More Accurate Doom Colormap

6 months ago

Doom (1993) used a palette trick for a 'light diminishing' effect, darkening colors based on distance from the camera.
The game ran in 256-color mode, requiring a precomputed lookup table (colormap) with 32 lightness levels for quick darkening.
The colormap was created by multiplying palette colors with a grayscale gradient in gamma-space, resulting in a nonlinear falloff.
Color matching was done using squared distance comparisons in sRGB space, a method now considered outdated.
A modern approach using perceptual color space (Oklab) was implemented, subtly improving the colormap's appearance.
The original colormap's flaws were part of Doom's art direction, but modern modding allows for updates.
Different ports of Doom, like the Jaguar version, used alternative color spaces for smoother lighting.
A conversion script and colormap files are provided for those interested in experimenting with the new method.

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