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Poles not producing shadows
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 Re: Poles not producing shadows
Posted by CPS on Wed Nov 24th at 11:45pm 2004

I have alot of small poles in my map that are just 4 sided cylinders 4x4 I think. It looks like they are producing inverse shadows or something like that. I am only running RAD on normal, does that have anything to do with it? The texture on the pole is cable_red.

http://img115.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img115&image=west_campus0005.jpg

As you can see in the picture on the middle left of the screen it loks like some sort of shadow is being produced. The env_light is coming from the right side of the screen set to -60 degrees or so.

Also if anyone knows what causes these things that look like cuts in walls, sometimes looks like white dotted lines, that would be nice to know.

http://img115.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img115&image=west_campus0007.jpg

Thank you for any help.





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 Re: Poles not producing shadows
Posted by Captain P on Thu Nov 25th at 12:00am 2004

Looks like a result of face splitting. Make these poles func_details (or func_wall, whatever you want) and see if that solves the problem.

As for the second thing, you should zoom in on the 'cuts', I can barely see anything strange there.
[addsig]



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 Re: Poles not producing shadows
Posted by Wild Card on Thu Nov 25th at 12:09am 2004

The poles are not func_wall's so they are slitting the surface. When 2 world brushes meet, they split. Same when 2 entity brushes meet, they split.

However, entites are invisible to the engine, meanning they cannot be used as vis blockers nor are they visible to the lighting engine. This means, they will not produce a shadow.

So you can either go with facespliting or no shadows. WRONG. Go with neither.

Create a 1 unit high brush that touches the floor. Make it a func_wall. Next, put your pole starting on top of that brush. Dont make it an entity.

This way, the 1 unit high brush will prevent facespliting, but it wont cast a shadow. However, the pole will cast a shadow, but because it sits atop the func_wall brush, it wont create face spliting. Another technique is to simply raise your pole 1 unit off the ground. But this leaves a gap that can be noticable in-game.

[addsig]



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 Re: Poles not producing shadows
Posted by Spartan on Thu Nov 25th at 12:30am 2004

Shouldn't there be an opaque option to choose?





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 Re: Poles not producing shadows
Posted by Orpheus on Thu Nov 25th at 12:46am 2004

one question per thread please. [addsig]



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 Re: Poles not producing shadows
Posted by Zevensoft on Thu Nov 25th at 1:17am 2004

If you want to fix the problem easily, dont have the poles rotated 45 degrees. Keep them axis-aligned, and the shadow problem should go away.




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 Re: Poles not producing shadows
Posted by omegaslayer on Thu Nov 25th at 2:36am 2004

What are those poles, are they a brush or model?

Model check the options for disable shadows, it should be set to "no"

If its a brush: Is it a world brush? The should be no problem
Is it a func_anything? Make sure you have the right opaque setting..... like spartin said. (I forget what you put in the value)

[addsig]



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 Re: Poles not producing shadows
Posted by Naklajat on Thu Nov 25th at 3:28am 2004

what this really is, is that your lightmap scale is to high for something that small to cast a noticable shadow. at first a made this map with lightmap scale on the textures at the default 16, but these screens were taken with a lightmap scale of 4. they clearly show that a func_detail casts a shadow, but func_walls, func_doors and func_breakables dont.the third also shows how entities dont cut world brushes, but world brushes cut eachother, like wild card said.(that 1 unit func_wall thing is a good idea, btw)

/edit
now you can slap me... someone told me how to do links on my first post ever and fixed my thumbnails(thanks btw), but i just didnt put 2 and 2 together...

/edit
okay, no screens for now. the links work, its just my host thinks they have restricted access. btw, if anyone could tell me how to post a download it would be much appreciated and they would recieve many points(not snarkmarks, i cant give those) and perhaps a gold star(not one for the elephant, i just had to get rid of that one)
[addsig]



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 Re: Poles not producing shadows
Posted by Spartan on Thu Nov 25th at 3:43am 2004

? quoting Orpheus
one question per thread please.

I wasn't asking a question just merely stating that he should try checking for an opaque option.





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 Re: Poles not producing shadows
Posted by CPS on Thu Nov 25th at 3:54am 2004

Spartan, I think he was referring to my two questions in the first post. I will take more screens and make another topic for it.

EDIT: Also how would I go around changing the light map scale value?





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 Re: Poles not producing shadows
Posted by Naklajat on Thu Nov 25th at 4:37am 2004

its in the texture application tool.
[addsig]




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