Ugly shadows on angled brushes

Pc_Madness

Pc_Madness

L4: Comfortable Member
Aug 31, 2009
164
51
Hmm, I seem to be doing something wrong with my brushes that I have above stairs, they almost always end up with hideous shadows. Any ideas whats the deal?

There aren't any leaks. Do I just need to stick a light in all these spots?

Heres a screenie. :)
cpalpineridgea40003.jpg



Cheers. :)
 
Steff0o

Steff0o

L6: Sharp Member
May 31, 2009
295
132
are you sure that brush doesnt continue along the wall?
btw, check the lightmap setting
 
EArkham

EArkham

Necromancer
aa
Aug 14, 2009
1,625
2,774
Also check if the alignment is set to world or face while the walls are set to the opposite. Sometimes that affects lighting. That's kind of what it looks like it does when that happens in fact.

You can try setting it to the same smoothing group as the walls if the above doesn't work.

Kep
 
Pc_Madness

Pc_Madness

L4: Comfortable Member
Aug 31, 2009
164
51
Steff0o said:
are you sure that brush doesnt continue along the wall?
btw, check the lightmap setting
Click to expand...

Nah, it didn't go inside of any other brushes, and I haven't touched the Lightmap setting just yet.

EArkham said:
Also check if the alignment is set to world or face while the walls are set to the opposite. Sometimes that affects lighting. That's kind of what it looks like it does when that happens in fact.

You can try setting it to the same smoothing group as the walls if the above doesn't work.

Kep
Click to expand...


The alignments seemed to just push the shadow around the face (unless the shadow is random each compile)


The smoothing groups was the win. I set all of the same brushes (including ones in different areas) to a hard smoothing group, and now they're all good. Are there any downsides to using them? :)


Cheers. :)
 
Pocket

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,696
2,580
Pc_Madness said:
The smoothing groups was the win. I set all of the same brushes (including ones in different areas) to a hard smoothing group, and now they're all good. Are there any downsides to using them? :)
Click to expand...

They only affect how the lightmaps are formed, unless you have some dynamic lighting (and really, in TF2, who does?), so no. In my experience you can also reuse the same smoothing groups elsewhere in the map, so you're not in danger of running out of them either.
 
Icarus

Icarus

aa
Sep 10, 2008
2,245
1,210
Could be related to light bounces

Try compiling with -final and see if that fixes it.
 
grazr

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
I've always found that you can fix this just by better light placement. Here, you could just include another light and this shouldn't be a problem.
 
gamemaster1996

gamemaster1996

L13: Stunning Member
Sep 30, 2009
1,064
134
Really i think that'd look almost okay! :O

Well anyway your best bet'd probabaly be to add another light near it or disable shadows on the light making this shadow.
 
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