Light and Darkness

Author: Anthony
Source: Anthony's GURPS https://sites.google.com/site/anthonysgurps/lightdark
Date: 2016-06-25
Collected without consent (No email address to contact the author) - and compiled for reference purposes.

Modifiers for Light Levels
GURPS talks about light and darkness penalties in a lot of
places, but lacks concrete physical rules for what level of
illumination corresponds to a given penalty.
Without guidelines from GURPS, I went to reality. In
reality, vision starts having gradual reductions in color
resolution below a few thousand lux, but significant
problems don't start below a few hundred. I've set the
zero penalty at the normal minimum for night or indoor
sports, which is in the 500 lux range. The scaling below
that level is in part because it does a fair job of matching
the few set numbers we have, in part because there are
theoretical reasons that spotting distance really does vary
with the 1/4 power of ambient light.

Leve LMin LMax Description

l
+4 50,00 200,00 Moderate Glare, Sunlight (Sun Above 30°)
0 0
+3 10,00 50,000 Moderate Overcast, Sunlight (40m-2h after rise/before set)
0
+2 2,000 10,000 Heavy Overcast, Open Shade, Sunlight (10-40m after rise/before set)
+1 500 2,000 Bright Indoor Lighting, Sunlight (0-10m after rise/before set)
+0 100 500 Normal Indoor Lighting, Sunrise/Sunset (-1 per 5-10 minutes before rise/after set)
-1 20 100 Dim Indoor Lighting, brightly lit outdoor areas at night
-2 5 20 Major streets at night. Good torch at 2 yards
-3 1 5 Street light at night.
-4 0.2 1 Moon above half. Candle at 2 yards.
-5 0.05 0.2 Moon below half.
-6 0.01 0.05
-7 0.002 0.01 Starlight, no urban glow
-8 0.000 0.002
5
-9 0.000 0.0005 Moonless night, overcast.
1

Light Sources
GURPS also gives no way of estimating how light level
varies with distance from a given illuminated area. The
above chart is designed to work with the standard range
levels, by a simple formula: determine the brightness of
light the source gives at a fixed range, and then add half
the difference in range modifiers. Thus, if a given light
produces no penalty out to 100 yards (range -10), at 1,000
yards (range -16) it gives a light level of -3. Note that the
example above is a very, very bright light source.
For standardized light sources, it's useful to give the light
source a 'brightness'. This is the range modifier at which it
will give a light level of 0. To determine the actual light
level, add the brightness and the range modifier, and
divide by 2, rounding down (so if b + rm = -1, that's a light
level of -1, not 0). Note that published GURPS light
sources tend to significantly overestimate how bright they
are, there are basically no portable light sources below TL
7 that will reduce darkness penalties to zero at any range
(beyond ranges where it will start fires, at least; a candle
produces a light level of 0 at about 2 inches).

1
Firelight is surprisingly dim, and is also quite uneven,
making it poor light at best. Typically, a fire has a
brightness no higher than its size modifier, and it may be
much lower. In addition, anyone seeing by flame, even if
they have night vision, should normally take an additional
-2 to DX and perception because the light flickers.
2
Note that many lights only produce light in a relatively
narrow cone. Assume that the width of the cone is equal
to its length * degrees/60, so a typical flashlight beam is
about 1 hex wide per 15 yards distance. There are
searchlights that produce 100 million candlepower in a 1
degree beam. There are personal halogen flashlights that
produce a million candlepower, again in a very tight beam.
 Candela Level Examples
1 -8 Candle (50 hrs/lb), Match, Light spell.
5 -6 Small Flashlight (60° arc), Continual Light 1, Kerosene Lamp (12 hr/pt).
20 -4 Torch (1 hr/lb), Medium Flashlight (60° arc).
100 -2 Gas Mantle, Light Bulb, Large TL7 Flashlight (60° arc), Continual Light 2
500 0 Large TL 8+ Flashlight (60° arc). Small Flashlight (6° beam)
2,000 +2 Medium Flashlight (6° beam), Continual Light 3.
10,000 +4 Headlight (30° beam), Large TL 7 Flashlight (6° beam)
1,000,00 +10 Large TL 8 Flashlight (1° beam)
0
3e27 +74 The Sun

Spotting Light Sources ultravision bear very little resemblance to reality. This
Light sources are relatively easy to spot in conditions of leaves out quite a lot of the spectrum, though much of it
low light. When spotting a light source, invert the light is only uncommonly used. These are alternate rules for
level modifier (positive light levels do give a penalty), and extended visual range:
use brightness +5 in place of size modifier. Thus, under
Enhanced Color Perception [1/level]
starlight with no urban lights, at a range where spotting a
You have more than three types of color receptor. Gives
human would be +0 in normal light (about 100 yards, if
+1 to vision rolls where the ability to distinguish colors is
there's no cover), spotting a human needs a roll vs Vision-
critical, and allows seeing color distinctions that humans
7, whereas spotting a candle (brightness -8, effective SM
cannot see. It may be possible for a human with
-3) requires a roll vs Vision+4. Spotting a candle at that
tetrachromacy to qualify for one level.
same distance in full sunlight would require a roll vs
Vision-7. Near UV Vision [0]
Near UV vision allows seeing light in the range shorter
Buying a Light Source as an Advantage
than blue light; in practice, this means the ability to see
Any moderate light source is basically a perk, as its
UV-A (315-400 nm), as most UV-B and essentially all UV-C
advantage for vision is negated by its rather large penalty
is blocked by the ozone layer. Rules text for ultravision
to stealth. Light sources bright enough to be useful as
notwithstanding, near UV vision is fairly useless; it
attacks should be bought as Create (Light) or an Affliction.
averages around 5% the brightness of visible light
Vision Between Light Levels (depending on time of day), penetrates water poorly
(about a tenth as well as green), and is scattered more by
Normally, it's assume that light levels are relatively even.
atmospheric haze than longer wavelengths, meaning it's
However, sometimes you have situations where you're
often more of a nuisance than a benefit. The practical
looking at something that is much brighter (or darker)
benefit of near UV vision is that it lets you see and see by
than its background. In that case, the modifier is (2 * light
UV lights (which are of limited value for stealth, as they
level of target - 1 * light level of background), so a sunlit
cause fluorescence in common materials), and it's a good
satellite (light +3) against a moonless night sky (light -8)
excuse for enhanced color perception; if you do not take
gives a modifier of +14. In the particular case where you
ECP, UV appears blue to you. It's possible for a human
are carrying a light source, and that source isn't masked in
with an artificial cornea to have near UV vision; this is
some way that prevents it from blinding you, effective
actually a quirk, as it makes you more vulnerable to
darkness penalty is half the brightness of your light
snowblindness and similar problems.
source, plus the range modifier.
Near IR Vision [0/1]
Alternate Spectra
Near IR vision allows seeing light in the range 0.75-1.4 µm
GURPS only has three ranges of vision: ultravision (less
range; it is commonly found in night vision gear. Unless
than 400 nm), normal vision (400-700 nm), and
you take ECP, it appears as red to you (it is also possible to
thermographic vision (roughly 8-15 µm), and the rules for
see only in near IR; this is a 0 point feature). Near IR
should be treated as a form of vision, not a form of
infravision -- room temperature objects do not glow
significantly (in absolute darkness, an object that's boiling
hot might be very slightly visible) and you should mostly
expect to see by reflected light from the sun or other light
sources. Near IR vision allows using infrared flashlights,
and it functions as one level of night vision if the primary
light source is incandescent, two levels if the primary light
source is a candle or similar bright flame (in sunlight or
starlight, it is about as good as visible light and thus gives
no benefit; it's useless if the primary light source is a cool
source such as bio-luminescence or nearly any TL 8+ light
source). Near IR penetrates water very poorly, and water
vapor will be somewhat visible.
Short Wave IR Vision [-50% on IR vision, or
1 if you also have a better form of IR vision]
SWIR vision allows seeing light in the 1.4-3.0 µm range.
SWIR is treated as a form of IR vision, as room
temperature objects do glow slightly (treat as a darkness
penalty of -5 if not using a light source). If you are using a
light source, it grants one level of night vision for
incandescent lights, three levels for a bright flame.
Medium Wave IR Vision [-20% on IR vision,
or 1 if you also have a better form of IR
vision]
MWIR is like SWIR, but covers light in the 3-6 µm range,
and only gives a -2 penalty if you aren't using a light
source (the range 6-8 µm is stopped by water vapor and is
fairly useless in atmosphere).
While it's rare for characters to bother with senses other
than normal light vision or thermal infrared, it's certainly
possible for characters to be sensitive to other
wavelengths, and light levels may be different from
standard for different light levels. For these purposes, we
define six vision bands:
Near UV: 200-400 nm (less than 200 nm is
not ordinarily useful).
Modify light levels as follows: -2 if primary light source is
sunlight, moonlight, or incandescent; -4 if primary light
source is a bright flame, such as a candle, -6 (or worse) for
warm flame colors. Some TL 7 light sources, such as
mercury-vapor lamps and damaged fluorescent bulbs,
produce considerable UV, TL 8+ light sources only produce
significant UV if designed to do so. Penetration of liquid
water is comparable to visible light.
Visible: 390-750 nm.
NIR: 0.75-1.4 µm.
Modify light levels as follows: no modifier for sunlight,
moonlight, or starlight; +1 if primary light source is
incandescent; +2 if primary light source is bright flame; +3
if primary light source is warm flame; advanced light
sources are generally dimmer in NIR than visible light. NIR
has some strong water absorption bands, which will allow
estimating humidity. Room temperature objects do not
glow noticeably in NIR, but reasonably warm objects do.
NIR penetrates a short distance into water (more than one
hex is unlikely).
SWIR: 1.4-3.0 µm.
Modify light levels as follows: -1 for sunlight, moonlight,
or starlight; +1 if primary light source is incandescent; +2 if
primary light source is bright flame; +4 if primary light
source is warm flame; advanced light sources don't
produce SWIR unless designed to do so. Like NIR, SWIR
has some strong water absorption bands. Room
temperature objects glow (dimly) in SWIR. SWIR basically
does not penetrate liquid water at all.
MWIR: 3-5 µm (5-8 µm is also MWIR, but
essentially useless in atmosphere).
Modify light levels as follows: -2 for sunlight, moonlight,
or starlight; no modifier if primary light source is
incandescent; +2 if primary light source is bright flame; +4
if primary light source is warm flame; advanced light
sources don't produce significant MWIR unless designed
to do so. Like NIR, MWIR has some strong water
absorption bands. MWIR basically does not penetrate
liquid water at all.
LWIR: 8-15 µm.
Light levels are rarely relevant, as objects glow far more
brightly than they reflect. Penetration of liquid water is
basically zero.
In addition to lighting, any sufficiently hot object glows.
This has two effects: it functions as if illuminated (though
with very poor contrast; reduce effective light level by 2 if
the object and its environment are similar temperature),
and it acts as a light source with a brightness of SM-2 + senses; the 'vision' column incorporates the loss of
glow*2. The following table shows the temperatures contrast expected for seeing by object glow.
required to reach particular glow levels for different

Glow Vision UV Visible NIR SWIR MWIR LWIR

-9 -11 1520 680 205 -110 -230 -370
-8 -10 1620 740 240 -90 -220 -360
-7 -9 1720 810 280 -70 -200 -350
-6 -8 1830 880 330 -40 -180 -340
-5 -7 1960 960 380 -5 -160 -330
-4 -6 2100 1050 440 30 -130 -310
-3 -5 2260 1150 510 70 -100 -290
-2 -4 2440 1270 590 125 -60 -270
-1 -3 2640 1410 680 190 -10 -230
+0 -2 2870 1560 890 260 50 -190
+1 -1 3140 1750 930 360 130 -120
+2 +0 3450 1970 1090 480 240 -20

Other than possible dark vision levels, alternative vision
types give two common benefits: they allow seeing colors
humans cannot see, and they allow using lamps in those
colors. People unable to see those colors will have a
familiarity penalty (-2) to camouflage (and possibly some
other skills, such as forgery) when trying to deceive a
person with exotic vision, and camouflage clothes
intended for normal vision often won't affect alternate
vision, unless they're actually made of the same material
as what they're pretending to be. Point values of variant
vision types are as follows:
Variant Vision Features/Advantages
Near UV: 1, or -3 if you only have UV vision.
Near IR: 2; 0 if you only have NIR; 1 if you have SWIR,
MWIR, or LWIR.
Short-Wave IR: 5; 0 if you only have SWIR, 1 if you have
MWIR or LWIR.
Medium-Wave IR: 8; 0 if you only have MWIR, 1 if you
have LWIR.
Long-Wave IR: 10 (same as Infravision).
Infrared Vision
Unlike visible light, lack of light is rarely a problem in the
infrared; room temperature objects typically are almost as
bright in the infrared as they are in full sunlight. The
problem, instead, is contrast. Everything glows, so there
are no shadows. Hot objects glow more, and objects with
a high emissivity glow more, but most organics are fairly
close (metals have very low emissivity). The infrared
pictures you see are false color images with quite a lot of
postprocessing being done; measuring raw intensity, a
spot of warm skin (98.6F) against cool skin (90F) looks
something like this, and even against a 70F backdrop only
looks like this.
The Limits of Night Vision
While GURPS lets humans buy up to 9 levels of night
vision, and routinely gives that many levels to sensors, in
reality that's very difficult to accomplish, and is quite
unlikely on a man-portable sensor. This is not to say that
you can't get a sensor that multiplies light by a million, but
it won't have the performance of 9 levels night vision,
because of the limits of quantum mechanics.
The human pupil, fully distended, is about 7mm in
diameter, giving it an area of 3.8e-5m^2. Human vision
has a resolution of about 1 minute of arc, or 0.29mm at a
distance of 1m (an area of 6.6e-8m^2). 1 lux of ideal white
light is roughly 4e-3W/m^2; a 550 nm photon has an
energy of 3.6e-19J. Thus, our 0.29mm object, illuminated
by 1 lux, reflects 7.3e+8 photons/sec. How much of that
will reach the eye depends on the way the object reflects
light, but if the object is normal to the eye, a typical figure
would be about 14,000 photons/sec. The daylight-adapted
human eye can distinguish a 60Hz flicker but typically
combines images over a longer timescale, so 12 fps is
probably a more reasonable estimate. That works out to
around 1,200 photons per pixel per frame.
That sounds like enough for 256 colors (8 bit color depth),
but it actually isn't, because the number of photons
hitting is random; the maximum color depth you can
reliably get is the square root of the photon count, or 35
colors (5 bit color depth). As a sample, I've taken a test
image, and ran it through a mangler to produce what the
image would look like if it was in darkness (using the
midpoint of each range) and then you just multiplied the
brightness until it got back up normal light level, using an
ideal photomultiplier or CCD (no read noise); darkness
levels 1 and 2 are discarded due to no visible effect.
'White=' indicates the number of photons that produces a
pixel with a value of 255.

Original Image Darkness 3

All subsequent images White=10000
have white listed as a Differences are subtle,
specific number of probably no penalty.
photons per pixel.

Darkness 4 Darkness 5
White=2000 White=500
Still probably no penalty, At this point, the image is
though it's possible to tell visibly grainy; a -1 to vision
something is up. tests seems reasonable.

Darkness 6 Darkness 7
White=100 White=20
A bit worse grainyness. Well, I can still tell what it is,
but it looks like an old
newspaper photo.

Darkness 8 Darkness 9
White=5 White=1
If I didn't already know Well, there's something there,
what it was, I don't think but I'm not sure what. Note
I'd be able to figure it out. that 2+ photons saturates the
cell.

From the above images, it seems fair to give around 4
levels of night vision from electronic magnification, but
that's about it (and we're in grayscale). If you want image
magnification, you're splitting the same number of
photons into more pixels, and thus you're dividing
photons per pixel by the square of the magnification; the
net effect is that every level of telescopic vision negates
one level of night vision (unless looking at a point source;
in that case you're getting the same number of photons in
one pixel, and reducing nearby noise by your
magnification). If you want more, you're going to need to
get more photons somehow. There's several ways of doing
that:
Use a larger lens; 7mm is not very large, and the available
photons scale as the square of the lens diameter.
However, such optics can be bulky, and it's necessary to
either multiply the sensor size, or divide the sensor field
of view. This only works for cameras; visual telescopes and
photomultipliers are using the pupil as the end sensor,
and thus can only get enough to negate the penalty for
magnification, meaning the maximum useful size is 7mm x
magnification (which is why 7x50 is a standard size for
binoculars).
Use a longer exposure time. This is done routinely in
astronomy, but it causes problems when looking at
moving objects, because they become blurred. Even 1/12
of a second is really too long without some visual
processing tricks, it's typically hard to take pictures
without a tripod at less than 1/60 of a second (astronomy
also uses visual tricks; adaptive optics change the focal
point of a telescope to cancel out atmospheric
fluctuation).
Capture non-visual photons. If you start collecting near
infrared (700-1500 nm), for a sunlike source you roughly
double the energy and triple the photon count. For an
incandescent source, you increase the photon count by a
factor of more than ten. This does result in false colors if
an object is much more or less reflective in the near
infrared, but gray is alien enough to normal vision anyway
that people can probably get used to the gray being
slightly wrong.
Tolerate lower resolution. The above images are using the
pixel size of your monitor, which is typically larger than
actual max visual resolution, so it makes the graininess a
bit more apparent than it would actually be. At 0.001
lumens/m^2 (roughly the darkness-9 level above), human
vision would be challenged to even detect an object the
size of the entire image above, let alone make out internal
details.
In practice, most TL 7-8 night vision gear captures some
non-visual photons, but also is operating at less than the
theoretical limit, so you're probably capped at around 3
levels for TL 7, 4 levels for TL 8.
Color Night Vision
Now for a related point: color and night vision. GURPS
says that all night vision is colorblind. That's historically
accurate, but it's not like the photons actually lose their
color, it's just that it's technically easier to make black and
white night vision. There's three reasons for this:
Color vision can't capture non-visual
photons.
You don't get any additional photons; if you split the
photons into three colors, you've only got 1/3 as many
photons in each color.
The simplest way to construct a color sensor is to just take
three images with three different color filters and
combine them electronically, but this involves filter
switching and means that any photons that arrive at the
wrong time are lost, effectively discarding 2/3 of the
photons you could be collecting. It's also possible to make
a color sensor that works the way the eye or color film
works, simply scattering a mix of different sensors across
the collecting plate, but again, this results in losing 2/3 of
the photons due to striking a sensor of the wrong color.
There are theoretical ways around this (for example, a
three layer sensor -- the top layer absorbs blue photons
and lets the rest through, the second layer absorbs green,
the third absorbs red), but they aren't available at TL 8.
Advantage
Color Nightvision: A PC may buy color night vision for 1
point.
If you can make it work, low photon counts have similar
effects. Here, I'm assuming that some advanced form of
color night vision that captures about 60% of the photons
(20% in each color), and then doing the same processing
as was done above (Saturated= indicates the number of
photons to produce a color bit of 255).
Original Image Darkness 3
All subsequent images Saturated=2000
have white listed as a Differences are subtle,
specific number of probably no penalty.
photons of each color per
pixel.

Darkness 4 Darkness 5
Saturated=500 Saturated=100
Still probably no penalty, At this point, the image is
though it's detectable. visibly grainy; a -1 to vision
tests seems reasonable.

Darkness 6 Darkness 7
Saturated=20 Saturated=5
A bit worse grainyness. Well, I can still tell what it is,
but it looks like an old
newspaper photo.

Darkness 8 Darkness 9
Saturated=1 Saturated=0.2
Interestingly, this is easier Like the black and white, it's
to recognize than the not really practical to
equivalent black and white distinguish what this is. Note
image. that each byte here is either
0 or 255.

As you can see, losing 40% of the photons didn't cost us contrast, the benefit would likely be smaller for a low
very much, and improves recognition significantly at low contrast image.
levels. However, this source image has rather high color
Compiled Character Options
Anything in [italics], has been added by the editor in an attempt to
improve clarity, and not written by the original author.

Alternate Spectrum Vision: [Varies]

Near UV: 1, or -3 if you only have UV vision.
Near IR: 2; 0 if you only have NIR; 1 if you have SWIR,
MWIR, or LWIR.
Short-Wave IR: 5; 0 if you only have SWIR, 1 if you have
MWIR or LWIR.
Medium-Wave IR: 8; 0 if you only have MWIR, 1 if you
have LWIR.
Long-Wave IR: 10 (same as Infravision).

Color Nightvision: [1]

A PC may buy color night vision for 1 point. [As the name
implies, color nightvision allows the user to discern color
while using nightvision. If the GM decides color
differentiation would be helpful in a given spot check,
treat the night vision as one point better than it would
otherwise be.]

Enhanced Color Perception [1/level]

You have more than three types of color receptor. Gives
+1 to vision rolls where the ability to distinguish colors is
critical, and allows seeing color distinctions that humans
cannot see. It may be possible for a human with
tetrachromacy to qualify for one level.

Editor Comments
Some of this stuff is very interesting from an informational
standpoint, but not clear how it would be applied in game
terms.

For instance, the "limits of night vision" section refers to

"darkness levels" Initially I thought this was referring to
the light level penalties spelled out at the beginning of the
article, but then he says darkness 5 is when he would start
applying penalties to rolls. As a result, it is hard to tell
what "darkness levels" actually refer to.

Additionally, the table regarding "glow" by heat, for

different light spectrums, the author is not clear on the
unit of measure used for those temperatures. I would
*guess* Fahrenheit, since he uses Fahrenheit
measurements for room temperature and skin, but it is
not clear, and this is not my area of expertise.