Hammer: lighting preview after EP2

    Hey, I think this is important for those of us who use this ancient level editor. Valve will add lighting preview feature after EP2, when SDK update comes. This info comes from Interlopers forum, directly from Valve. So they got it working from some time, it seems, but can't release it standalone. Hope the new Hammer brings some other goodies as well.

    Just to quote the post;

    Also...

    Quote from JakeParlay

    lighting preview has been working in the latest software versions for a long time now. Spoke with one of the guys doing the Source version of Dark Messiah last fall and he confirmed that they used it in the studio and described it a bit for me.Apparently you line the 3D view up to exactly where you want the preview, press some sort of button, and bang, you have your real lighting preview a hot second later. After you've taken in the view, once you start to move your position in the 3D world again the lighting effect is lost. Still pretty damned cool I must say, you just have to set up the view each time.

    I can't fooking wait!

    I doubt that having a move-able camera in a 3D-preview of the Source engine would be possible.

    It's RAD which stops something like that being possible.

    Saw it working at work, but we had to revert to some other tools versions so I no longer have it.

    It's not a 3D cam, as there's no way you could compile the map on the fly as you move around it in Hammer. It blocks your 3d View and renders the currently displayed scene. Once you move around, you're back to unlit status.

    Most likely it it radiosity rendering of the current scene, just like most modelling applications. Suits me just fine.

    the real light maps are never gonna be visible in hammer unless they implement a csg preview first ...and preview really is the wrong word here just DISPLAY the csg result is what i mean.

    basically like unreal !

    or they could display everything with dynamic tnl light sources which would mean that your entire level can only have 8 light sources ^^ and will run even slower than everything does already

    The 8 light limit is only for the fixed function pipeline -- you can sum up a zillion lights using shaders (though obviously it'll cost you). I'm not really bothered what they do, as long as it's fairly fast to render and gives a good indication of the final result.

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