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  • #16
    Originally posted by golden_boy View Post
    Oh, but you can.

    Using AguirRe's light tool (or MH's), you can give lights a "wait" key that affects the distance over which it falls off. So "wait 0.5" would make the light reach twice as far.

    The "delay" key controls different falloff formulas; you might want to try "delay 2" for an inverse square falloff that is closer to what light does in real life. Depends what you're going for.

    It pays off to read this: http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/readmevis.txt


    Many, many thanks. Wow, this is great. I should have read this a long time ago.

    I see mangle and antilights in that documentation, too. Sunlight will come in handy, but I have a feeling antilights are a tool I will always use liberally.

    Before now, my lighting was subject to a very narrow restriction, that restriction being the ability to maintain an average light level and still have hard shadows/contrast and bright/dim areas.

    Now I can ensure a minimum brightness by putting the value into worldspawn, and then use antilghts/lights to make areas darker/brighter if I so wish. Holy shit, total control. That makes way more sense, your canvas should be your dominant brightness level, not utter freakin' darkness.

    Now I just need to know if light brightness is cumulative in reference to the brightness of worldspawn. In other words, do lights have an effect if their value is less or equal to the one set in worldspawn?

    I'll figure all this out tonight. Not a day went past when I would work on this map and not lament the lack of light tools. No more!
    www.youtube.com/user/KillPixel

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    • #17
      I'd advise against global minlight from worldspawn, not because I'm against it on principle but because in my experience, local minlights (delay 4? I forget) and ambient sunlight (_sunlight3) are better.

      Local minlights allow you to keep a minimum light level in areas where you want it, while having 100% black shadows in other parts of the map. This avoids the "global minlight" look that can get your map labeled as newbish.

      _sunlight3 is like minlight that only affects areas adjacent to sky.

      This allows finer grained control over where you want some minimal light level and where you don't.

      It's also worth it to experiment with two or more light entities per light source - for example a low brightness but large distance light to get a certain level of brightness in the area, combined with a bright delay 2 light to get the impression of a bright ball of light near the light source.

      do lights have an effect if their value is less or equal to the one set in worldspawn?
      To be honest I don't remember. But it is easy enough to test.
      Scout's Journey
      Rune of Earth Magic

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      • #18
        Very interesting. Obviously, I didn't know about local minlights either.

        This avoids the "global minlight" look that can get your map labeled as newbish.
        So, a map with a minlight in worldspawn is more prone to looking too uniform as opposed to a map using local minlights, which allow the minlight to be set on a case by case basis. Makes sense, if I understand correctly, that is.

        Good tip, that's a subtle thing that probably wouldn't have occurred to me until after a lot of work and experimenting. Thanks for pointing this out before I go reset 800 lights.

        Oh God...who knows how ass-backwards I did everything else... /facepalm
        www.youtube.com/user/KillPixel

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        • #19
          So, a map with a minlight in worldspawn is more prone to looking too uniform as opposed to a map using local minlights, which allow the minlight to be set on a case by case basis. Makes sense, if I understand correctly, that is.
          Pretty much, yeah. Make sure you have some nice strong shadows in a couple places that people are going to notice, and you can get away with some local minlights in other places. Don't make them too bright (40 or 50 might work), rather put in more light sources so the light level is "explained".

          Don't sweat too much over it either, rather ship your level and apply what you've learnt to the next one.

          Oh, and make sure the main route through the level is well lit, remember players gotta see where they're going.
          Scout's Journey
          Rune of Earth Magic

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