weird spots on my displacements?

Anyone had this before? Or someone how knows what's causing this?

[Blocked Image: http://www.wesleytack.com/upload/ol_undersiege0011.jpg]

Also some of my physical props are completely black in some corners (maybe they are related?). But when I move them out of the corner (out of the shadow) they light up.

Static props do this as well, but these I can fake with an info_lighting (unlike the physical props). Is there something wrong with my lighting overall? What's going on?

Faking it on the entire map is something I'd rather avoid

Thanks in advance!

-wez

hey, thanks for all the replies!

I've been checking this thread ever since I posted it (I've been finishing off the level first)

Now the whole level is done, except for this error

I checked the lightmap size on the surfaces and it is default (16, as the rest of the level), and the rest of the level doesn't have these dots.

I removed all the light_env entities and added a new one (it still happened)

I removed the 3Dskybox with the other light_env (so I only have the one in my main level), with no luck

I also removed all my entities and baked the level with a new light_env (it still happens)

What I found out though, that is probably part of the problem is that it only seems to happen in areas that are in shadows of my displacements.

So every displacement in shade of another displacement seems to have these. I doesn't make me wiser on what might exactly be causing it?

On the other hand when I compile that area with the dots in cordon, then those dots don't appear? (but when I compile the whole level in cordon (putting the whole level in cordon) they are back)

If anyone has any bright ideas, please let me know!

thanks!

-wez

Here is an image showing what I said above:

[Blocked Image: http://www.wesleytack.com/upload/dots_shadows_displacements.jpg]

In this image I turned off everything except what I needed to run the map and the displacements.

Quote from Erratic

Just an off hand thought, is it possible the shader type in the VMT is something other than LightmappedGeneric or any other acceptable type for displacement like vertexlitgeneric etc.?

Sorry, forgot to answer this: I tried it with HL2 blend materials as well and it's the same effect, and my .vmt is lightmappedgeneric yes

Quote from dux

Have you tried deleting the displacements and remaking them? Compiling without them, too?

hey,

yea I did, I also tried destroying the displacement and making each side separate

also tried with block light behind them (instead of the current skybox texture)

I also made the whole level layout a solid concrete material (instead of the current skybox texture), except for the top (skybox)

nothing seems to work.

when I turn off the displacement cliffs and keep the streets/desert then they are gone (because there is no shadow casting on it anymore

of a displacement). So bottom line I think is that there is a bug in source when a displacement casts a shadow on another displacement?

I dunno... I'm going to try and contact Valve about this and see what they have to say. I'm lost.

Quote from Warfle

I think this is caused by a bug with bounced lighting on brightly lit displacements. I get this a lot when working with snow environments (bright sun + bright texture + displacements usually = this problem).Try -bounce 0 in vrad.

Thanks! Will try tionight, I'll let you know (sounds like a very reasonable solution)

!!!SOLUTION FOUND !!! (Credit to Robert Briscoe)

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Vrad

Quote

-LargeDispSampleRadius This can be used if there are splotches of bounced light on terrain. The compile will take longer, but it will gather light across a wider area.

Just tried it and it works

Rob!