How Doom Fire Was Done

How DOOM fire was done

The Game Engine Black Book: DOOM features a whole chapter about DOOM console ports and the challenges they encountered. The fire effect is a vibrant testimony to a time when judiciously picked palette colors combined with a simple trick were the only way to get things done. The framebuffer is initialized full black (with zeros) with a single line of white pixels at the bottom (36) which will be the “source” of the fire.

Source: fabiensanglard.net