Isn't there some kind of trick to lighting maps?

[Beetle]

Why no1 has asked about leaks in his map?

I didn't ask because I figured the map would be just the opposite of dark if it had a leak.

 

[YM]

I didn't ask because I figured the map would be just the opposite of dark if it had a leak.

nope. Leaks stop vis running, not rad. That means that rad will only be able to run based of direct lighting and not bounce lighting, so any lights will appear incredibly darker if they are far from any walls.

 

[mmik]

You also seem to be using model textures on world brushes.
uh...Where? If you mean the fence in front of the room-thing, I plan on changing that anyway since it blocks the light from my lantern at certain angles. Other than that, though, I don't see a problem with it...

Here's a train tunnel... pay no attention to the fact that it's kind of ugly right now.

These things are barely lighting the area at all. Is it normally like this? The lights are set to 300 brightness, with outer cone at 60, inner at 40. Does it look irregularly dark to anyone?

Also, I gotta do something about the lighting around the posts. maybe angle the lights differently, I dunno.

Edit: Well this seems a bit ground-breaking. I added a plain "light" on the ground under each of my light models. This is the result; Nothing else has been changed since the picture above:

 

[YM]

Have you actually checked for leaks? the first of those two screenshots screams of a leak

 

[mmik]

Not recently, no. Are leaks always labeled with "leak" in the compile log? I was always under the impression a leak is only when your map isn't enclosed properly, but apparently there's more to it.

 

[YM]

I'm pretty sure whenever there is a leak it will say LEAKED in the compile log.

 

[mmik]

If you're right and they're all marked "leak", then I don't have one. I just ctrl+f "leak"ed my compile log and came up with nothing. There's either another problem, or I'm just terrible at lighting.

I cut the brightness of the lights on the ground in half, and now the lighting looks even better.

 

[RavenStryker]

you "could" put up a link to download what you have so far and we could actually take a look at the parts of the map that your having problems with and can easily tell you whats going wrong that way. But again, just a thought. Lol

 

[grazr]

Yea the big thing I had my first time was putting the light_spot inside of the actual prop mesh which caused the light to get stuck inside of it. Same thing went for the point_spotlight it was inside the prop mesh and couldn't get out.

Bad Way to do it:

Good Way to do it:

Turning off a props shadow will also stop this from happening (allowing you to place the light entity within the bound of a prop if you so desired). As it allows the light entity to shine through the prop that 'surrounds' it. I would recommend this be done with most small props and especially light fixtures (as the light points away from them anyway). It'll save on your file size, though i can't say how significantly. It depends how widely you implement it.

 

[RavenStryker]

Good tip, I didn't know that, i'm gonna have to do that now. =)

 

[Laz]

about thevphysics, if a models doent have one, I just set it to non-solid, and use player clips to block players if it is needed. otherwise, you'll walk right through.

 

[Sgt Frag]

I'd try and set the physics to bounding box first. That'll make it solid and no need for player clip.

Not sure but I think that just gives you a 'box' shape around it, vphysics is probably a more detailed shape. So crates are excellent for bounding box, but something like a pine tree would be better vphysics (if you have a choice)

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Regarding lighting.

I think you should make you spot cones wider. Right now they light up such a small area. Usually those lights (in real life) would be placed far enough apart that they basically light all the ground between them and across the tracks.
Leaving a little sliver of shadow between them would make it more interesting then overlapping them and fully lighting the ground though.

Also, just placing 'omni' (not spot) lights in there can help bring up the overall visibility.
I like to make the first radius (50% falloff) really small so it doesn't leave hotspots (a bright circle) and make the second radius (100% falloff) really large. This will give just a slight, almost unnoticeable glow in that area.
Something like 50-100 for inner radius (the yellow sphere shouldn't ouch anything) and 500-1500 for the outer radius depending on how far the light can reach or how bright you want the center to be.

You can color them to give a mood to the area too. brown is good to make things look grundgy, like in that tunnel.

 

[mmik]

Hey, I'm back from vacation. I'm gonna try messing with the falloff and stuff, but that's a lot of words, so we'll see what happens.

Sgt Frag, whenever you get around to seeing this topic again, was your one paragraph suggesting I reposition my lights in my train tunnel, or just adjust the radius?

 

[Sgt Frag]

Mainly just making the radius larger so it covers a larger area on the ground (will also have larger cones on wall).

 

[mmik]

Well the outer cone is pretty wide, so I must need to adjust the inner cone. Maybe I should also move the physical lights out a bit, so they are centered over the track. Assuming there's enough clearance, but there might not be. (Someone will need to ride the train, so I need room for a person to stand on it)

 

[mmik]

Hey, I got these two lines in my console after trying to build my cubemaps:

Current mod isn't in a subdirectory of "game"!
Can't load skybox file sky_dustbowl_01 to build the default cubemap!
Not sure how to fix those.

 

[Sgt Frag]

O noes! make back ups of your map quick !!!

No, just joking. If you find a way to make that error stop showing let us know.

But there's no need to worry, it also does that for lumberyard sky and probably others. It doesn't effect anything, not sure why it even pops up.

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the outer radius of the light helps alot with 'ambient lighting' to bring up the brightness of the room around it. But that's from 50% light and fades to 0 %, so it's more of a subtle effect.

The inner cone is the light from 100% (at the light source) fadin to 50% brightness, so it's effects are alot easier to see. Adjusting that outward to almost the exact size of light 'spot' on the ground is what you should do, then make the outer radius larger depending on how sharp you want the edge. At least 2x as large as inner is probably good for a rough test in most cases.

Sometimes I'll have alot of the same lights all set the same, but one will have a different radius depending solely on its particular surroundings.
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I think the lights look fine to one side of tunnel. Or maybe stagger them.
First one right side of tunnel, second on left, 3rd on right. That'll give a cool zig zag effect to the lighting and add a bit more spice.

 

[grazr]

Try pasting your compile log in here. That should let you know if you should be worried about it and if/how to fix it.

edit: Also, using a models bounding box is generally a bad idea as it will rarely fit the very specific shape of a model. If it doesn't have a physics mesh then it's probably better off left without any physics settings. Otherwise.. clip it. It'll be a rare oppotunity to use the bounding box setting effectively.

 

[mmik]

That's a good idea frag. If you couldn't tell yet, this is a gimmick map. The train part of the map requires a soldier to rocketjump off of a moving train, into a duct of some kind above the train.

If I add clipping and stagger the lights, they could act as a mini obstacle that the soldier has to maneuver about. They hang just low enough to get in the way, but off to the side enough that you can walk around them.

 

[mmik]

I did the compile checker, and it only found one brush that I ended up not needing anyway. I'm redesigning a whole section of my map.

Uh oh... stickies stick to my train, then float in the air where they landed. How can I fix this? (I don't want them sticking at all)