Lighting Techniques

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.

Just have a fiddle with it, its how I learnt.

:cool:

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.

test anything you are unsure of in a very small,fast compiling test map.

experiment...experiment...experiment :smile:

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...

Some interesting points there CJ, I'll be sure to take them on board. Light entities are hugely underused by me, in fact I don't recall the last time I used one!

Normal lights I tend to use alot to make the colour glow for different screens monitors, as texture lights only allow one colour to be used. Also extremely useful near sprites to make them stand out a bit more.

Heh, I kinda go the long way round. I haven't used light_spots at all really, and should start.

I tend to use a texture light for the actual light, and a normal light entity placed a small distance from the light to create a pool of light eminating from the light fixture (or whatever).

I also place a very opaque glow sprite scaled to 2 over the light source to give a slight 'haze' around it.

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

Just noticed another nice little light technique I've used that may benefit others, involving the light texture being a texture light.

Carving into the wall with a light texture giving it a RAD brightness of approximately 300+ will give out a nice atmosphere. If used nearer the floor it will bounce up and out a bit giving a nice effect.

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

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

Well you can carve or build around the brush, carving is just normally quicker when I want to do a quick compile, I re-fix the brushwork when I get the desired lighting effect.

thursday- said:
Well you can carve or build around the brush, carving is just normally quicker when I want to do a quick compile, I re-fix the brushwork when I get the desired lighting effect.

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 have used all of the above techniques, and toyed with something not mentioned here. To create a large, uniform, area of diffuse light (indoor usually), I have used a brush textured to emit light, then turned that brush into an invisible func_illusionary. The technique worked fairly well, in the few situations that I found it useful.

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) :smile:

My technique = Light enteties :dorky: