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/vr/ - Retro Games

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File: 263 KB, 643x329, brownquake.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4723841 No.4723841 [Reply] [Original]

Why Quake is just brown as shit? The least attractive design in the history of video games.

>> No.4723854

>>4723841
They didn't have their shit together when making the game. In the end they just slapped the levels together and shipped. It was supposed to be lot different game than what was released.. However the brown staleness is one of the bad sides of the original Quake. It was mainly fixed in Quake 2 though.

>> No.4723861

>>4723854
Quake 2 is relatively more colorful, but compared to its competitor Unreal, it might as well have just been brown.

>> No.4723890

>>4723854
Nah. Quake 1 at least had varied settings of brown (futuristic bases, medieval castles, otherworldy fortresses). Quake 2 was ALL techbases with some occasional colored lighting.

>> No.4723898

>>4723841
i think that quake's lighting model simply sucked - it was okay for the time, but it's rather awkward with different palettes than green/brown

>> No.4723901

>>4723841
> be you
> saves someone elses jpg as png
> it's all brown!
how about posting a screenshot that isn't fucked up by an idiot?

>> No.4724362

>>4723841
Programming decision.
Because of its sofware renderer that was built around 16bit coloring so it could run on all machines.
By the time FX cards came into play and they could outsource the rendering to the graphics card the game was already out for a year.

>> No.4724449

>>4723841
Do people really think this? I really like Quake 1's aesthetic. The grubby palette, the music. It feels distinctive, like a real place.

>> No.4724486

>>4723841
>brown as shit?
That's every Fallout game before FO New Vegas.

>> No.4724490

>>4724362
You know that 16bit color is a lot of colors, right?

>> No.4724493

>>4724490
He meant 8bit, Quake could run on a VGA.

>> No.4724494
File: 185 KB, 640x480, Quake.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4724494

>>4723841
Quake was originally made for software, palette-based renderer. That meant that at any point in time, there could be no more than 256 different colors on the screen.

The real problem is lighting however. How do you do lighting with such color restriction in place. The simplest and most straightforward way is to have individual mini-pallettes for different colors. So, you have, like, 16/24/32, whatever, different hues of blue, from darkest to lightest. And then when the lighting level on the given texel changes for some reason, you change its color from, say, blue(5) to blue(7). And if a neighboring texel initially had a color of blue(8), you change it correspondingly to blue(10).

Anyway, going with 16/24/32 hues of different base colors means, that, considering overall 256 color restriction, you are left with no more than 16/10/8 individual base colors (each having its own hue mini-pallette). Or more like 14-15/9-10/7 if you count some one-off colors that don't need a pallette attached (they are called fullbrights).

So there you have it.

>> No.4724507

>>4724494
Also, WinQuake had even less colors to work with, since some colors were reserved for Windows needs and couldn't be changed and, thus, used for lighting. The original graphics however did seem to fit in regardless somehow.

>> No.4724513

>>4724507
>WinQuake had even less PALETTE COLOR SLOTS to work with, since some PALETTE COLOR SLOTS were reserved for Windows needs
More like.

>> No.4724526

>>4724494
That level looks amazing. I only played shareware Quake and I don't remember there being scifi environment with such great color balance and lighting work. Episode 1 looks dull as fuck in comparison.

>> No.4724527

>>4724494
Anyway, the real 100% true answer was that Quake sacrificed colorfulness (the amount of base colors) for the relative smoothness of lightmaps (to make the steps between the neighboring hues of the same base color as tiny as possible), penumbras and shit, which was kind of a big deal at the time.

>> No.4724528
File: 222 KB, 449x401, 1375222742364.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4724528

>>4724513
>>4724507
>>4724494
>>4724362

>op shitposts in an attempt to trigger /vr/
>/vr/ gives logical explanations which make sense

OP BTFO

>> No.4724545
File: 93 KB, 640x480, Quake_46.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4724545

>>4724526
That's literally E1M1. Contrast is, however, somewhat higher than need be due to a screwup on my part (unnecessary 16-235 -> 0-255 driver-level transformation).

Anyway, first off, E1M1 was made by Romero while the rest of the E1 levels - by Willits and McGee, who were somewhat less proficient mappers.

Second it could be that you played Quake using GLQuake which completely butchers the original graphics.
Here is the comparison:
https://www.quaddicted.com/engines/software_vs_glquake

>> No.4724551

>>4724545
>That's literally E1M1.
The gif from >>4724494, that is. The picture from >>4724545 is from the starting level.

>> No.4724667

>>4724528
Explanations or not, the end result was the game being colorless and ugly.

>> No.4724959

>>4724490
It actually has less colors than 18 bit palette mode, that's why hardware and software rendering in HiColor looked like shit without dithering.

And still looked the same with it, to be honest.

>> No.4724964
File: 39 KB, 395x296, IMG_0285.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4724964

>>4724667
The only ugly thing is this rubbish thread. The art style is pretty nice and consistent

>> No.4724978

I legitimately enjoy the oppressing brownness throughout and can't understand why people clamor for "colors" so much

>> No.4724982

So I've been told that Quake 1 ran in a 320x200 resolution, and the monitor would stretch it vertically, like Doom. The guy telling me this showed a picture of the big red glass window texture, comparing a more oval shaped version with a stretched "correct" one.
Is he right? Was Quake designed with this in mind or is it just a misconception?

>> No.4724986

>>4723841

I love quake, but my biggest problem with it is the enemies are thematically incoherent as fuck. sci-fi soldiers, lovecraft style monsters, medieval knights & ogres, zombies, its like they couldnt decide which theme to go with as the deadline approached so they said 'fuck it' and crammed them all in one game.

>> No.4724993

>>4724978
I think does wonders for the atmosphere/world and wouldn't have it any other way, but I could see the newer generation coming from the whole "brown and grey modern shooter" trend thinking it looks bland or flat.

>> No.4724998

>>4724986
but that's what makes them memorable

>> No.4725052

>>4724667
>he's still trying
Dude, just let it go. This bait thread kinda failed.

>> No.4725220

While not a bad game, Duke Nukem stomped on it's neck with his mighty boots in terms of leveldesign. Quake was superior technically at that time, but didn't age too well.

>> No.4725225

>>4725220
No, it did not. Romero and Blum are equals, and Levelord is more like McGee's equal than Petersen's.

>> No.4725395

>>4724986
That is actually a great part of what makes Quake great. That variety, that chaotic shift between a wide range, makes for a more interesting style than something predictable and consistent. Especially in a Lovecraftian style, where it shouldn't make sense and instead be rather inconsistent. The Ogres use explosives. Reality is bleeding into each other.

>> No.4725453

>>4724667
I liked it. The more brown something is, the more realistic is seems. Real life is brown and dirty. Quake feels dirty and gritty.

>> No.4725492

>>4724494
Additionally 256 colours means you can pre-calculate the blends between every colour and every other colour for only 64K of ram used. And each lighting change is only another 256 bytes to store in the most performant way.

>> No.4725505

>>4723854
>It was mainly fixed in Quake 2 though.
yeah everything is grey and orange big improvement

>> No.4725506

>>4725505
The game becomes a lot less orange if you switch to the software renderer.

>> No.4725513
File: 329 KB, 1280x720, quake1b.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4725513

>>4723841
Anyone who writes the game off as just "brown" has no sense of aesthetics. You know what really looks ugly? Some highly saturated, clown-colored, neon piece of shit like your typical modern Sonic game or equivalent. There's nothing wrong with a game having bright colors, and in fact it was done well in, for example, the N64 versions of both Quake and Quake 2. But there's nothing wrong with the original either. With the right settings, it can look pretty vibrant, such as pic related. I mean shit, are you unable to appreciate anything that doesn't look like a candy store?

>> No.4725529

>>4725513
thats a source port that adds pretty lighting effects tho. it's cheating desu

not saying i dont like the way quake looks, but you cant use a sourceport that adds graphical candy lighting effects and pass it off as the original/glquake

>> No.4725540
File: 3.76 MB, 1920x1080, qq.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4725540

>>4723841
It's not all brown. Depends on the level really.

>>>/wsg/2190431
>>>/wsg/2190442

Anyway I like the way Quake looks. I think the game's atmosphere is great but it seems it isn't for everyone. Your pic makes it looks extra murky though. I like to turn up the contrast in Quakespasm as well. However from the audiovisual standpoint Quake really shines with the sound design (both sound effects + soundtrack coupled together). From that end it's really sublime, feels like NIN: the game.

But of course it's the combat that shines over everything else. Quake has a smoothness to it that feels so fucking good. The game also has that 'super solid' feel as is typical from retro Carmack engine games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu1Ji3hIQOY

>> No.4725654

>>4723841
Because, like always, Id Software were ahead of their time.

>> No.4725758

>>4725225
Who the fuck is Blum?
Levelord is a Duke designer primarily.

>> No.4725780

>>4725758
Lolno. Check the Duke wiki, count and weep.

Also Blum is the only person who worked way back from original Duke Nukum platformer through Duke3D through the ENTIRE cycle of DNF development (Triptych and Gearbox phases included) and that of its addon to the Alien World Order episode of DN3D.

>> No.4725797

>>4725780
What I CAN agree with however is that Levelord is a prime designer of DN3D's EPISODE 3 specifically.

>> No.4726050

>>4725654
criminally underrated

>> No.4726060

It's brown because it shit on its competition at the time

>> No.4726734

>>4724667
nigger do you want this grim game to be like teletubby land

>> No.4726785

>>4723841
As someone who loves the Doom games, is it weird that I have never consciously wanted to play Quake?

It all looks so fucking boring.

>> No.4726787

>>4726785
It is really ugly, but it is a fun game. It is really fast and the level design is quite good.

>> No.4726812

>>4726785
How on earth can you love doom and not have played quake when it came out? or were you not alive at the time?

At the time literally everyone was like "this is going to blow doom out of the water" and thus every doom fan played quake.

>> No.4726826
File: 115 KB, 1024x768, QAD.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4726826

>>4726785

you really should try Arcane Dimensions. It has a staggering amount of variety compared to vanilla quake & is fun as hell.

>> No.4726834
File: 306 KB, 1000x1354, 1522458841042.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4726834

As much as I love Hexen and Quake (amazing atmosphere too) I was a bit bummed they were starting to lose color.

Doom 3 and 4 are colorful though, even though one is always way too dark and the other way too red.

>> No.4726858

>>4726785
Weird, pretty much the exact opposite for me. I grew up playing both, but going back to DOOM now feels like a chore at time. I've enjoyed all the Quake games immensely.

>> No.4726898

>>4723901
>implying a JPEG by itself will turn a perfectly normal image completely brown

>> No.4727012

>>4726734
Doom and Duke Nukem are Teletubby games? Or HL, HL2, Serious Sam?

>> No.4727016

>>4724986
>its like they couldnt decide which theme to go with as the deadline approached so they said 'fuck it' and crammed them all in one game.
that's literally what happened tbf
but it's not really that crazy inconsistent, you only fight the soldiers in the techbase levels, as soon as you get to the castles you fight exclusively fantasy monsters

>> No.4727052

its brown coz they understood back then that deep down games are full of shit, its its onions essence

jk i think they wanted a cave-like den of evil feel to it. brown in 90s was provocative