decent settings for zoners

anyone know some decent settings for zoners like with the fade and falloff stuff.

atm the lights in my map come out kind of crap

the problem is that with like wall mounted lights the light makes a really blocky bright patch on the wall which just goes strait down and doesnt blend very well.

i might be able to solve this with a extra block added into the light or hopefully some settings with the compile tools to make it nice n snazzy

Sounds a bit vague, do you mean zoners settings, or the setting you can make in hammer for normal lights?

sry about vague ness

i mean the actuall compiling settings with zoners tools

Well, you could always use -bounce 6(In extra parameters), or compile with 'extra' RAD, but It sounds to me like your using a light entity..Maybe use a light_spot and tilt/tone it down, or even better, learn texturing lighting.

(Texture Lighintg Tutorial)

Bounce 6? I've only ever put it up to 2...

Anyway, I think what AACS is referring to is weird lighting due to face splitting. To fix this, you should make all your light fixtures on the walls into brush entities (func_walls) so they dont split up the wall, so the lighting looks better. Its not a problem with your cmd line for zoners, methinks.

Oh yeah, and use texture lighting. It looks soo much better... and things like this are less likely to happen.

wil5on said:
make all your light fixtures on the walls into brush entities (func_walls) so they dont split up the wall,

that i havent tried

btw the lights cauing the problems are only textured

il try the -bounce thing also when i get home

oh yeah do i make my object with the light texture on it into a brush entity also or just the surrounding pannels

Vash said:
Well, you could always use -bounce 6(In extra parameters), or compile with 'extra' RAD, but It sounds to me like your using a light entity..Maybe use a light_spot and tilt/tone it down, or even better, learn texturing lighting.

(Texture Lighintg Tutorial)

Yep, textured lights really look the biz if done right.

Also try -extra -smooth 70

adding water textures into the lights.rad is a good thing

works well with lava/toxic liquids

thanks peeps

You can also change your text chop settings (-textchop #) set higher then 64 since thats the defualt, but be warned if your map is already big then dont do it because you might exceed max patches. Setting a bounce higher only really makes lighting look more realistic, and your map brighter, but your problem sounds like what wil5on was talking about. You can also set it on -high and -extra. and thats really just every comand you can give light settings:
-high -extra -bounce # -textchop # (higher than 64) -smooth #
-omega
ps NEVER USE POINT LIGHTS!!!!!!! only unless you want slim to give off a green glow

compile settings are dependant on desired results..

bouncing more than 2 fades the light into the shadows, over 5 bounces will completely blur the line between light and dark.

extra only for final compiles.

estimate gives you some idea of whether the map is locked up or just compiling slow.

seriously tho, settings are discribed in full in the zoners FAQ's .. why not read it and decide?

Omega, you got it backwards. -chop defines the size of a patch. Thus a bigger chop means less patches and blockier lighting.

you should always use -extra with rad as I understand it- it uses better sampling and makes it look better in general. and the time increase is minor unless you are on some totol POS computer.

I think it's standard to use 1 or 2 bounces. More bounces = dark areas get lit more, less bounces = map is more contrasty. so it depends on the effect you want.

Jinx said:
and the time increase is minor unless you are on some totol POS computer.

that pretty much describes all our old timers jinxy..

all but two of my maps were created on an old K62 400 with 192 megs of ram.

i am betting, i was/am not alone either :smile:

when i learned to map, i used every cheat i could find to map with, vis grouping chief among them :smile:

thanks the turning it into the wall worked the best. i also found i had used too many light textures on the surface and it was causing a nasty light spot going down the wall.

i noticed a problem with the lights when i used smooth falloff and fade

it made the lights look like i had a leak and it was fullbright everyware

anyways its fixed now thanks

antianticampersquad said:
thanks the turning it into the wall worked the best.

I love it when I'm right. :dorky: