DescentBB

I`ve been thinking about this for quite a few years, probably since I managed to code a working radiosity renderer, so it`s not just an idea I got in a sudden inspiration rage.

We would re-light the levels, produce lightmaps and at run-time just blend them with the base material texture. Then we could switch off the current vertex lighting.

The difference would be huge. It wouldn`t have to be so colorful as Forsaken has been, but at least there would be nice and smooth lighting.

Example of lightmaps can be seen here:
http://www.avenger.sk/Radiosity/ScreenShot001.png
http://www.avenger.sk/Radiosity/ScreenShot002.png
http://www.avenger.sk/Radiosity/ObjectTexture.bmp

While I don`t know anything about the way how Descent codebase is structured, I believe the author of Rebirth could be helpful here. Plus, I`ve got about 8 yrs of C++/DirectX experience.
Though in this case it would be mainly a matter of sorting the lightmaps the way the base level is rendered. Which is far from being complicated.

Sure, my free time is a scarce commodity, but I genuinely believe I owe it to Descent and what it provided me with - an absolutely unique and non-reproducible gameplay experience. Something like Magic Carpet 1 or Dungeon Keeper 1 games.
And seeing how my son leaves his PS1/PS2/PSP/X360 and goes playing Descent 1 just shows that this game is a piece of art and deserves getting better.

if im not mistaken. D2 XL has that. Check it out.

That's correct - XL can do full-colour lightmaps. They are generated at run-time, but it also provides caching to speed up the process, which is especially helpful for large levels. I'm not entirely sure how good the quality is - Diedel would be able to tell you much more - but it seems pretty good to my eye. It even does quite convincing coloured light blending from weapon fire now.

OK, I`ll check D2X-XL then. It`s been quite a long since I checked it last time (and it used to crash and hang a lot).