Indoor Lighting Too Dim

[MagnusMastah]

Hey guys, I have four indoor light_spots in a spawn room, but even at 500 brightness, they're WAYYY too dim. I have two screenshots, one of my settings of the lights in Hammer, and the other of their in-game brightness. Sorry, I'm brand new to mapping.





The odd thing is, the light_environment that I have outside works perfectly; the way it should. Thanks for any help in advance.

 

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

Up your brightness (try 1000+)
Change the distances of the 50% falloff and 0% fall off. If you have helpers on in hammer (its one of the buttons more towards the right of the top tool bar) when you select a light you'll see 2 yellow circles that you can expand outwards to increase how far the light goes. The important part is that the 0% must be a greater number than the 50%.

 

[MagnusMastah]

Up your brightness (try 1000+)
Change the distances of the 50% falloff and 0% fall off. If you have helpers on in hammer (its one of the buttons more towards the right of the top tool bar) when you select a light you'll see 2 yellow circles that you can expand outwards to increase how far the light goes. The important part is that the 0% must be a greater number than the 50%.

My brightness is 1500, my 50% falloff is at 200 and my 0% falloff is at 400. Am I doing that right? Because I can't see any noticeable difference. :/

EDIT: Hmm, I guess I'll probably just use regular light entities at a lower brightness, since it seems to do what I want just fine. I was just trying it with light_spots because that's what Half-Life_Maniac's Beginner's Guide to The Spawn Room was saying. Thanks for the help, though. Or is there a benefit to using light_spots that I'm not aware of?

 

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

They look better, and you can do a lot with them.

Things I should have mentioned last time:
Change the inner and outer angles. Make them something like 60 and 75, and see if thats good enough for you.

 

[MagnusMastah]

Alright, that's much better! The only problem is, now, is that the ceiling is pitch black; it doesn't look quite right.

 

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

I would try cranking up the outer angle more, above 90, that would, in theory, project it upwards as well. Try various values. You might also want to lower your brightness a bit, now that you've got it to work its more a matter of fine tuning everything.

 

[bob+M|M+]

The real problem here is that you have a leak. The light isn't reflecting against the walls like it should, and hence the stark contrast in lighting.

Go to Map -> Load Pointfile, follow the red line and patch up your leak.

 

[Nineaxis]

Or check if you have a light_environment to provide ambient light, which is more likely the problem than needing to mess with all the complex lighting parameters.

 

[drp]

The real problem here is that you have a leak. The light isn't reflecting against the walls like it should, and hence the stark contrast in lighting.

Go to Map -> Load Pointfile, follow the red line and patch up your leak.

every time i had this problem, i always found it to be a leak in my map. i would double check this asap.

 

[Captain Planet]

Wow, this lights look very l4d'y

 

[Psy]

Try these settings.

Brightness: 255 255 255 1000
Inner Angle: 50
Outer Angle: 50

Remember that light_spots need higher brightness values then your usual light and for TF2 it's best to use pale yellows and oranges for a nice warm atmosphere.

 

[Altaco]

Also, make sure they're not inside a prop's collision model, that can cause some odd lighting problems. Press the "CM" button on the top toolbar to see collision models.

 

[Dox]

Wow, this lights look very l4d'y

Protip for L4D mappers: remove one outer wall you don't need!