Lighting in rooms with high ceilings

Sopres

L1: Registered
Jun 25, 2015
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0
After a few years of making simple test maps in Hammer, I decided to make my friends a cool map to mess around on. But, long story short, I can't seem to figure out how to light up a very big room appropriately. I decided to come ask here, since some people said to.

How would I go about lighting up a room, say, this big? ( http://i.imgur.com/yAmwYCh.png )
 

EArkham

Necromancer
aa
Aug 14, 2009
1,625
2,773
Don't make rooms that big.

Seriously. Interior rooms shouldn't be that large without being exposed to the sky (a courtyard, a space between large buildings, a place between cliffs, etc, etc). Generally for a room that size, the expectation is that it appears to be outdoors and thus has some lighting from the sky.

In addition to sky light, you also want to make sure your spotlights have wide outer angles, and it probably can't hurt to make sure the inner (bright) angles are also wider than normal. Remember that lights in TF2 also tend to be ridiculously bright from spotlights (1200, 1800, etc) sometimes, so with overlapping light sources, you get a good ambient light.
 

Sopres

L1: Registered
Jun 25, 2015
2
0
I'd prefer a bunch of lights over giant square holes in my walls.

Thank you, though!
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
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2,579
Look at the last point in Well to see how Valve lit up the tallest room they've ever made, but keep in mind that the only reason it's so huge is because it's literally an indoor launching pad for a NASA grade rocket.

EDIT: When I say "look at", I mean load up a decompile, which you can find in this pack.
 
Oct 6, 2008
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phantom lights help as well
 

YM

LVL100 YM
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Dec 5, 2007
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Just for reference, that room is big enough 3 of the Hindenburg Zeppelin side by side and as tall as the niagra falls. Do you really want it to be that absolutely insanely massive?
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
Now you made me want models of those objects.
 
Oct 6, 2008
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Just for reference, that room is big enough 3 of the Hindenburg Zeppelin side by side and as tall as the niagra falls. Do you really want it to be that absolutely insanely massive?

You got a problem with Zeppelins?