3D Skybox has odd shadows/lighting

I looked around to see if anybody had encountered this problem before but after much searching both here and elsewhere on the Internet I couldn't quite find what I'm experiencing currently. For whatever reason, the shadows in my 3D skybox area are quite odd looking; frequently being blocky or jagged. In addition, the lighting in the 3D skybox seems to be producing odd results with the terrain, making it clear where displacement seams are located.



The only thing I can think of that might be causing this is that I don't recall sewing the displacements I was using for the skybox together, but other than that I'm out of ideas. I believe my 3D skybox has everything it requires (including a light_environment), so I'm still not sure what could be causing all this. Any help is appreciated.

 

I don't see your issue, you could try and adjust the lightmap on the texture, that might help your shadows.

Also, if this is a TF2 map, preferably use TF2 textures, those white buildings (and maybe brick ones) aren't TF2.

 

I don't see your issue, you could try and adjust the lightmap on the texture, that might help your shadows.

Also, if this is a TF2 map, preferably use TF2 textures, those white buildings (and maybe brick ones) aren't TF2.

 

I just double-checked and according to the model viewer those buildings are from TF2. In fact they were used in the 3D Skybox for Well.

 

You have a light_environment inside the 3d skybox? Take that out.

 

Oh, I would've sworn they were HL2. Sorry about that.

If your issue isn't fixed, try honeymustards solution, that may cause it too.

 

Well I don't know if that'll cause problems, but you only need one in the map.

 

Any light without the env_ prefix shouldn't be in the skybox. It'll look all wrong.

The light_environment in the map also affects the skybox so really, you only need one light_env.

 

Well I went in and removed the duplicate light_env, and changed the lightmaps on all my skybox displacements from 16 units/luxel to 32. It doesn't seem to have done much though. Here's a better screenshot illustrating my problem



Basically instead of a nice smooth gradient on the shadow cast by the building it's very rough, and you can easily see where the shadow's intensity changes instead of it falling away gradually.

 

Did you make the building a dynamic prop instead of a static one? Dynamic props have jagged and dark shadows that are rendered in real time. Static props have smoother, precompiled shadows. Make sure that building prop is a prop_static.

 

Every prop in the 3d skybox is a static prop

 

Maybe decreasing the units per luxel instead of increasing it will help? Maybe it's worth a try, even if I don't completely know what I'm talking about. Also, maybe try a shadow controller entity.

 

Increasing the lightmap scale will give rougher shadows; decrease it to 8 or so in the 3d skybox to get sharper shadows.

 

Well I thought my problem was more that the shadows are too sharp, or at least when I was looking at the lightmap comparisons the gradient was more defined and the shadows were a lot more diffused. Also when i looked at other lightmap scales for other skyboxes they seemed to have the scale set to 32 or 64 units/luxel.

Course at this point I might as well try everything so I'll try decreasing the lightmap scale and see what happens.

 

Turn off shadows on the buildings, problem solved

 

I tested that out by disabling shadows on one side of the 3d skybox and it actually looks a lot better. A bit weird when there are no shadows being cast by the buildings, but I'll take weird over ugly.