Proper dark style of my map: which light Created 9 years ago2015-06-11 14:59:44 UTC by abbadon

HI. I´ve finally fixed most of the problems of the Zion map, reduced a total amount of lights from 36! to just 2, solving the problem of unlit cyclers aswell (a mix of the solution gived by Dr.Orange an some trial-error ). Aniway, I´ve found that the look of the light is not as I wanted it to te.

Well, take a look to this picture...

http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/7/6540/thumb_620x2000/HalfLife23.jpg

I hate the "yellow-ish" lok of the light!!, the parameters of that light are this:

Light: 177 77 1 113

Style: Underwater

Fallof: 1_Inv Linear

I want a light more like this...

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljjd0vRgfx1qheo9x.jpg

But, I want this one the most...

https://heavyarmor.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/zion.jpg

Of course, I understand that the light intensity must be low, even get rid of a main light source for the map and put more lights, but If do so I will fall in the problem of the "Too many light styles on a face" because all of them must be switch-able.

But, because I want the cyclers be lighted properly and also get rid of the "Warning: too many lights BLAH,BLAH,BLAH" (you know), what´ll be the best light style and intensity you´ll put to achive that "Brown-ish" look I wanted?

it doesnt matter how many lights you use, even if a 1000, theyll be all baked to one lightmap

the "too many light styles on face" error only comes up with different colored lights, and if you have a lot of dynamically flickering lights.

It looks to me that there's just a single light source at the top of the dome. If you're looking to get rid of the yellow, put more red into your orange. Try 255 70 2 113

I would recommend using texture lights or info_texlights; they both work the same way (light emitting textures), just a different setup.
http://twhl.info/wiki.php?id=1090
http://twhl.info/tutorial.php?id=54
Downside is that if you want them to be switchable you`re going to have to use light entities:
http://twhl.info/forums.php?thread=15265
If you change your mind about the lights being switchable, you should setup the brushes that use texlights in your scene and convert them into func_wall_toggle. Go into Flags tab and check "Start invisible" flag, so that they won't be rendered. You can safely bump the texture sizes on these brushes to high values, to avoid extra cuts and save compile time.

Also notice the mix of colors on those screenshots, the center of the scene is focused with brighter values and the outer edges are covered with different shades of orange/red and the blue at the bottom of the 2nd pic gives it a nice contrast.

color doesnt matter Tetsu0

i always ran into the light styles error with a lot of different color lights.
maybe i've been doing something wrong.

if theyre all without a name or with the same name theyre gonna be treated like one light style

Overloading any once face with too many switchable lights is avoided if they all share the same name and are switched as one. You can have 40 individual light emiting entities or textures and it will be fine. its just when they each become distinctly alterable sources that an issue arises. Because it has to calculate each possible state for all the lights.

Eg, Lights 1 off, lights 2-26 on, lights 1 and 2 off, 3-26 on, etc.

As long as they share a name they'll be treated as one style regardless of color.

Having different appearances also causes issues when you layer to many.

for example the new _spread parameter for light_environment in vluzacns tools might generate 100000 lights if the angle is big but the light style is single

Why must all the lights be switchable? Dynamic light styles in GS are notoriously poor. They don't blend as well, cause the 'too many lights on face' error and ultimately are very difficult to refine.

On a more general note, what your map lacks is contrast. What makes your reference imagery so good is the powerful contrast created by very deliberate lighting & tone choice.

I recommend using light_spot for all your key or focus lighting (detail highlights and gameplay focal points) and sparingly use texlights for the ambient light. In many circumstances, it really works well to choose two contrasting colours for these (e.g. use tungsten lamps [~3000K] for your ambient lighting and have harsh highlights using daylight-balanced fluorescents [~5600K])Also, make sure you're not compiling with too many bounces. Using Vluzacn's tools, you can achieve an excellent middle-ground between light bleeding and too-harsh contrast with between 3 and 6 bounces.

TL;DR:
Create contrast in tone, colour & brightness.

Penguinboy, if you're listening, can we please have a 'Favorite Post' option?
Archie just threw down some gold!

Also

if theyre all without a name or with the same name theyre gonna be treated like one light style

Thanks Bruce. IDK why, but I didn't know that.

Thanks for all of your replies!!, I will investigate the text_lights because I think is what I should use,I´ve read the threads-tutorials that Kachito has provided to me and I now have to start testing all that work with lights!.The major problem I found is that the walls are the main structure of the map, wouldn´t be a problem turning the world´s walls into func_walls?, wouldn´t it generate the biggest leak ever? :/ .
Maybe I´m saying nonsenses, thanks to all of you again!! ^_^ As soon as I make the map I´ll post some pics.

You shouldn't have to touch anything in your current map. Simply add and texture how many brushes you want and turn all of them into a single func_wall_toggle, then select the flag "start invisible".
You can have 2 brushes or 10000 brushes, it doesn't matter as they won't be rendered/be visible to the eye. The only thing you'll get from them this way, is the light emitted from their textures onto the other surfaces, as if a light entity would be there instead of texlight brush.
I can make a fast example if it's still not clear.

Ok, Kachito, I think got it!!, the func_wall_toggle acts as a light, but, instead of applying light to all the environment, they´ll add light to the walls near them with the named texture, right?

http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/7/6540/thumb_620x2000/HalfLife28.jpg

I haven´t applied tex_lights yet, just the final main light source. I´m working on the external bridge to make things be more visible thanks to the texture lightning technique.

Yes, in your case something like that. Not a bad start, i'd go even darker and work my way up to brightness with texlights, but that's just me. Either way, the mod looks very ambitious for goldsource. Looking forward to try it out when it's done

Edit: To add on what Archie said, another basic tutorial if you want to take a look at: http://www.moddb.com/tutorials/lighting-in-game-environments-the-hows-and-whys
Only had that tut still saved in my bookmarks, i don't recall other lighting guides for level design of the top of my head, but there are plenty of detailed guides for lighting and color comp in cinematography, most of those work for 3d games as well.