How do I make lights with func_brush?

soylent robot

L420: High Member
May 26, 2009
499
394
Im trying to light an area with some fluorescent strip lights, and of course using the conical type lighting entities looks stupid. In cp_badlands and other maps, vlave used func_illusionaries to make lights for the strip lights, but it doesnt seem to work for me. Apparently Im supposed to use func_brushes for this now, but i cant find any guide on how, apart from very short ones that say "one side a light texture, never solid and dont render turned on" but that doesnt seem to work for me.
can someone tell me the proper way of making strip lights with func_brush?
 

Penguin

Clinically Diagnosed with Small Mapper's Syndrome
aa
May 21, 2009
2,039
1,484
just copy them out of badlands, then?

Basically, they use a special texture that emits light, and you nodraw the rest of the faces.
 

Penguin

Clinically Diagnosed with Small Mapper's Syndrome
aa
May 21, 2009
2,039
1,484
are you not compiling with hdr?
 

Huckle

L3: Member
May 31, 2010
149
101
Like Penguin said, a func_brush with nodraw on all faces but one and one of the light/ textures on the last face. Render mode "don't render" and Solidity "never solid" works for me. Figuring out how the different textures work and trying to tweak the brightness is beyond me though.

Make a simple map with just the lights and test them there by themselves, no models no nothing. If they work in a simple setting they should work in a more advanced one.
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
aa
Nov 2, 2007
4,775
7,669
teamfortress2content.gcf has the lights.rad file (in the tf folder) that vrad should be using for texlights. Make sure what you are using is something in that list. This is also what defines the color and brightness of each. The brightness is the amount emitted from one full tile of the texture, so scaling the texture adjusts the brightness.
 

Huckle

L3: Member
May 31, 2010
149
101
The brightness is the amount emitted from one full tile of the texture, so scaling the texture adjusts the brightness.

So by taking any sized face of a brush and just clicking the "fit" button would make it count as one full tile?
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
aa
Nov 2, 2007
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Yes. Additionally, the lightmap scale of a texlight controls the number of actual lights created (no affect on brightness). Each luxel is one light. This usually doesn't matter for the kinds of lights discussed here, but if you have the texlight near a perpendicular surface you'll need to make the luxels smaller to reduce the dotting effect.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
FYI func_illusionary is perfectly fine and isn't likely to ever break in TF2, at least, seeing how official and community maps both make use of it. I use it for my brush lights to keep them separate from my windows and make them easier to find in the Entity Report.