Entity Attribute: Custom Appearance Last edited 10 months ago2023-12-22 10:53:54 UTC

Most lighting entities accept a Custom Appearance (pattern) value that describes a custom lighting animation pattern to be emitted by the entity. The values are expressed in the range of a to z, where a is total darkness, m is full brightness, and z is double brightness. In game, the texture lighting associated with the entity will modulate based on the given pattern at the rate of around 8Hz, and loop back after reaching the end.

The maximum pattern length is 63 characters. There's also a maximum limit of about 30 entities that can have custom appearances in a map [needs confirmation].

Appearance presets

The following are the presets for the associated Appearance (style) property expressed in custom appearance notation, taken from Quake. You can use this in the case that using the preset appearances aren't working to you.

// 0 normal
lightstyle(0, "m");

// 1 FLICKER (first variety)
lightstyle(1, "mmnmmommommnonmmonqnmmo");

// 2 SLOW STRONG PULSE
lightstyle(2, "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba");

// 3 CANDLE (first variety)
lightstyle(3, "mmmmmaaaaammmmmaaaaaabcdefgabcdefg");

// 4 FAST STROBE
lightstyle(4, "mamamamamama");

// 5 GENTLE PULSE 1
lightstyle(5,"jklmnopqrstuvwxyzyxwvutsrqponmlkj");

// 6 FLICKER (second variety)
lightstyle(6, "nmonqnmomnmomomno");

// 7 CANDLE (second variety)
lightstyle(7, "mmmaaaabcdefgmmmmaaaammmaamm");

// 8 CANDLE (third variety)
lightstyle(8, "mmmaaammmaaammmabcdefaaaammmmabcdefmmmaaaa");

// 9 SLOW STROBE (fourth variety)
lightstyle(9, "aaaaaaaazzzzzzzz");

// 10 FLUORESCENT FLICKER
lightstyle(10, "mmamammmmammamamaaamammma");

// 11 SLOW PULSE NOT FADE TO BLACK
lightstyle(11, "abcdefghijklmnopqrrqponmlkjihgfedcba");