Lighting Issue

[Oddjob]

Well so far lighting has proven to be the most challenging in mapping. In these screenshots I am hoping you all can offer suggestions as to what my be causing this lighting anomaly. The ingame screenshoot and hammer shot are looking at the same spot. I am blending a displacement wall with the meshes to give a more organic feel.

The meshes are lighting very odd ingame. Maybe someone has had this problem before. Any help is appreciated.

 

[Brandished]

I've fixed a lighting issue similar to that by adjusting the badly lighting brushes position 1 ~ 2 hammer units away from / towards the light source. It's was a rough fix, but it worked.

 

[Oddjob]

Well I have been doing some research and someone on another forum said something about the props origin in relation to being embedded inside displacement surfaces like that. It may have been related to how the lighting affects it. There was some talk about moving the props origins but I am not sure if that is related to this case. :S

 

[Earl]

Yeah, its showing up black because the origin is completely inside the displacement, thus blocking it from light. You can fix the problem by tying an info_lighting entity to the model.

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Info_lighting

 

[Open Blade]

I think you should just make that entire wall using the mining wood beams. It seems unatural that a wall would be put up like that with parts of the cliff sticking out in the middle. My 2 cents though.

 

[Oddjob]

Well its not like TF2 is some sort of literal game...

Oh well here is a screenshot from the almost finished area and how the lighting looks with those info_lightings. Thanks for the help guys

 

[Lord Ned]

Ugh, ditch the lights on the ceiling. You don't really have any contrasting areas, which are good in Tf2 for the spy to hide and uncloak in. Try ditching the ceiling lights and putting in some really strong spotlights + effect pointing up towards the center. Should HOPEFULLY create some shadows around the center area.

 

[R3dRuM]

lights on ceiling really make it look like crap. other than that, pretty good.

 

[YM]

I'd say its the lack of cubemaps that makes it look so bad, the lights themselves aren't so bad.
However, there are a few things that don't look as good:
Scale up the water texture
Change the grainless wood texture that you've used for the beams and edges of walkways for one with grain
Make the lighting a little less even, some areas should be darker whilst some should be lighter, its all too monotone right now

 

[Oddjob]

I'd say its the lack of cubemaps that makes it look so bad, the lights themselves aren't so bad.
However, there are a few things that don't look as good:
Scale up the water texture
Change the grainless wood texture that you've used for the beams and edges of walkways for one with grain
Make the lighting a little less even, some areas should be darker whilst some should be lighter, its all too monotone right now

I realize all of this, I appreciate the constructive criticism but this by no means was a final shot so you all should not treat it as such but thanks for pointing out the water texture I probably wouldn't have thought about that thing at least . The ceiling lights are staying and are molded into the displacement.

TO Lord Ned: I am not sure why you have such a distaste for them, how else do you expect light in the middle of the room without ceiling lights of some nature, if you want it to be devoid of light fixtures then you would say something about the fact its lit up with no light fixtures

I don't know why you would want spotlights shining upwards either, I will probably darken the overall lightness of the room but as far as the other comments on the light fixtures and the way its set up I guess that is your opinion I only posted the screenie to illustrate that I fixed the issue, I didn't post it in the WIP forum to look for feedback.

 

[Lord Ned]

Well, this map looks like a cave of sorts.
Caves != Lots of mild lighting. They are generally alot of harsh very contrasting light and dark areas. But whatever, I'll shutup. :c

 

[Oddjob]

Well it is supposed to be more of a mining area down under my map, that is why I had the requested model in the model forum I may end up looking into removing those ceiling lights anyway and just leaving the spot light actors if I can't find a more suitable light mesh.