So, GZDoom has replaced its sector light options...

[IronLich86]

Hello! Maybe I'm a little late on this topic.

 

On 10/8/2023 at 9:03 PM, ChopBlock223 said:

Don't ditch dark mode lighting, it has its appeal.

 

I agree with that, the dark mode had its charm. I've always enjoyed playing maps with a darker ambiance, and if I remember correctly, that's how it used to be seen on older computers, but it's been a while so I might be mistaken. And yes, although I'm sorry the Dark mode has been removed, I can achieve something close to that mode by adjusting brightness, contrast, etc. However, in Ultimate GZDoom Builder, when you lower the brightness of a sector to zero, it appears completely black, but in the game, you can still faintly see what's in the sector, except in Classic mode. Shouldn't it be like that in the other modes? Anyway, the only thing that bothers me about this update is that radial effect that illuminates the walls as you approach them, which is present in all three modes. Is there an option to remove that effect?

 

Finally after reading through this whole topic, I feel confused. Was I doing something wrong when editing a map with Sector Light Mode Dark? And if I want to create a map now with a darker ambiance like the one provided by that mode, what settings should I choose?
 

[Xaser]

If you're making your own map, you can set it to Dark with the "lightmode" MAPINFO field -- see https://zdoom.org/wiki/MAPINFO_options_for_GZDoom's_GL_renderer  , Dark is "lightmode = 3".

 

This update hasn't removed or altered the mapinfo keywords at all -- maps made specifically for gzdoom can specify whichever lightmode works best for the map.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Cleaning up the disasterpiece that the old light mode settings were is a welcome change.  Maybe the names still aren't ideal but at least it gets rid of things like wondering why "Doom" is not "Vanilla" and for that matter, this thread is the first I realized that "Legacy" meant "looks like the Doom Legacy port" and not "renderer from some old version of GZDoom".

[ShallowB]

That's exactly why I was looking forward to this change.  I was never sure what the "normal" or "default" look for Doom should be with all the old options.  Unfortunately, I don't think the new options made that any clearer; "Classic," "Software," and "Vanilla" all sound like they could be referring to the same thing.  And the options left available in the menu are all kind of similar so it's not as good for giving people a variety of customization choices either.

 

If the purpose of the options is to allow users to customize their experience, they should really all be available.  If there's a concern that people will ruin their game with unintended options, then the choices need to be made clearer.  The recent update doesn't seem to address either issue.

[Shepardus]

There was talk on the ZDoom forums about putting the other options in some sort of "experimental" or "developer" options menu to make it clear that they're not intended for normal use. I agree that the names for the current options don't make it clear what they represent. If you type "gl_lightmode" in the console without a following parameter to set the variable, then it gives a more helpful description, but the GZDoom menus don't really have a good place to put a description like that, like a tooltip or something.

[ObserverOfTime]

I have impaired vision and I loathe that the "bright" sector lighting mode is gone. Yeah, it might be cheaty, but my eyes don't strain after 30 minutes of gameplay. And no, cranking the gamma up is not even remotely close to the "bright" option as it blows out the contrast.

 

I will stay on older versions indefinitely since the developers have unfortunately no intention on bringing back a bright mode. Which is a shame, since I specifically started using gzdoom because it allows me to prevent unnecessary eyestrain (which actually works).

[Dynamo]

32 minutes ago, ObserverOfTime said:

I have impaired vision and I loathe that the "bright" sector lighting mode is gone. Yeah, it might be cheaty, but my eyes don't strain after 30 minutes of gameplay. And no, cranking the gamma up is not even remotely close to the "bright" option as it blows out the contrast.

 

I will stay on older versions indefinitely since the developers have unfortunately no intention on bringing back a bright mode. Which is a shame, since I specifically started using gzdoom because it allows me to prevent unnecessary eyestrain (which actually works).

Type gl_maplightmode 4 in the console to get the bright light mode - while this resets on every GZDoom start, you can type it in autoexec.cfg to ensure it doesn't.

[Shepardus]

8 hours ago, ObserverOfTime said:

I have impaired vision and I loathe that the "bright" sector lighting mode is gone. Yeah, it might be cheaty, but my eyes don't strain after 30 minutes of gameplay. And no, cranking the gamma up is not even remotely close to the "bright" option as it blows out the contrast.

Have you tried the brightness/contrast/saturation settings in the display options? (These are separate from gamma correction.) If those are insufficient, you can do what Dynamo suggested.

[ObserverOfTime]

9 hours ago, Dynamo said:

Type gl_maplightmode 4 in the console to get the bright light mode - while this resets on every GZDoom start, you can type it in autoexec.cfg to ensure it doesn't.

You're the man! That did the trick.

 

I understand that some maps are not intended to be played that way, and I'm aware of the implications. Still, this immediately made things more comfortable for me, and that's all that really matters.

 

Thanks again.

[NeoWorm]

I found about this change yesterday and I think nobody can call this change for the better:

Left is old DooM/Dark legacy mode, right one is Software.
That glow around player just looks horrible in the current implementation and it's the reason why I never played ANYTHING on it. Now I have to switch it through Autoexec, since I am not writing stuff into console every time I start GZDooM. As a bonus as far as I know this method overrides the MAPINFO settings. This is one step forward and three steps back.

[Darkcrafter07]

I always prefered Software but the fact other options were removed from the list is kind of sad. The best and closest to vanilla doom option is Software. "Vanilla" is simply darker and works incorrectly on some surfaces like sprites and 3d models, it's not faithful to the original and it's broken.

 

They could do such a thing: default on "Software" for GL3+ cards and "deprecated-Doom" for older cards. Keep other options but with "deprecated" prefix.

[NeoWorm]

1 hour ago, Darkcrafter07 said:

I always prefered Software but the fact other options were removed from the list is kind of sad. The best and closest to vanilla doom option is Software. "Vanilla" is simply darker and works incorrectly on some surfaces like sprites and 3d models, it's not faithful to the original and it's broken.

 

They could do such a thing: default on "Software" for GL3+ cards and "deprecated-Doom" for older cards. Keep other options but with "deprecated" prefix.

Thing is, people generally don't play on GZDooM to have a vanilla experience. They use it to enhance vanilla DooM to modern experience, either through mods or through options. Argumenting that we removed all options that are not vanilla is going against everything GZDooM build it's repution on. In similar vein I loathe the fact that I can't flat out override mouselook setting to be always on on new versions on GZDooM (well thanks to this controversy I can now). No matter what purist say full mouselook straight up makes DooM a better game.

[Darkcrafter07]

I prefer Software mode not just because it's close to vanilla but also because it looks better to my taste, that "glow" nearby is something that makes flat doom lighting more alive, as if you seen things that closer "better", just like in real life, you know, your eyes adapt and make things appear brighter. This is an abstraction I like.

[Lila Feuer]

Like I stressed half a year ago in here the demographic they're catering to will still get lost / complain while advanced users will just get frustrated and then not look forward to updates anymore as things they're used to go missing.

Modern UI in a nutshell.

[akinata]

dark mode is essential for any maps that use its lighting for a greater immersion effect. (especially on mods like blade of agony or asches 2063)
the fact it doesn't have any (or very low compared to other ones) glow is a must.
i don't understand their choice of getting rid of such an essential lighting effect just because it's not the most popular on polls.

Edited June 13 by akinata

[Shepardus]

52 minutes ago, akinata said:

dark mode is essential for any maps that use its lighting for a greater immersion effect. (especially on mods like blade of agony or asches 2063)
the fact it doesn't have any (or very low compared to other ones) glow is a must.
i don't understand their choice of getting rid of such an essential lighting effect just because it's not the most popular on polls.

Blade of Agony sets the light mode in its MAPINFO, so you get the intended light mode regardless of the menu options.

[Dark Pulse]

3 hours ago, akinata said:

dark mode is essential for any maps that use its lighting for a greater immersion effect. (especially on mods like blade of agony or asches 2063)
the fact it doesn't have any (or very low compared to other ones) glow is a must.
i don't understand their choice of getting rid of such an essential lighting effect just because it's not the most popular on polls.

Because what you think is great and moody, someone else will think is dark and shit.

 

If a mod or mapper wants a desired light profile for their stuff, they can set that in MAPINFO and then the user's lightmode is ignored. Otherwise when left up to the user, depending on their whims, it might be brighter or darker than intended.

[Lila Feuer]

@Dark Pulse Imagine having choices. Imagine being able to do anything you want with GZDoom except apparently light modes. Inconsistency with stuff should be everyone's pet peeve. If I make my mod dark and they want it bright as fuck they should be able to have that freedom regardless instead of opening it with SLADE. This is a minority being loud for some reason and being catered to as a result. People will ruin your intended experience with gameplay mods, which you can also combat as a creator if you want to break something, but that'll just mean less people playing your shit. Choices are good, contrary to what current year seems to believe.

E: Honestly who is being vouched for here really? Is it the stupid players that will get confused forever or is it actually the mapper minority who will be butthurt you ruined their gameplay? MAPINFO already dictates things like no freelook, jumping or crouching, and now light modes. Obviously an advanced user can just remove all of these things and play how they want, others who aren't will just put up with less controls...but why sector lighting?

Edited June 14 by Lila Feuer

[Shepardus]

You still have the choice, just add +gl_maplightmode <number> to your launch options or download that one mod that adds it back to the menu.

[Li'l devil]

43 minutes ago, Lila Feuer said:

Choices are good, contrary to what current year seems to believe

No. If I make a vanilla map, then I want everyone to play it on Chocolate Doom or the original .exe, and not any other way. >:(

[Bauul]

Bit of an old topic, but for what it's worth I fully support this change.  I've seen plenty of new players butcher the intended way maps should be played by accidentally using the wrong lightmode and not even realizing they were doing it wrong.

 

Keeping a smaller, more vanilla-accurate list in the menus and reserving the extended list in the console/auto-exec for more advanced users is a sound approach, and one I have no issues with.

 

And for mappers: always, always put your desired lightmode in your MAPINFO if you care about the lighting in your map one iota.

[NeoWorm]

6 hours ago, Li'l devil said:

No. If I make a vanilla map, then I want everyone to play it on Chocolate Doom or the original .exe, and not any other way. >:(

You may have made the map, but you are not playing it so it's not your choice.

 

13 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

If a mod or mapper wants a desired light profile for their stuff, they can set that in MAPINFO and then the user's lightmode is ignored. Otherwise when left up to the user, depending on their whims, it might be brighter or darker than intended.

If a mapper wants to set the light profile, they can already (even if the correct process is actually not documented on wiki). If I want to change it anyway, or play level that does not have any light profile set up and looks not according to what I like I can't anymore. This is just net loss for everybody, only some people don't care.

 

4 hours ago, Bauul said:

Keeping a smaller, more vanilla-accurate list in the menus and reserving the extended list in the console/auto-exec for more advanced users is a sound approach, and one I have no issues with.

And that is not the solution - adding it to autoexec overrides the MAPINFO and setting it through console is not saved when exiting GZDooM and starting again. So both these options are bad and downgrade from what was available before.

In my opinion even vanilla DooM campaingn looks better with DooM sector light mode. If you don't agree, that's your problem not mine. Now let me set this thing as I want, because I am the one who plays it. That's the whole problem.

[akinata]

7 hours ago, Bauul said:

Bit of an old topic, but for what it's worth I fully support this change.  I've seen plenty of new players butcher the intended way maps should be played by accidentally using the wrong lightmode and not even realizing they were doing it wrong.

 

Keeping a smaller, more vanilla-accurate list in the menus and reserving the extended list in the console/auto-exec for more advanced users is a sound approach, and one I have no issues with.

 

And for mappers: always, always put your desired lightmode in your MAPINFO if you care about the lighting in your map one iota.

i am playing the last asches 2063 chapter right now. missing the dark light mode is ruining it.
i can thankfully type "gl_maplightmode 3" everytime i launch gzdoom but i rather have the option directly in the menu so the setting is saved.

funny how you first talk about how you like gzdoom forcing onto players the light mode you prefer, but then ask mapper to put their preferred one inside a mapinfo. can't you do the same on your maps and leave player who like having the light setting inside gzdoom alone??
no need for gzdoom to get read of ESSENTIAL options.

[Shepardus]

6 hours ago, NeoWorm said:

And that is not the solution - adding it to autoexec overrides the MAPINFO

gl_maplightmode does not override MAPINFO.

[Lila Feuer]

Play information is kinda super vital to write, probably takes like thirty seconds to do, likely less. It worked for years. This is a problem that's also not native to Doom but games on PC in general: no matter how exhaustive your mod installation instructions are, there's always someone that that has no idea what they're doing. You can't help everyone. This is the most popular source port for probably any game come to think of it, the versatility of its platform is extremely attractive for those who don't really care about authenticity. I should never have to go into something that highly moddable and ask the question "where's a basic function like setting the lighting mode?" Making a preflight check every time I want to launch the game for something so innocuous is an obvious downgrade and inconvenience to the end-user and whoever says otherwise is drinking the GZDoom dev kool-aid.

E: Well that was a fucking lie. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?style=12&amp;p=1251783#p1251783

Edited June 17 by Lila Feuer

[NeoWorm]

9 minutes ago, Shepardus said:

gl_maplightmode does not override MAPINFO.

From my test it seemed it did. Either way I would not be doing test like this at all if somebody didn't decide to REMOVE the propper options.

[LuciferSam86]

Yup from the wiki says the MAPINFO can override the cvar option , but I mean
 

Quote

 

0 (Standard): Uses a standard OpenGL formula. Dark sectors appear much lighter than they would in vanilla Doom.

1 (Bright): Like 0 (Standard), but with very weak fog dropoff, keeping distant sectors relatively bright.

2 (Doom): A close approximation to vanilla Doom, but still not quite as dark.

3 (Dark): Identical to 2 (Doom), but without the brighter halo effect around the player.

4 (Doom Legacy): Emulates the lighting model of the Doom Legacy 1.42 OpenGL renderer. Visually about halfway between 0 (Standard) and 1 (Bright).

5 (Build): GLSL-based emulation of Build lighting. Similar to vanilla Doom near the player, but light drops off sharply to total darkness after a modest distance.

8 (Software): GLSL-based emulation of the ZDoom software renderer's lighting, based on the equations used by Id to generate the original colormaps. Virtually identical to original Doom.

16 (Vanilla): GLSL-based emulation of vanilla Doom's lighting, in theory, but in practice appears a step darker overall.

 

 

The choice (in good faith) is to give a smaller subset of options for the end user. I mean the name "legacy" can be deceiving and it helped to avoid messages like "the light mode sucks" when the problem was the wrong light mode choose by the end user.

[NeoWorm]

11 minutes ago, LuciferSam86 said:

The choice (in good faith) is to give a smaller subset of options for the end user. I mean the name "legacy" can be deceiving and it helped to avoid messages like "the light mode sucks" when the problem was the wrong light mode choose by the end user.

Problem is that DooM and Dark were removed. And none of the remaining options offers similar visuals to those. And so far EVERY level that enforced a sector light mode I found did enforce either DooM or Dark ones. That alone should be enough to realize that those are actually useful and should remain as regular option. Removing them is stupid.

 

About the overriding as I said it seemed like it does override MAPINFO and I would have to do some more experiments to make sure. I wasn't able to find info about it on wiki at all and since even release notes for GZDooM have errors in them from time to time I would take wiki with a reserve. And in the end even if it doesn't override it, I should not be forced to resort to hackery like this to play with sector light mode of my choice anyway.

[Lila Feuer]

@NeoWorm The fact you even have to waste your time with this at all speaks volumes to the tone-deafness of this decision-making.

[Shepardus]

4 minutes ago, NeoWorm said:

Problem is that DooM and Dark were removed.

They didn't remove the "Doom" option from the menu, it's just been renamed to "Classic."

 

8 minutes ago, NeoWorm said:

About the overriding as I said it seemed like it does override MAPINFO and I would have to do some more experiments to make sure. I wasn't able to find info about it on wiki at all and since even release notes for GZDooM have errors in them from time to time I would take wiki with a reserve. And in the end even if it doesn't override it, I should not be forced to resort to hackery like this to play with sector light mode of my choice anyway.

https://zdoom.org/wiki/MAPINFO_options_for_GZDoom's_GL_renderer

Here's the place in the source code that determines the order of precedence: https://github.com/ZDoom/gzdoom/blob/c693e3b0731707351cd166aa160aaa7803751d89/src/g_level.cpp#L159