ZAPHOD/MACMAN: Lighting in de_prodigy, reveal your secrats!?

    Clearly de_prodigy is awesome. I'm finding extreme trouble to get lighting to look good in hl2, but Macman taunts me! WHY!? REVEAL YOUR SECRATS!

    [Blocked Image: http://www.thedd.net/images/de_prodigy0003.jpg]

    My theory:

    -light_spot (please give me some range values and settings!)

    -func_rotating set to additive and non-solid

    -prop_dynamic for fan model attached to func_rotating

    -env_glow for glow

    -env_sprite for little sparkles/dust

    [Blocked Image: http://www.thedd.net/images/de_prodigy0000.jpg]

    My theory:

    -light_spot (please give me some range values and settings!)

    -prop_static or prop_detail for light, light texture set to unlit somehow

    -env_glow for glow

    -decal tool used + cool texture for wall lighting effect?

    [Blocked Image: http://www.thedd.net/images/de_prodigy0002.jpg]

    My theory:

    -light_spot (please give me some range values and settings!)

    -prop_static, dynamic, or detail used for actual lamp model

    -env_glow for part of the glow effect

    -I have no idea how the long 3d glow was done... model? model + shader? Don't tell me it's just a func_illusionary or sprite, it looks way too cool and 3d and round.

    - the light beams are just part of the fans model geometry.

    - it's a decal

    - it's a proxy glow, straight from hl2. It's a conical glow that billboards, and when you move up next to it it fades to a normal circular glow sprite.

    Quote from skdr

    point_spotlight is your friend, awesome entity remember to check the "non-dynamic" flag in the options for better performance.

    Yeah, and if you want it to look good with a light model, most of the time you have to make the model non-solid (under the collision tab) otherwise the point_spotlight gets occluded and doesn't render.

    I would have to agree that prodigy is one of the most beautiful pieces of level design I've ever witnessed. It's just a shame the rest of the CS:S maps (except Aztec) look rather plain compared to it.

    I'm having real problems getting acquainted to the Source lighting system. With HL1 I could create any mood I desired and accentuate certain architectural features. Now I seem to always have a pitch dark room with very bright lights that only light up small portions of the room. I've tried fiddling with various entities and values, ambient lighting settings and more.

    Can anyone suggest any good values to get me started? My geometry is looking grand, but it's hard to appreciate it when my lighting looks like it was put together by Marilyn Manson.

    Quote from Defrag

    I would have to agree that prodigy is one of the most beautiful pieces of level design I've ever witnessed. It's just a shame the rest of the CS:S maps (except Aztec) look rather plain compared to it. I'm having real problems getting acquainted to the Source lighting system. With HL1 I could create any mood I desired and accentuate certain architectural features. Now I seem to always have a pitch dark room with very bright lights that only light up small portions of the room. I've tried fiddling with various entities and values, ambient lighting settings and more.

    Can anyone suggest any good values to get me started? My geometry is looking grand, but it's hard to appreciate it when my lighting looks like it was put together by Marilyn Manson.

    I don't know, the standard values of around 200-300 are fine for standard lights, while spotlights look good in the 1000s. Valve also sometimes mess with the 'constant' value to create amazingly intense lighting, but I've had no luck with it so far. It would help if you posted pics of your problem!

    I'll post a few pics tomorrow as I can't show the map I'm working on right now (see siggy ). I've tried using the spotlights with various settings including quadratic, linear, constant (500,000 like valve used for dm_lockdown) and large/small inner/outer angle values.. but I still typically end up with a very intense look sporting big contrasts between light/dark. I'm not sure whether Source is particularly suited to the option of texture lighting either.

    *edit - This is the sort of lighting I typically shoot for, nice and warm -- reminiscent of scary one's HLDM maps. http://img142.exs.cx/img142/5082/scorpius22ae.jpg . (Screeny is from someone's WIP map posted on the other forum. Looks very nice, too. )

    Quote from Defrag

    I'll post a few pics tomorrow as I can't show the map I'm working on right now (see siggy ). I've tried using the spotlights with various settings including quadratic, linear, constant (500,000 like valve used for dm_lockdown) and large/small inner/outer angle values.. but I still typically end up with a very intense look sporting big contrasts between light/dark. I'm not sure whether Source is particularly suited to the option of texture lighting either.*edit - This is the sort of lighting I typically shoot for, nice and warm -- reminiscent of scary one's HLDM maps. http://img142.exs.cx/img142/5082/scorpius22ae.jpg . (Screeny is from someone's WIP map posted on the other forum. Looks very nice, too. )

    Texture lights are old-hat as far as Source is concerned. Also, are you trying to you spotlights soley as a room's lighting, because you're going to want to have normal lights to 'fill out' space. I wouldn't bother messing with quadratic and linear values; from what I've seen Valve always leave them at default - they have no discernable effect.

    ooo, dm_lockdown is open source in the SDK? That's a great way to understand how valve employees generally do their lighting. I've been struggling to find a nice settings, and compiling and recompiling is ass.

    Seriously, valve stinks for not putting lighting preview in the editor, WELCOME TO THREE YEARS AGO VALVE. Although lots of new hammer features are awesome.. :\

    Yeah, they changed the directory structure and also added sdk_dm_lockdown.vmf when HL2DM was released. It's currently located in the sdk_content/hl2dm/srcmaps/ folder iirc.

    And yeah, the lighting is a bit of a damp squibb in source after having a poke through the Doom3 editor. The integration of Doom3 Ed is astounding, though anything less would've made editing extremely tedious given that lighting is basically the most important part of the game. With Hammer, it's still possible to get by without a lighting preview, but it does the process no favours really. Hammer's encapsulation in steam also slows things down quite a bit and hogs more RAM. I'll be quite interested to see how editors progress from here.

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!

Register Yourself Login