Question about level lighting techniques

[[UFO]]

Hi there!

My question is: where's the best position to place a Light entity? Just below or sticked to the "lamp" object or in the middle of the room you want to light?

Thanks in advance!

[=peg=]

It all depends on what looks you are going for, but in any case: do not stick it inside a brush (unless that bush is part of a func_wall/func_illusionary) and make sure it is inside the map, i.e. : make sure your map is sealed (not leaking).

Keep in mind that in most cases, lighting is not so much about creating light, rather its about creating interesting shadows!

For multi-player maps you want to make sure it is not too dark but on single-player maps, dark area's can make for nice ambush monster attacks..

My advice would be to use a minlight value of something like 50 in worldspan, and then start adding light sources to created the look you want..

Unless you really want to use colored lights, i would stick with BJP's light tool for it is the best by far.. also make sure to read the readme's and tooltips!

And most important: spend a lot of time experimenting to see what does what, to get the best overall effects..

[[UFO]]

Thanks for your post, =peg=. I will experiment and hope to post the results here soon

[golden_boy]

Another method is to use "second sunlight" aka outdoor minlight instead of plain minlight.

The difference is that minlight is everywhere, ie you have no really dark shadows in the map. Outdoor minlight is only around the places where you have sky.

With bjp's tools, you set -sunlight (somenumber, like 350 for bright daylight and 140 for pretty gloomy) and -sunlight3 (somenumber, perhaps around 40) on the command line.

You can also set these in worldspawn, it's in the documentation somewhere. I think it's _sunlight and _sunlight3 then.

This will directly light the areas below sky, and indirectly light some distance around them. After that, you fill in light fixtures/point lights or torches in the rest of the map, and spotlights to make some parts look nicer (if the theme allows for it).

You can use outdoor minlight to light indoor areas, too, simply rip open the ceiling to create a sky window.

I place point lights with their center 8-16 units in front of the light fixture, but it varies. Sometimes I make them a wide-angle spotlight, sometimes I leave them as "ball lights". Many people also place point lights around the map to create the light effect they want. There should mostly be a light source nearby though. I prefer torches, anyway.

Try "delay" "5" on the lights if you need to light bigger areas.

This is just how I do it, others might prefer hundreds of point lights across the map.

[Scrama]

Oh, it is realy very helpful info about sunlight! Thanx!
Only one question: how to change sunlight vector (mangle or something like), if I want to set dawn instead of zenith?

[golden_boy]

You do something like

-sunmangle 45,-45

on the command line. One of the numbers is pitch, the other yaw, but I forgot which is which. RTFM ;-)

If you get a stairstep effect on the shadows, you add -extra4 or even -soft.

However, with those options compiling takes much longer. If you just want a roughly lighted map, you can add -fast to the command line.

In worldspawn, I think it's _sun_mangle.

[Spirit]

Read the bottom: http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/readmevis.txt

[Scrama]

Thanxk you.