I really enjoy making lighting in my maps (who doesn't?) but, there is a big but, I really need to learn some new techniques to get my lighting alot better and need to control it alot easier. Below are the techniques I'm currently using (with description incase people do not know of them, and may like to use them) plus my additional requests.

Method 1: Normal Light Spot - All I do is change world position and colour/brightness.

Method2: Bars/Grate - Putting textured lights underneath bars and grates.

Request: To know how to use the following parts of light_spot much more effectively (+knowing exactly what they do)
- Inner (Bright) Angle
- Outer (Fading) Angle
- +Any other lighting techniques possible.

Light spots are incredibly useful tools for mapping, especially in sci-fi maps like the ones you tend to make. The placement of the light spot determines where the light originates from, so obviously like normal lights just shove it below your light fixture. Now the inner angle and outer angle are used to determine the "widths" of the spotlight if you like. The inner angle determines the size of the bright circle projected onto the ground, and the outer angle determines the overall light spread of the entity. So if you want a corridor to have obvious circles of bright light with extremely dark shadows all around for example, you would set the inner angle to something reasonable (25 or so for smallish circles, 40 for large ones), and set the outer angle to something not much higher. On the other hand, if you wanted the bright circles to be only slightly brighter than the general brightness of the area, you would set the fading angle to something much greater than the inner one. Obviously this requires a lot of tweaking and experimentation to get how you want it, but its worth learning.

Also keep in mind that since its the angle of projection that you are setting, the distance between the light and the ground will determine the size of the circle on the ground - the further away it is then the larger the circle will become.

Light_spots aren't the only useful tool; don't underestimate regular light entities. Light entities are perfect for focusing attention on certain objects (a grate, a staircase) especially when there are several light sources in the room and it's not clear where the light is coming from.

For example, examine the above screenshot carefully. The 2 doors in the back (with the signs on them) are being lit with a spot of light. But where is the entire cone from the light_spot? Simple; there is no light_spot, it's just a regular light entity. The light level in the room is adequete enough that you wouldn't really question a random area of light. (well, the door on the right is lit by a fixture I suppose, but the one on the left isn't).

Also note, on the right side of the staircase, there's a yellowish/greenish tinge of light coming from nowhere. It's just a light entity giving that area a little bit of color, and it works great.

There's many, many different ways to do lighting. Don't just rely on solely texture lights, light_spots, or lights. All three combined together will often create the best results. But just know when to use them...

my favorite is the light spot, most of my maps incorperate them to show spawnpoints..

i also prefer light ents because they compile so much faster that textured lights will..

the 6 to 1 ratio is all i can guess as to why.

anyways, IMO the ent light is the most abused, least understood, and mis-used light source in HL

I saw the word carving...I daren't look again!

Carving = bad, whether it leads to a nice effect or not

*starts chanting words from the exorcist*

I basically dont worry about lighting till the end of my map (whic is bad), and even then the lighting usually sucks...In BlackOP Retreat, I hope to fix that problem.

Dont forget the use of evn_sprite, and glow1.spr, it`ll look like your windows, monitors, and other objects are shining, giving then a nice little effect.

The best lighting in an HL 1 map would have to be TS_Dojo..Its beautiful.

I've used that technique too - note that you can even killtarget the func_illusionary for efficiency (with a self-removing trigger_auto, of course)