Shitty lights Created 16 years ago2007-07-06 18:12:33 UTC by The Mad Carrot

Observe: http://www.themightyatom.nl/screenshots/shitty_lights1.jpg

Looks like crap. Those TL tubes aren't even bright. And the light itself comes from a spot_light, the bright part should be as long as the TL tubes.

And observe: http://www.themightyatom.nl/screenshots/shitty_lights2.jpg

Looks like crap as well. Waaaay too bright. I can't get all those lights to look realistic. Look at the freaking stair effect!
HL1 does a better job than that!

Any tips?

Texlights?
Works in Source too.

But those are models...

Still works...
Just check what texture the lighty part uses.

Im guessing that they are separated

This is the one:But it also has the metal part in it.

:/
Then Im not sure..
Maybe you could check how Valve used these light models?

Good plan.

Valve included some vmf files of the trainstation levels. Ill check them right now.

Maybe they used some kind of a light directing inviseble brush which lets through a certain percent of light..

I believe there is such a brush entitie

You need to change the skin of the prop_static if you want them to be shown in their "on" versions. Other models actually have the "on/off" in their names.
As for the second picture, all I see wrong is the colour. If you use a higher lightmap grid value, it will look more difused like it did in HL1.

Some of the texlights that work are the following. I used them in my first source maps, but ended up using a combination of model + light + spotlight

effects/waterhighlight
lights/combine_lightpanel1001
lights/fluorescent001a
lights/fluorescentcool1001a

Someone should make a "Source lighting for dummies" tutorial

Realistic lighting in Source takes a lot of practice. You need to constantly play with the brightness, angle and cone size of spotlights to achieve the best results.

Lightmap scale is important to minimize that stair effect. Remember though, lowering lightmap scales = bigger bsp's. Setting a large enough gap between outer and inner cone angles can blend the light out and hide the stairing effect.

When i'm lighting tube lights I use a spotlight and a low brightness light to add some ambient light around the tubes. Comes out alright. There should be a rough guide to lighting in the Source Wiki that I found pretty handy.

EDIT: Also, why are you using green colour tones on white/yellow lights?

Oooh how I wish I had a "registered" version of the XSI Mod Tool

effects/waterhighlight

Now that is a strange texture. What is it and how do i use it?

Also, only 6 texture lights? Sheesh.

Also, only 6 texture lights? Sheesh.

That may be so but a good combo of spot, light, sprite and point looks great. You could also have windows with an invisible brush covered in white to light up a room as if the lighting outside shined through.

But yeah if you find a model you like but it's got the wrong texture aka off or on then just type 1, 2 ,3 , 0 and so on in the skin bit.

I know how the lightmaps work.

Im now trying to compile my map with a specified lights.rad. Im using the lights.rad file from mdw.breddels1@hccnet.nlhalf-life 2 deathmatchhl2mplights.rad (because this map is for HL2DM), but as i watch it compile, i get all these "Warning: Redundant..." warning. I know what this means, its reading the values from two rad files, probably a default rad file. I know i can ignore this, but i would like to have this fixed. So where are the redundants?

[Reading texlights from 'lights.rad']
[45 texlights parsed from 'lights.rad']

[Reading texlights from 'D:Steamsteamappsmdw.breddels1@hccnet.
nlhalf-life 2 deathmatchhl2mplights.rad']
Warning: Redundant 'lights/fluorescentcool001a' def in 'lights.rad' AND 'D:Steamsteamappsmdw.breddels1@hccnet.
nlhalf-life 2 deathmatchhl2mplights.rad'!
Warning: Redundant 'lights/fluorescentcool001b' def in 'lights.rad' AND 'D:Steamsteamappsmdw.breddels1@hccnet.
nlhalf-life 2 deathmatchhl2mplights.rad'!

Get rid of the lights.rad file in your hl2mp folder; it should pull values from the one in the SDK folder with the compile tools. I've never seen that error; I don't know where your second lights.rad file came from ;P

Texlights look pretty shitty in Source, tbh - you're better off using light_spots, I swear by them. You have a lot of control with them, more than you should need.

Yeah, i agree, but its much harder to get those lights to look right, depending on the lightfixture model...

Also, only 6 texture lights? Sheesh.

I didn't say that. Those are some of the ones that I know will work.

They don't. They don't emit any light, with or without a lights.rad file (i tried the TL tube one's).

I haven't messed with any lights.rad file since I use Source. However, I do know that sometimes they don't work at all. Even using cordon bounds has made a difference once or twice.