Good ways to use light_spot and point_spotlight?

[Armadillo of Doom]

Edit 1: Seems the problem lies w/ using light_spot outdoors. When used inside, completely cut off from the sky lights, it worked fine. Alas, there doesn't appear to be any good way to make an outdoors spotlight

Now in theory, light_spot is the actual cone-shaped light source, while point_spotlight provides some particle effects. However, even when used together, I can't seem to make the cone visible. The Valve wiki recommends a brightness of 3k-4k for light_spot, in order to be seen properly. I set mine to 4k and a really obvious color like bright red. I can see the color reflected on objects under the light, and my weapon reflects the color as well. But I can't get the actual light cone to appear. And point_spotlight by itself doesn't produce anything noticeable. It was possible to actually see the light in DM. Am I missing something, or is this just another item that doesn't work as well in TF2?

 

[TheBladeRoden]

I dunno, places usually shut off outdoor lights when the sun's out

 

[Nineaxis]

There are outdoor spotlights on granary, I noticed some earlier... might want to look at those.

 

[Armadillo of Doom]

I dunno, places usually shut off outdoor lights when the sun's out

lol. I probly should have mentioned this a dark map.

 

[grazr]

There's an "outside" light_spot/point_spotlight facing the second cp on the second stage of dustbowl too. It's barely noticable.. i only noticed because i saw it in hammer then actually took the time ingame to check it out and sure enough it was there.

Still, it was barely noticable.

 

[Armadillo of Doom]

There's an "outside" light_spot/point_spotlight facing the second cp on the second stage of dustbowl too. It's barely noticable.. i only noticed because i saw it in hammer then actually took the time ingame to check it out and sure enough it was there.

Still, it was barely noticable.

I saw that one as well. It's a real shame too, cuz spotlights can do some amazing things to a map. Just look at Ravenholm, lol.

 

[MangyCarface]

Spotlights work fine AFAIK, my map has many of them, they look sweet against rock walls indoors. Try narrowing the focus on your point_spotlight; the light_spot provides light only and will not give you the cone effect you're looking for.

 

[Armadillo of Doom]

Spotlights work fine AFAIK, my map has many of them, they look sweet against rock walls indoors. Try narrowing the focus on your point_spotlight; the light_spot provides light only and will not give you the cone effect you're looking for.

Interesting, I'll have to try that. If this works, I'll totally love you, cuz my map will look sweet and I can finally post screenshots

 

[MangyCarface]

I Guarantee It

 

[Armadillo of Doom]

I Guarantee It

If I can actually get the spotlights visible outdoors, I will do more than love you. I'll thank both of your last 2 posts

 

[Narkissus]

Also try to not have the entity sunken into anything, because that seems to make it not work correctly.

 

[Brandished]

EDIT: EDIT...

Well... Looks like I was wrong again, lol. I slowly started eliminating details and it appears the deciding factor was a point_spotlight and good backdrop surface close to the light source. Adding a func_dustmotes and setting the 50 and 0 percent fall off distances do help add detail as well. You have to play around with all the different settings a lot to get something nice. I myself am still looking for a nice, in depth, but easy-to-understand tutorial on all the different light settings and how to use them, trial-and-error is VERY time consuming. I updated the comparison shots below.

In the screenshots below I used:

func_dustmotes
particle color: 206 207 177

point_spotlight
-default settings-

light_spot
Brightness: 244 249 70 900
50% fall off: 390
0% fall off: 900

In Hammer:



Comparison shots; a light_spot and...


.

 

[AWESOME-O]

Hly shitty nice

 

[grazr]

What's with the strange tinting in your lights with fall off distances? That looks kinda odd.

 

[Brandished]

What's with the strange tinting in your lights with fall off distances? That looks kinda odd.

The strange tinting is actually the color I used for the the light_spot. I choose a weird orangish color so it would better show the surfaces it affected.

The fall off distances directly affect how far the light "reaches", more so then the light's brightness settings. The tinting is in all 4 of the shots, it's just not as visible in the latter 2 shots because the light source isn't hitting the nearby surfaces as well with the fall off distance values set to 0 (the default value).

 

[grazr]

I always had trouble with the fall off distances for regular lights, you would have thought they might have implemented a spherical mesh, like they have for models and their fade distance settings. It was always trial and error with the lights, which is annoying on a full compile.

Or they have and i havn't touched them in THAT long..

 

[beefwellington]

VALVe needs to implement a 3D Engine view like the updated Unreal engine has for Gears of War 2's cinematics. In the updated Unreal editor Epic uses, you can map/edit cinematics in the 3D/2D views like hammer but then watch that cinematic happen in game inside the editor. Sure this would take more system resources (prolly another 300-500mb of memory) but making it a turn on/off function like a plugin would be great. Would save soooo much time.