Regarding monsters that can emit light

[Shadow Dweller]

I was wondering is it possible to make a monster emit darkness rather than light?

In SkullTag the Lost Souls give off a glow because they are on fire. What I want to do is the opposite, with a dark entity that would have a dark aura around it.

I noticed in the Decorate code for the Lost Soul that almost all of the states had the word "Bright" in it. I'm guessing this is the flag that creates the glow.

actor LostSoul 3006
{
  ...
  states
  {
  Spawn:
    SKUL AB 10 bright A_Look
    loop
  See:
    SKUL AB 6 bright A_Chase
    loop
  Missile:
    SKUL C 10 bright A_FaceTarget
    SKUL D 4 bright A_SkullAttack
    SKUL CD 4 bright
    goto Missile+2
  Pain:
    SKUL E 3 bright
    SKUL E 3 bright A_Pain
    goto See
  Death:
    SKUL F 6 bright
    SKUL G 6 bright A_Scream
    SKUL H 6 bright
    SKUL I 6 bright A_NoBlocking
    SKUL JK 6
    stop
  }
}

Is there a value that controls this flag or somewhere I could change the color to shades of grey or black?

[Fletcher`]

the flag 'bright' only affects the sprite itself. it determines whether or not that specific sprite will be rendered fullbright, or have the light level of the sector it's in applied to it.
As far as 'glowing,' I haven't got a clue; maybe in an opengl port like gzdoom or jdoom?

[Creaphis]

UTNT has a lost soul variant with a black "dynamic light" aura. You could crack that was open and see how it was made.

[Graf Zahl]

That's a subtractive dynamic light.

[Gez]

In ZDoom-based ports with dynamic lights, light declarations aren't made on the actor itself. You will not find them anywhere in DECORATE, but in GLDEFS.

If you want examples of how dynlights are created and how they're attached to actors, read the lumps in GZDoom's lights.pk3 or in Skulltag's skulltag.pk3. You can use SLumpEd for that, or just extract them with any archiver that can open zip files (a pk3 is a zip file with a fancy extension, nothing more).

[Enjay]

Yup, and, as Graf said, if you use gldefs to allocate a subtractive light to an enemy, it will carry its own little patch of darkness around with it.

[Shadow Dweller]

Cool! Thanks!

[Enjay]

Here's an example from lights.pk3 for the Hexen Wraithverge spirit missile with some extra comments by me.

// Wraithverge
flickerlight GHOST  //this defines the dynamic light
{
    color 1.0 1.0 1.0
    size 56
    secondarySize 52
    chance 0.7
    subtractive 1  //this bit makes it a subtractive light
}

object HolyMissile  //this allocates it to the missile actor P frame
{
    frame SPIRP { light GHOST }
}

object HolySpirit  //this allocates it to the spirit actor A & B frames 
{
    frame SPIRA { light GHOST }
    frame SPIRB { light GHOST }
}

[printz]

Or, if you want the exact dark equivalent of fullbright Doom sprite, then modify the sprite to be all black (duh). Or better yet, let's hope the ZDoom engine allows colouring sprites exactly like colouring sectors.

[Ultimablah]

This would be such a cool looking monster. I wanna check it out some time.

[Shadow Dweller]

Thanks, hopefully I can have a working version soon. I can't promise that it will be a good version, but it will be working at least.

If I do get it working I can let you use it if you really want to.

[Mithral_Demon]

Shadow Dweller said:

Thanks, hopefully I can have a working version soon. I can't promise that it will be a good version, but it will be working at least.

If I do get it working I can let you use it if you really want to.

I wonder what kind of monstrosity your going to make, cause if it emits Dark Light instead so-so bright light like the Lost Soul, I'd be more then interested to put the thing in a level.