector, then have the editor use just the rendering code of Doom and render just the flats and textures, then apply the light level--you'd be able to see how it'd look ingame, no? You could, for example, put a viewpoint in front of the entrance to the sector, and then you'd be able to see how the lighting would look during the game. You'd also get to check out how the texturing worked.

A more evolved verison of this would allow you to select multiple sectors, plop down a start point, and then do a quick no sprite preview that you could move around in. Of course, this would make the code more complex. (Also, I think something like this is already in some editors. :) )

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No shit. But if you were to put a view point somewhere in the sector, then have the editor use just the rendering code of Doom and render just the flats and textures, then apply the light level--you'd be able to see how it'd look ingame, no? You could, for example, put a viewpoint in front of the entrance to the sector, and then you'd be able to see how the lighting would look during the game. You'd also get to check out how the texturing worked.

A more evolved verison of this would allow you to select multiple sectors, plop down a start point, and then do a quick no sprite preview that you could move around in. Of course, this would make the code more complex. (Also, I think something like this is already in some editors. :) )

I think GooberMan was working on putting something like this in an editor he was making. You'd have to ask him, though.

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