Lighting, oh the joy. Created 16 years ago2008-09-18 10:32:26 UTC by FresheD

After being away from the mapping scene for more than 2 years (even tho I have been cheating with goldsource ) I decided to give it a go again. Everything was going good and all untill I came across the 'lighting' part, inside lighting that is. After reading so many lighting tuts this week and experimenting so much I'm at ends hope, hence this thread. Basicly I want to achieve the lighting as seen in the first 2 screenies, while I get the last 2 screenies. What am I doing wrong? As you can see the map is still almost pitch black, I use spot_light entities. The thing that annoys me the most is that I have some light right under my spot entities but basicly around that, AND ABOVE THE SPOTS (roof etc) it's incredible dark. As I'm being noclipping trying to figure out how Valve lighten the whole warehouse and still make the worthable focused lighting under the spots I came to the 1 conclusion that at the upper part they used a see-trough window texture with a white texture behind it (only at 1 side btw, which you can't see on the screenie). So I tried that out, but then everything almost seemed fullbright, thats how intens it was. Honestly, i'm losing hope; I need some serious suggestions and tips, and please, no tut links because they get me nowhere.Seriously, I hope I can get some decent lighting in the map. I'm sick of trying and i'm sick of the steam crash files stacking up. (I tend to crash after 1 compile for having a filthy comp ;p)

Build cubemaps!

And it's a nice start, you'll be amazed when you discover all the things you can do with source

Valve's original map probably had the window light filtering in from a skybox, not a white texlight. It's a nice light blue, rather than plain white.

Closer inspection leads me to believe they simply placed weak lights near each window. You can see the radial lighting on the ceilings above each window. Makes sense really, now that I remember the outside lighting is actually orange.

Their spotlights also have a slightly more yellow tinge, which contrasts (only slightly, but it works well enough) against the blue.

My advice is, whenever possible, avoid plain white lighting. Giving your light_spots (and the env_spotlights) a subtle yellow/green/blue tinge to suit the environment does a lot for the atmosphere.

Now that you say so, I can't believe I never thought of that. Really helpfull comments Strider!

Valve's original map probably had the window light filtering in from a skybox, not a white texlight. It's a nice light blue, rather than plain white.

Nah, I mean the long row of small windows at the highest stickin' out sorta roof part, where the 3 long lamps hang. I took the screenie from the wrong side, because at the other side you can see some bright white hidden by a see true-able window texture. However, when I did the same my white literally bursted out the whole area. Comments?

Ah, well I seem to recall there being a couple of the white texlight textures, maybe there's one in there with the correct lighting. I might be mistaken though.

Couldnt they have used omnni lights with a faint blue colour and the shadow colours also set to blue?

Ah, well I seem to recall there being a couple of the white texlight textures, maybe there's one in there with the correct lighting. I might be mistaken though.

I tried all the white textures, but all of them gave too much light. Perhaps there is a way to adjust the light setting that a certain texture gives?

omnni lights

Wut?

Sorry, been using 3dstudiomax too much, point lights are called omni's in there:)

I tried all the white textures, but all of them gave too much light. Perhaps there is a way to adjust the light setting that a certain texture gives?

You need to use the lights.rad file, but that means you'll have to include it as custom content with your map.

I'd try experimenting with standard lights, or decompiling Valve's original map and see whatever they did.

You need to use the lights.rad file, but that means you'll have to include it as custom content with your map.

No, light data (RGB and brightness values) are directly compiled into the bsp, so you don't have include the rad file as custom content.

At least this was the case with GoldSource, im pretty sure the same goes for Source.

Oh right, yeah that should still be the same for Source. Muzz is correct.

So yeah, you'll just have to edit the rad file.

Mmmm, thanks for the comments guys. I will try the suggestions.