How do I achieve the uniform lighting effect I see in the default maps and/or others like ctf_turbine?
I'm working on an indoor map - no skybox.
I'm working on an indoor map - no skybox.
Uniform Indoor Lighting
- Thread starter Diddly
- Start date
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L3: Member
- Oct 25, 2007
- 115
- 26
Well first you don't want your lighting too uniform it should accent key areas and draw attention away from the parts irrelevent to gameplay.
To bump up the extra dark areas in your map however (where you don't want to place additional lights) you will want to use Light entities with a very low brightness floating in the middle of the area you want (possibly lining it up with a nearby light). With Tf2's cartoony styling as long as the light doesn't cast a circle brightspot on any nearby surfaces (ie it's not too close to any surfaces and isn't too bright) the lighting will fit and look 'natural'. Choose a color that blends in with the nearby lighting as well.
Even if your map is indoors though keep in mind that your setting should have windows and 'open' ceilings as what would fit the theme. Even turbine (I think) has some windows in the center courtyard that let light in using a light_environment and skybox.
To bump up the extra dark areas in your map however (where you don't want to place additional lights) you will want to use Light entities with a very low brightness floating in the middle of the area you want (possibly lining it up with a nearby light). With Tf2's cartoony styling as long as the light doesn't cast a circle brightspot on any nearby surfaces (ie it's not too close to any surfaces and isn't too bright) the lighting will fit and look 'natural'. Choose a color that blends in with the nearby lighting as well.
Even if your map is indoors though keep in mind that your setting should have windows and 'open' ceilings as what would fit the theme. Even turbine (I think) has some windows in the center courtyard that let light in using a light_environment and skybox.
Set Quadratic to 0, Constant to 1 and Linear to 1. Then you just need to position the light properly and set the brightness. What I do is set up a constant light entity in the middle of the room and set up spotlights to make it all dramatic and sexy.
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thanx, will add windows and skylights too.
ok, I've added skylights (no windows yet, but soon will). But I've got a slight problem with the lighting. The brightness of the walls fluctuates as you move along, going from dark to light instantly one or more times. I've tried adding cubemaps, but they don't seem to compile in TF2. What's the most likely cause? thanx.
You're using either prop textures or the textures from badlands which... don't work. You need to change your textures to fix the problem.If I'm completely off, please post screenshots of the problem.
Snipergen
L13: Stunning Member
- Nov 16, 2007
- 1,051
- 150
omg have the exact same problem! it looks terrible and i really want to use those textures :/
what do you mean with badlands? im gonna try to export those textures and make my own...
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They're files from a map that they never finished and for some reason they don't render properly so you cannot use them in your map. Any texture that has prop/ in front of it or says badlands/ will give you the same problem, if it's wood textures they can easily be replaced by a similar texture but for the badlands wall textures (where the blue is inverted with he grey) you're going to have to make your own.
don't forget your smoothing