Lighting

Half-Life_Maniac

L3: Member
Nov 30, 2007
122
89
I feel like a n00b again...

I just can't get my lights looking right in TF2. The way we always used to do it in Half-Life was to use texture lights. Plain old light and light_spot entities were'nt used as much. Now it seems in TF2, light_spots are all there are. Looking at the VALVe maps, all I see is light_spots everywhere- all placed just below their prop models. Not a standard light entity in sight.

However, when I try this, what I end up with is in the case of a wall light, the surrounding area getting moderately lit, but the wall behind the light and the ceiling hardly getting lit at all. Also the props stay dark in some cases.

I've set the brightness up to 1000 on some of my lights, but it still doesn't seem enough.

So, any tips for lighting in Source??
 
B

Buster Charlie

I used some point lights, depending on the effect I want. You can also use texture lights (especially for fluorescents, check out some of the valve ones). Try checking out how the valve lights work.

The key I think to having the spot lights work for general lighting is having multiple light sources, this and radiosity bounces tend to even things out a bit.

My advice is to copy some of the TF2 lights and see how they tick, and also create small test rooms or quardon off an area to do quick rad checks. I leave TF2 running in minimized mode, do a quick compile, alt-tab to TF2 to try it out, then disconnect and repeat. Leaving both programs open at the same time (if you have a fast machine) can really save some time in this way.
 

Half-Life_Maniac

L3: Member
Nov 30, 2007
122
89
That's pretty much what I've been doing, minimised TF2 included- which is quite painful for my computer. Bloody Hammer is more of a strain than the actual game...

I was thinking about making a test room trying out all different types of lighting. Suppose I'll just have to do that.
 

Logo

L3: Member
Oct 25, 2007
115
26
From what I've seen with the Valve lights is they tend to use dark colored (almost black) lights with very high brightness and a slight color tint to get the effects they want.

Also make sure you have a logic_auto controlling your HDR settings (if you're running in HDR especially) otherwise you'll get out of control blooms and contrasts between light and dark.
 

Hawk

L7: Fancy Member
Dec 3, 2007
419
213
Half-Life_Maniac, you're dealing with the exact same thing I am right now. Keep us posted on what you find, and I'll post any of my findings.

Offhand I've found that looking closely at Valve maps can get you gorgeous-looking outdoor lighting. But the indoor stuff is a challenge, and I'm getting the same results you are... dark ceilings and some spotlights that seemingly do nothing even when at 2000 brightness.
 

Nizzem

L2: Junior Member
Nov 29, 2007
57
0
Looking at the VALVe maps, all I see is light_spots everywhere- all placed just below their prop models. Not a standard light entity in sight.

This is true on 2fort because there is no ceiling, so majority of the light is received from the light environment. If you take a look at the indoors of cp_well where there isn't environmental light they use standard light entities throughout, usually with a brightness of 500. (You can see this for yourself at the second last cap point) (the last cap point is open to the sky box because of the rocket)

My advice to you would be try and use outside as a light source. If not, use spotlights and standard lights to fill in the gaps.
 

Scoobingsthe2nd

L4: Comfortable Member
Nov 11, 2007
170
0
if you increase the outward angle to like 75, the lights cover a hell of a lot more area and seem to bounce around more. HAve you tried that?
 

Half-Life_Maniac

L3: Member
Nov 30, 2007
122
89
Looks like increasing the inner and outer angles to around 60-80 helped a lot. In some cases I've also had to add dim lights near the floor that shine upwards, underneath the real lights.
 

[CoL] Bullseye

L1: Registered
Dec 11, 2011
2
0
How do you get the light ray effect from spot lights? My spot lights just light the spot on the floor and don't put out a "ray" effect. I, too, will have to put many standard "light" in places of my indoor maps. That's normal though. It takes a lot of tweaking to get lighting just bright enough that it doesn't seem too bright or twoo dark. How do you get the bulbs to appear that they are being lit up? Sprites?
 

Vincent

&#128296 Grandmaster Lizard Wizard Jedi &#128296
aa
Sep 5, 2009
912
684
Woah that's one gnarly necro bump. To answer your questions, the light ray effects are usually props. For it to appear being lit up at the bulb it is indeed a sprite.

You should really check the date that a posts been made, this threads from 2007.
 

[CoL] Bullseye

L1: Registered
Dec 11, 2011
2
0
Thank you for the answer. I'm not sure why I didn't see that in the description of point_spotlight before.

Also, I didn't pay attention to the dates until after I posted. This is just what came up when I "Googled" the topic.

Thanks again.