Lost Souls: Translucent, why?

[Enjay]

Where did the convention of lost souls being translucent come from?

The manual merely says "Dumb. Tough. Flies. On Fire. 'Nuff said." They weren't translucent in the original game (but, to be fair, nothing was really). So, making them translucent in a source port (usually as the default setting) is a move away from the original appearance.

I mean, I get that their name and general appearance implies that they might be spooky, ghostly kind of things but they are also mostly bone and can stop a shotgun pellet or bullet. I can see that making the flames translucent is quite cool but the bony parts? That's always struck me as a bit odd.

My memory on this isn't the clearest but I think it just started with one of the early source ports (probably to show off the new, cool translucent effect it could do) and the others just dropped into line behind.

In addition, and only slightly related, I remember that early versions of Legacy had quite a cool trick where certain items could be flagged to use a special effect (perhaps a special palette hack?) where parts of the actor were drawn translucent but other parts were not. e.g. the flaming torches were set to have translucent flames but the stands were fully opaque. I'm not sure if the lost souls in Legacy got this treatment or not.

[edit]
FWIW, here's a couple of screenshots in Legacy 1.28 showing the effect with torches.

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And it would seem as if it was applied to lost souls too:

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Although, of course, the logic breaks down because when looking at a lost soul from behind, you should be able to see through the fire to the bone but because there isn't actually any sprite to see there, you just see right through to whatever is behind in the world.

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[Evil Operative]

Maybe it is there because it seems redundant to code a Lost Soul monster with the Spectre-like noise effect exclusively for the source port which would be affected by the Noise Style and Noise Type options?

[Enjay]

Possibly so, but a source port making them "fuzzy" by default would also have been a spontaneous move away from their original appearance. I guess that's really what I'm asking. When, why and by whom was it decided that Lost Souls should be translucent and why did almost everyone else just follow suit when it's clearly a change from the original appearance?

I'm not bothered by it at all. I just find it an interesting quirk of the sourceports.

Speaking of changing their appearance, I think that the Lost Soul might be the enemy that has had the most official tweaking too. As most people know, they changed appearance (and behaviour) dramatically between the pre-release Doom versions and the actual release, but there was also a change between Doom 1.2 and later.

Romero released version, up to Doom 1.2 version, Final version.

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Again, as many people will know, there is a redundant "dead lost soul" actor that can be accessed in the original EXE via dehacked. As far as I know, this is a hangover from the original appearance/behaviour in the pre-release version where the Lost Soul left a pile of bone shards lying around instead of just exploding into nothingness like the release versions do. So a dead lost soul actor (i.e. pile of bone shards) would have been possible.

[Rachael]

While I can't answer your question, I certainly can weigh my two cents in on this. I do believe that they look very lackluster with their translucent fading. Instead of brilliant and bright like they're supposed to be, they look faded and dark. The fire is almost seeking an excuse to flicker, whereas in vanilla they felt like they really had a reason to.

[Nash]

I don't like translucent Lost Souls too, I turn that off.

Had it my way, I'd make GZDoom default that value to false.

Translucent fire doesn't even look good... additive is better.

I think Randi added it because it was "cool", kinda like the early 2000s Lens Flare craze

[Nevander]

I myself prefer Lost Souls at 1.0 alpha like they should be, however if there was a way to make them only translucent where the fire pixels are and fix it to where you can see the skull from the back side through the fire, I'd use that in a heartbeat.

[Enjay]

I do believe that they look very lackluster with their translucent fading. Instead of brilliant and bright like they're supposed to be, they look faded and dark. The fire is almost seeking an excuse to flicker, whereas in vanilla they felt like they really had a reason to.

That has always been my impression of the translucent souls; it makes them lacklustre/less impressive. That's kind of why I have always wondered why the convention of them being translucent arose and became widely accepted, especially given how picky the Doom community can be about other details...

I think Randi added it because it was "cool", kinda like the early 2000s Lens Flare craze

Possibly so, but I'm pretty sure the convention predates ZDoom. Perhaps it goes right back to the earliest ports; DOSDoom, BOOM, etc.

[Graf Zahl]

I think the only answer is: Because in 1999 it was cool. It was a time where some things were changed just because, not for some logical reason.
I have the transsouls CVAR set to 1 and this is a feature I'd gladly remove from the engine, never to be seen again and make those things opaque, like they should be.

The alpha map idea as suggested by Nevander would be great, if there wasn't a bit of a problem here: To look good, the fire needs to be additive 1+1, but that cannot be rendered along with the opaque parts in one pass unless a completely new render style was added (that'd be src=1, dest=1-alpha. (Fun for the software renderer: Yet another drawer!) That style may be nice for some effects but plays nasty with fog.

[Rachael]

(that'd be src=1, dest=1-alpha. (Fun for the software renderer: Yet another drawer!)

I think we'll be okay with the ones we have, actually - AddCamp should be able to handle any combination of src+dest.

[Hellser]

Maybe an option to turn off all translucency unless added in through a mod would suffice. I'm rather miffed about the additive explosives and fireballs. Quite like how things were originally. Sadly, other source ports such as PrBoom+ and what not tends to have translucency locked in with world translucency (like a translucent SHAWN texture representing glass). Turn one off, you lose the other. Makes sense though. But hate it. Hate.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Sadly, other source ports such as PrBoom+ and what not tends to have translucency locked in with world translucency (like a translucent SHAWN texture representing glass). Turn one off, you lose the other. Makes sense though. But hate it. Hate.

Me too. It gets even worse for Heretic/Hexen (and probably Strife too) where some things were supposed to be translucent ever since the original, if you're only given an all-or-nothing translucency switch.

[leileilol]

I believe I brought it up before...

The "why" is pretty danged obvious to me - it's presentation of a new capability that's there, and in the use-it-or-lose-it-3d-obsessed era of the late90s-early-00s it'd better be there for something to take notice even though it's nasty (and implies the lost soul's skull is paper thin). Kind of like Gzdoom's default dynamic lights drives modders into a frenzy to abuse them.

Looking back on Engoo, maybe I should have done that as there's been feedback of "whats the point, this changes nothing" before, since I intended to default it to the vanillaest state I could, making all the crufty "pretty" graphics doodads strictly opt-in (and tried to make it easier to switch these on and off with built-in presets)

[Nash]

I like leileilol's idea of a "canonical transparency" setting.

[Rachael]

I do, as well, but if I were to code any such thing I'd like Graf's input on it. I was thinking of creating an actor property like this:

Code: Select all

class LostSoul : Actor
{
    Default
    {
        // ... all the fancy default stuff here that exists in the file already...
        RenderStyle "SoulTrans";
        CompatRender "Normal", 1.0;
        Obituary "$OB_SKULL";
    }
    // ... etc...
 

where CompatRender would work as follows:

Code: Select all

CompatRender "RenderStyle", (float)alpha;

Probably a better name for it than CompatRender or CanonicalRender - something hopefully short, to the point, and describes what it is, and enabled by a CVar with a similar name.

[Graf Zahl]

I don't think we need more than a simple flag here. There is no other fallback than rendering it opaque.
Aside from that, SoulTrans is the worst part here. For all other actors it's just additive translucency which normally looks fine unless you are dead set on the original look.
But SoulTrans is just - meh. It's an arbitrary change that makes no sense and serves no other purpose than showing the possibility of doing it.