Is it possible to make an entire brush give off of light?

Kazagin

L3: Member
Aug 4, 2009
130
9
(Topic)
Lava plays a part in my map, and I want to make it give off light to have it light as much of the area it is in. (So I can use less lights around the area.)

Anyway, is there a way to make a certain brush give off light?
 

Dr. Spud

Grossly Incandescent
aa
Mar 23, 2009
880
854
$selfillum will only keep the texture lit, but won't cast light onto other surfaces.

I feel like I've read of a way to do this, but I can't remember. Maybe I'll find it later.
 

Rexy

The Kwisatz Haderach
aa
Dec 22, 2008
1,798
2,533
You guys are forgetting to add to lights.rad! You can make the texture emit light as well as appear to be glowing:

<material> <red> <green> <blue> <intensity>

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Lights.rad#Lights_files

Example:

sketch/sketchglow 255 255 255 200

Although that texture does not exist, that's the basic principle. The three values of 255 create a white light. Just make sure your material is glowing and has a properly defined alpha channel, and is using "$selfillum" "1".
 
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Kazagin

L3: Member
Aug 4, 2009
130
9
Ok, I'm trying to do the .Rad method, but I can't find the lights.rad file for TF2.
I checked in the:
SteamApps>Kazagin>team fortress2>tf directory, but nothing to be found.
(I found it fine using the half-life 2>hl directory.)

Anyway, how do I make a .rad file?
Is there anything special I need to put in it, or do I just need to start with the crap for the lights I'm doing now?
 

Rexy

The Kwisatz Haderach
aa
Dec 22, 2008
1,798
2,533
All you need to do is make a new text document, with notepad, and rename it to "lights.rad". When prompted which software to open the file with, pick notepad. Then just add your lines to the .rad file. This newly created lights.rad file needs to go in the base folder of your tf2 directory:

"...steamapps\USERNAME\team fortress 2\tf"

By default, when compiling, the software looks for information in lights.rad if there is one present. You can have other .rad files, but you have to tell hammer to use them during your compile--but that makes things much too complicated, all you need is lights.rad
 

Kazagin

L3: Member
Aug 4, 2009
130
9
EDIT:
It didn't work. I put "$selfillum" "1" in the VMT, and put lava 255 255 255 200 in my lights.rad and lava/lavaglow 255 255 255 200 in my lights.rad .
I checked the texture in VTFedit, and it doesn't have an Alpha channel.
How do I take a texture that isn't mine (in this case, MangyCarface's lava texture), and add an alpha channel?
(Note: I pm'd him to ask for permission to alter his texture. Waiting for a response.)
 
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