Lighting question Created 19 years ago2005-01-03 00:02:14 UTC by Clipping-Tool

Ok so I am making a hl2 dm lvl and I want a cool lighting effect in this room. Above this one room I have an arch where I made wooden beams and glass windows inbetween them. I placed a env_sun entity on the outside in the skybox and I want beems of light to shine through the window and light up the bottom of the room. Its kinda hard to describe what Im going for but basicly I want to be able to see the beams of light coming through the window and shining on the floor below with the shadow of the wooden beams there as well, Wow i confused myself. lol. If you understand what Im saying do you have any suggestions on how to make this effect?

afaik, the env_sun is used to create a ball of light in the sky. the old way of making beams of light (in hl1) was to use a func_illusionary with a fade texture. dont know if theres an upgrade though.

HL2 didn't seem to provide us with a new fade texture, but there is a pretty cool effect you can use there that's not too performance-heavy and it looks really nice - Make a brush with any non-trigger/nodraw texture on it, tie it to a func_dustmotes, and mess with the color and particle size - this will put some little specks of dust floating around where the brush is, and it looks very cool.

There's a vol light model in the effects folder you can use for volumetric lighting, but the func_dustmotes, or a func_dustcloud entity, is probably a bit easier to use.

would info_target work e.g. place it where he wants light to shine!

Dustmotes are cool

do what they do. Make a bright light, not the sun one. outside the window, cut up the floor so that you can use the env_cubemap to create a reflection on the pieces of floor being hit, then do the dust effect for a light feeling. If you want the fake dynamic lighting feel you'll have to find a fade texture. I beleive that they're making an update to the tutorials, maybe they'll explain it in there. BTW, the reflection may take a while to get just right.