JP
one my favorite game code tricks: Quake (1996) defined light styles with a simple string of alphabetic characters, with A as the brightest light value and Z as the darkest.
so style 5, "gentle pulse", is expressed as "jklmnopqrstuvwxyzyxwvutsrqponmlkj" while style 10, "fluorescent flicker", is "mmamammmmammamamaaamammma".
https://github.com/id-Software/Quake/blob/master/qw-qc/world.qc#L329
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Jan 8, 2025 at 8:33pmWeb
Show threadJPJan 8, 2025
what i admire most about this, beyond its economy - ~64 chars max, no need to author 1D textures or import/export a custom file format - is how it picks a concise yet very human-readable way to represent something a bit complex. once the code to interpret those values was working, it was probably very easy to crank out a dozen or so light styles, get a feel for how the letters mapped to values over time, and author what was needed to ship. and those then become the level designers' toolbox.
Show threadJPJan 8, 2025
so next time you play Quake and see a candle or torch flicker, take a moment to delight in the question of whether you're seeing "mmnmmommommnonmmonqnmmo", "mmmmmaaaaammmmmaaaaaabcdefgabcdefg", or something else.
Show threadJPJan 8, 2025
nice compilation of sightings of "mmamammmmammamamaaamammma" in later games (eg Half-Life, Portal): https://imgur.com/t1Lnyk9
also, confirmation that it made it all the way into the Titanfall 2 (2016) executable, though sadly isn't used by any of the in-game lights: https://mastodon.social/@[email protected]o/111605006579190931
it's apparently been spotted in Half-Life: Alyx (2020) as well.
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Show threadVissJan 8, 2025
@jplebreton whoa, they all use the exact same timing?
Show threadevilchiliJan 8, 2025
@jplebreton this is extremely cool. I wonder whether the accessibility of the format was something they considered at the time, or if it was just a happy accident of ruthless efficiency. Given what else we see from that group in those days, I'm assuming the latter. :D
Show threadJPJan 8, 2025
@evilchili yeah, Quake was famously the album that broke the band. i'm guessing that light format was John Carmack's invention, as it fulfills his criteria of being lean and mean and probably reasonably performant, and gets the rest of the team out of his hair. the rest of the team (definitely the LDs) did have their hands in the QuakeC source though, as it was easy to edit and rebuild.
Show threadVicente V. P.Jan 8, 2025
@jplebreton mind blown
Show threadVic 🇪🇺Jan 8, 2025
@jplebreton I'll make sure to send this thread to everyone I'm about to 1v1 if we play Quake next. Stood there under the torches, gazing... like sitting ducks. Thanks xD
Show threadKawaoneechanJan 8, 2025
@jplebreton And that system, including the fluorescent flicker most notably, made it all the way to Half Life: Alyx.
Show thread1-bit machine gothJan 8, 2025
@jplebreton tamarian werner herzog voice: quake lights, chanting in the dark
Show threadlinear cannonJan 10, 2025
@jplebreton it's not just Quake, either! the Quake engine has a lot of descendants, and some of the very same light patterns are still being found in games being made today simply because there's been no reason to change what works

https://www.alanzucconi.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/valve-lights-1.gif
Show threadZeh FernandoJan 9, 2025
@jplebreton this is something I admire/miss from old games. Nobody wanted to dick around with loading binaries and managing assets and stuff unless absolutely forced to. So it was very common to find stuff defined in esoteric strings of some format, like whole level maps.