DDF Colormaps

Colormaps are stored in the DDFCOLM data lump, or colmap.ddf.

DDFCOLM allows you to modify how colourmaps are used in the game, and are useful for creating interesting lighting and other special effects such as fog.

Each entry describes a "colormap" and consists of a unique name, enclosed in square brackets, followed by a series of commands that specify a sequence of "coltables". A coltable is a single 256 byte section of a colourmap lump (such as the "COLORMAP" lump in EDGE.WAD), which maps a set of 256 palette colors to another set of palette colors.

The name should be descriptive of the effect it creates and is used in other DDF files to refer to that particular colourmap. See also the DDFSECT/sectors.ddf and DDFLINE/lines.ddf pages.

To edit colourmap lumps you can use a program such as inkworks (available from most doom ftp sites). Alternatively, TeamTNT] (the guys who made the Boom engine) created a nifty little colormap editor called cmaptool. It is part of a tools/utility suite hosted on /idgames.

Commands

The following is a list of the commands that are accepted by each colourmap entry:

COMMAND	TYPE	EXPLANATION
LUMP	[string]	The lump name which contains this colourmap.
START	[integer]	The offset into the lump where this colourmap begins, in terms of whole coltables (0, 1, 2, etc).
LENGTH	[integer]	The number of coltables in this colourmap. Defaults to 1 if omitted.
GL_COLOUR	[hex]	Specify a colour directly without needing any lumps. Example: GL_COLOUR = #FF9030; //Orange
SPECIAL	[special]	A comma separated list of special flags. See below.

Specials

These allow some control over the ways the colourmap is used.

SPECIAL	EXPLANATION
NO_FLASH	Usually when the player fires a weapon, there is a brief flash of light. When using a fog effect (for example), this flash can look weird. This flag disables the gun flash for all sectors using this colourmap.

Examples

The following is an example of a complete colourmap entry:

[WATER]  
LUMP=WATERMAP;  
START=0;  
LENGTH=32;  
SPECIAL=NO_FLASH;  

DDF docs written by Andy Baker and Ziggy Gnarly, with updates by Andrew Apted, Andy Brewood and Luke Brennan. © EDGE Team, et al. 1998 - 2024.