light switch help Created 21 years ago2003-11-27 04:30:51 UTC by subzero

hi, i've just started on my first map ever and im already having trouble with a few "simple" things.

I've made a room with a light, which is switched on by a switch on the wall (func_button). I'm pretty sure ive set all the entity properties right but when i compile and test I have 2 problems:

1) The switch can turn the light on once but not off
2) The light entity (which i admit i don't know much about) simply creates a spotlight on the wall near the switch, not lighting the whole room.

Here are the list of properties I have set the entities:

func_button:
CLASS INFO
Name: Ltroom_switch
Target: Ltroom_light
Render FX: normal
Render Mode: normal
FX amount: 0
FX Color: 0 0 0
Pitch Yaw Roll: 0 0 0
Speed: 5
Health: 0
Lip: 0
master: blank
sounds: lightswitch
delay before reset: -1
delay before trigger: 0
the rest: none

FLAGS
Don't move, toggle

light
CLASS INFO
Name: Ltroom_light
Target: Ltroom_switch
Brightness: 255 255 159 200
Appearance: Normal
Custom Appearance: blank

FLAGS
Intially dark

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I suspect this has a simple explanation, so plz don't ridicule me for being so stupid

OK
The button
Delay before reset means how long it takes before you can press it again, you have set that to -1 which means inifinity. Set it to 0.1 or 1 or something low.
Toggle shouldnt be flagged if the switch itself is not going to be triggered.

The light
The only problem is Custom appearance: Blank, change it to normal.

Hope it helps

The light target signals back to the button? Remove this light target and let the button do it all. That could be an issue.

ohhhhhhhhh
ok i feel stupid now...

but thanks heaps for your help! I thought delay before reset ment how long before the switch reverted back to its original position!

well, i'll learn from my mistakes...

now back to mapping

ok, another problem

The switch works fine now, but the light flickers heaps when its on. It seems to go through a rapid cycle of off, bright, brighter, brightest all in less than a second. All the settings are as above in my first post.

I tried deleting and installing another light but the same thing happened.

I have 2 other lights in the same room (desk lamps) which work perfectly fine themselves but maybe they are affecting it somehow. i really have no idea.

Thanks in advance for any help

What build tools do you use for compiling?

ok, I use Normal Compile mode with:

CGS: Normal
BSP: Normal
VIS: No (but have tried on Normal and still have the same problem)
RAD: Normal (tried on extra but still have the same problem)
And the two boxes are not ticked

Here is whats in the process window..
** Executing...
** Command: Change Directory
** Parameters: C:HALFLIFE

** Executing...
** Command: Copy File
** Parameters: "C:HALFLIFEEvilmapsmissiontoLongTanTRIAL.map" "C:HALFLIFEEvilmapsmissiontoLongTanTRIAL.map"

** Executing...
** Command: C:Program FilesWorldcraftqcsg.exe
** Parameters: "C:HALFLIFEEvilmapsmissiontoLongTanTRIAL"

qcsg.exe v2.8 (Jan 31 2000)
-- qcsg --
entering C:HALFLIFEEvilmapsmissiontoLongTanTRIAL.map
CreateBrush: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9... (0)
CSGBrush: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9... (1)
Using WAD File: halflifeevilcached.wad
Using WAD File: halflifeevildecals.wad
Using WAD File: halflifeevilgfx.wad
Using WAD File: halflifeevilnam.wad
Using WAD File: halflifevalvehalflife.wad
Using WAD File: halflifevalveliquids.wad
Using WAD File: halflifevalveres.wad
Using WAD File: halflifevalvexeno.wad
added 8 additional animating textures.

2 seconds elapsed

** Executing...
** Command: C:Program FilesWorldcraftqbsp2.exe
** Parameters: "C:HALFLIFEEvilmapsmissiontoLongTanTRIAL"

qbsp2.exe v2.2 (Dec 28 1998)
-- qbsp2 --
writing C:HALFLIFEEvilmapsmissiontoLongTanTRIAL.prt

1 seconds elapsed

** Executing...
** Command: C:Program FilesWorldcraftqrad.exe
** Parameters: "C:HALFLIFEEvilmapsmissiontoLongTanTRIAL"

qrad.exe v 1.5 (Apr 6 2000)
--- Radiosity --
1 threads
[Reading texlights from 'C:PROGRAM FILESWORLDCRAFTlights.rad']
[1 texlights parsed from 'C:PROGRAM FILESWORLDCRAFTlights.rad']

No vis information, direct lighting only.
1354 faces
118532 square feet [17068660.00 square inches]
6759 patches after subdivision
4 direct lights
BuildFacelights: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9... (2)
FinalLightFace: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9... (0)

Object names Objects/Maxobjs Memory / Maxmem Fullness
---------- ------------- ------------- ------
models 8/400 512/25600 ( 2.0)
planes 1996/32767 39920/655340 ( 6.1)
vertexes 1879/65535 22548/786420 ( 2.9)
nodes 637/32767 15288/786408 ( 1.9)
texinfos 274/8192 10960/327680 ( 3.3)
faces 1354/65535 27080/1310700 ( 2.1)
clipnodes 1152/32767 9216/262136 ( 3.5)
leaves 406/8192 11368/229376 ( 5.0)
marksurfaces 1765/65535 3530/131070 ( 2.7)
surfedges 6442/512000 25768/2048000 ( 1.3)
edges 3258/256000 13032/1024000 ( 1.3)
texdata [variable] 1984/2097152 ( 0.1)
lightdata [variable] 301932/2097152 (14.4)
visdata [variable] 0/2097152 ( 0.0)
entdata [variable] 2506/131072 ( 1.9)

Total BSP file data space used: 485644 bytes

2 seconds elapsed

** Executing...
** Command: C:HALFLIFEhl.exe
** Parameters: -game evil -dev -console +map "missiontoLongTanTRIAL"

All right custom apperance blank is right... Take a look at the light appearance, maybe you?ve got it as flicker or something like that.

thanks but the light appearance is already set to normal.

but i noticed another strange effect. When both the lamps and this anoying light are switched on, the region on the wall where light from both entities mix, a strangle, yellow-black flicker occurs.

Weird, eh?

Really, really weird my friend... Let?s do something... Everyone of us was reluctant when they told us to download the ZHLT compile tools, but we all said they were great after we did.
Download them (they?re small) and use them (go to Hammer options and replace all q***.exe with zhtl***.exe). You?re using qtools, tools designed for Quake. Try these Zhlt, the ones for Half Life. If I?m right this will solve your problem...
Other thing to take into consideration is that you shouldn?t have more than 4 named lights lighting the same area, it will give you compiling problems.
Try ZHLT, I?m almost sure they will work. If not it will be time to upload your map to the problem vault and to let others look at it.
Good luck and tell us if you get through this!.

thanks Marl, I installed ZHLT and compiling is much better, unfortunately it didn't solve my problem. And since i only have 3 lights on the entire map it can't be the "max 4 light thing" either

However, after heaps of testing (changing settings and compliling) I've worked out it's to do with the func_button the light is controlled by, because the light only goes crazy only when they are connected. So I reckon one of my switch settings is wrong, see switch properties below.

func_button:

CLASS INFO
Name: Ltroom_switch
Target: Ltroom_light
Render FX: normal
Render Mode: normal
FX amount: 0
FX Color: 0 0 0
Pitch Yaw Roll: 0 0 0
Speed: 5
Health: 0
Lip: 0
master: blank
sounds: lightswitch
delay before reset: 1
delay before trigger: 0
the rest: none

FLAGS
Don't move, toggle

Otherwise, im lost . I'll upload my map as Marl said if someone can't find the problem in the properties above. Once again, thanks for any help you can give me. I appreciate it!

Wow, this is really odd. Look forward to trying to fix it

UPDATE

ok, ive sort have fixed the problem! (huge gasp goes round the room)

After hours of mucking round with property settings, I found that when I set the light's Custom Appearance to "blank" the light stopped flickering. So it seems when Custom Appearance is set to "normal" and the light is connected to a switch, it goes crazy. Anyone know why this would happen?

Weird, but at least its kinda fixed now . Thank to everyone who assisted me.

I'm sure it wont be to long before I'll have another problem for u guys to solve, so hang in there! I'll be back!

Have you WROTE blank in "master"? Or is it just blank?
The "master" is a multisource, used to set several buttons/entities to target the same thing.
Make sure theres nothing in there.
Btw custom appearence should be normal, then it wont flicker...

We can hardly wait.

Custom appearance allows you to use letters as code to set your own flicker appearance. It automatically repeats the code you set. I think 'A' is dim and it gets brighter as you move up the alphabet, but I'm not sure about that part. So when you typed in 'normal' it was reading those letters as a code and it set the flickering accordingly. As you have found, it should be left blank if you do not wish to set a custom appearance.

I've read the same, SlayerA. Not sure whether it ends at "F" or "Z", though, guess I'm too much of a webbie

Or you could just use texlights even though they can not be turned on or off

with merl's mod. of the zhlt - there are a few entities you can create manually to get text lights to switch on/ off and have effects like flicker etc...

i won't go into it though... but spirit has entities like this already made