lights.rad file

guys im still pretty wet behind the ears on this mappping stuff but i do have an novice idea about it. what im having a problem with is everyone says the made a lights.rad file. well how do you make one and were do you put it . Im currently making a css map. sorry if this is a stupid question but i dont seem to be finding any answers and its really stumped me. thanks guys this is a very good help site.

I just solved that problem on my computer. What I had to do was
go to the SDK Tools properties menu under Steam's "Play Game"
menu. Hit Delete Local Content. Then, tell it to download
the SDK again.

Umm. NO DON'T DO THAT. unless of course you don't mind spending hours downloading the content. Here is a solution that may work, but keep in mind that it is form my days of HL1 mapping so I'm not sure it still applies.

The .RAD file is simply a text document (with .rad instead of .txt at the end) that lists the textures you want to emit light and the subsequent values for that light. For example, a typical entry would appear as follows:

<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
Texturename 128 255 255 200

[/quote]
The values following your texture name are the numeric specifications of the light you want that texture to emit in RGB format. Hence, the first number is for red, the second for green and the thrid is for blue. the fourth and final number is the luminance value (how bright the light will be). the RGB values must be integers from 0-255. The luminance field can take on any integral value.

Once you have your text file with at least one entry, name it "mapname.rad" and place it in the same folder as the map you are going to compile. any entries in the mapname.rad file will override those that exist in the standard lights.rad file.

Compile and see if it works!

(it's also worth pointing out that the actual lights.rad file is stored inside your Source SDK .GCF, extract this and edit it rather than creating a new one!- Lep.)

Tracer Bullet, do you want to post a tutorial on this topic? I
know it's simple, but it'll save a lot of forum posts nevertheless.

Meh, it worked for me, and it took all of 15 minutes. On a ADSL connection.

Frankly, it took much less time than listing all the light textures would have. (45).