Software renderer brightmaps for sprites

[Artoo]

Download: https://www.moddb.com/games/doom/addons ... or-sprites


This adds fake brightmaps for GZDoom's software rendering mode, it usually works but can be a bit buggy.
(NOTE: Does not look like it should with hardware renderers)

All vanilla Doom & Doom II monsters and decorations that have BRIGHT frames in their code now have bright highlights instead.

I tried to keep it to the style of vanilla Doom, and not affect gameplay.
Only those monsters and objects that have fullbright frames have brightmaps, and I added a small gun flash for the Zombieman along the hightlighted areas in the sprite.
Also imps have a dim "reflection" in their eyes when throwing fireballs, you can really only see it in total darkness.
I used only the original sprites, there are no added graphics from vanilla.

I experimented with glowing eyes and glowing nukage barrels, but I thought that changed the gameplay too much, and made seeing in the dark too easy.
I'll possibly make those as a separate wad, one day.
I also tested brightmaps for Barons and Hellknights, but I decided to not use them, since I thought that changed their visibility too much.

I cut the bright parts of the sprites out, and spawned them as a separate object on top of the base sprites.
Half way making this mod I discovered the same method had been used many times before, I don't remember who came up with the idea and can't find the thread, but it was over 10 years ago.

[Enjay]

These work surprisingly well. I say "surprisingly" simply because, to me, simply spawning a second actor on top of the first feels like it shouldn't work; like there should be glitches, de-synchronising and things just not lining up but that doesn't seem to be the case - or at least it wasn't in the quick game that I just tried. Maybe that's what you meant by "it usually works but can be a bit buggy" though

Anyway, yeah, neat, and it was obviously quite a lot of work to put it together.

[Artoo]

Enjay wrote:
>

Thanks!
I tried to fix the syncing issues by adding an extra frame in the beginning of brightmap loops.
Sometimes some objects seem to glitch, and monsters sometimes de-sync in their Death state.
But usually it's too little to notice

Yep, this took way too long to put together
Archvile is still the worst thing when not even playing the game, it has the most frames and 8 rotations for all of those.
I had to decide which pixels are highlighted, and make about 175 frames for it. Of course that is doubled if you count the brightmap frames, which adds up to about 395