Help with design and lightning

Flaffy

L1: Registered
Jul 31, 2015
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First off is the lighting. I´m using light_spot and point_spotlight for the lightning in the room.
In-game:
IngameView.PNG

Hammer View:
HammerView.PNG




If I could make the chickenfence be transparent or make the light go through it.

Second problem is how do I make the beam not look ugly, if I make it smaller.
The problem: it's too big and it blocks players, any ideas on how to make the room still look nice without a stupid looking beam.

ingame2.PNG


Here's the whole room:
WholeRoom.PNG
 
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Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
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Sep 5, 2010
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Just remove the beam, nothing wrong with that, tbh.

You'll want to align your wood textures though, that'll annoy people.

For that dark corner, I'd use a dim light (aka: Omni light) the same color of the lights in the room. This is called phantom lighting.

For the dark items under the stairs, try compiling with the -staticproplight and -staticproppolys and -textureshadows compile options. You can also disable shadows on those items, and that'll stop any weird self-shadowing that might occur.
 

Flaffy

L1: Registered
Jul 31, 2015
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Can I make it so the light will go through the chickenfence? I saw in cs:go that the sun goes through windows and leaves shadows on of a cross (crosswindow) on the wall
 

tyler

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Sep 11, 2013
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-textureshadows specifically is what makes light go through transparent textures.
 

worMatty

Repacking Evangelist
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Jul 22, 2014
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But only on props.
 

tyler

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Sep 11, 2013
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I am almost certain -textureshadows does any transparent textures, and for props, you need to list them in a .rad file?
 
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Snowbat

L4: Comfortable Member
Apr 23, 2013
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Cant you use an info target that you put outside the chicken fence and have the prop use that info_target as lighting source?
I remember doing that with one of my old CS:S maps that had a similar problem.
 

Flaffy

L1: Registered
Jul 31, 2015
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So how do I use that thing? ".rad" file or something. Or fix the problem as you say.
(sorry if it's stupid question, i'm new)
 

worMatty

Repacking Evangelist
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Jul 22, 2014
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Cant you use an info target that you put outside the chicken fence and have the prop use that info_target as lighting source?
I remember doing that with one of my old CS:S maps that had a similar problem.
Yes you can. It's called origin lighting and it's what dynamic props use. But all of the prop would be lit the same way so it would look strange underneath this shaded area. If the mapper uses the VRAD compile argument -staticproplighting as in the article Lamp linked, static props will have their lighting and shading worked out on a per-vertex basis, meaning its surface will be lit variably just like in real life.

The .rad file is for when you want light to be able to shine through transparent textures in props, for example chain link fence. It's not any use here though because the -textureshadows argument is for props only, not brushes, as brush faces with transparent textures will let light through anyway as evidenced in this image:

Top left - entirely chickenwire
Top right - entirely nodraw
Bottom left - Chicken wire on bottom face, wood everywhere else
Bottom right - Entirely wood

PpUD43V.jpg


Give any face of a brush a transparent texture and the VRAD treats the whole thing as transparent.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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Oho! So that's why Source treats transparency in models and brush textures differently. It doesn't actually do texture shadows on the brushes; it just ignores them altogether.

Anyway, yeah, the reason those props are so dark is that their origins are further in than the outsides are, and thus more in shadow. An info_lighting is fine for alpha, mind you. In fact, leaving it as-is would be fine for alpha; if your map ever gets to beta you should probably start using -staticproplighting along with the Final compile settings.
 

worMatty

Repacking Evangelist
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Jul 22, 2014
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Looking better. Don't worry, you will improve your lighting over time, as you develop your skill.

You should save your real lighting work for your beta, late beta or release candidate versions. At least when you have fully detailed things using textures and props. Your lighting can be affected by those things, you see, so it's better to finish them first, to save work. During development of early versions of your map when you are concerned mostly with play testing, just focus on making sure all of your map is evenly lit, and there are no dark places where a character's team colour is hard to see. You can use the console command thirdperson to see how your lighting affects your character.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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Of course, if this is your first map or so, it's fine to play around with this stuff just to get a feel for how it works, so you're not struggling through it when it comes time to detail the map for real. I've got a few test maps still floating around the mapsrc folder that have no objectives at all, just detailing.