Model Lighting in HL

OK, my basic set-up is this : I have a dark map, I have spotlights, which I have placed on the walls, there is a light spot emanating from them that lights the floor. It's looks rather spiffy. Alas my spotlight mdl always looks too dark in game, no problem thought I, I'll jsut whack a light inside it with a brightness of about 50 and all will be well. Not the case though. The light illuminates the wall behind it, but not the spotlight model. I am more than a little peeved. How does HL light models? How can I get them to illuminate properly? Would messing with the render effects help?

Image below so you can see what I mean :

hahaha, very funny, posting a picture of total darkness

edited shot by orph

this is a bit brighter..

I think you'll have to place the light a little away from the model and directed towards it... Maybe another tiny spot-light pointed to the model with a very fast ZHLTfade, such that the light doesn' fall on the wall behind it. Of course, this'll make RAD a lot longer if you have many such models.

But the thing is, HL lights the whole model with the light value of the origin of the model. So there's really nothing you can do except to make the area a little brighter.

Also, you can never get HL to light different areas of one model in different brightnesses. 6 year old engine and suchlike :/

Spiffy model I must say, well I suggest placing a point light above or around the model will light it up a bit, but give the light a low light value, so the light doesn't seem to be comming from nowhere.

Or place to spot light above the model, that way some light will come down and hit it.

But just try placing lights in different areas around the model.

PS: could I get that spiffy model from you somehow? if not I understand.

I'd suggest putting a nice, bright sprite in front of the light.

models get lit according to the light source hitting the ground below them. so dont direct your light onto the model, as that wont light it up. instead, shine a small light onto the piece of ground directly below it.

Right, seeing as I've got a load of these in my map I can test all the asnwers plus my guess. I'll compile and post screens later on. Thanks for the prompt responses guys.

Omegaslayer I'll send you the model once the next release of TS has been released, since it will be included in that, just PM me to remind me.

Could you not just use a brighter texture on the model?

The amount of light the model is lit by is the amount of the light the origin receives. You have to light the origin, for example, the tree models I use have an origin that is almost on the floor, meaning that I have to make sure the bottom is getting a little light to light the full thing up.

It is also possible that the model itself is dark, try using a brighter model to check first. If it's black or almost black you won't be able to light it up very much. That area seems so dark that I wouldn't expect that model to be getting much light. Light up the area a bit more, you could also use a light_spot sourcing from the model, and the bounces of light may light the model up enough.

On a side note...Orph is your monitor really dark? I ask because, I could see the first pic just fine. I caliberated my monitor a while back to have proper colors in photoshop and view digital art properly. Had I not done that, im sure i wouldnt have seen it either. Maybe you want to look into monitor caliberation? What got me going on it was veiwing someones art done in 3d studio max, I couldnt see it, and then read the authors notes about monitor caliberation. It worked like a charm. I wish i could show you this particular peice, because it was a perfect example of the differences.
Just a suggestion, so you can see things as they were meant to be seen.
Photshop comes with a caliberation tool.

hmm, opinion is split on this, some people same floor below the origin, some say the origin itself. I've tried both to little avail, but other people have obtained good results with both. From what I can tell, lighting the fllor below the origin is having the best effect for me, though it's still a bit rubbish. I've tweaked the skin on the model a few time and placed lights in various places, the problem of course is that theres no reason for there to be a light below these spotlights so it looks absurd. The other problem is that using a low intensity light, just to give the immediate area some light doesn't work too well either, you need a nice large area of brightness on the floor below the origin.

if you are planning on using a light_spot with this, and your best results have been a well lit spot on the floor below the origin, couldn't you edit the model so that the origin is above where the light_spot will point. the new model viewing in hammer would make it so much easier now to have strange origins on models, but still get a good placement for them. CCS: combined with Fishy's previous description of how models are lit, this answers the question, so I'm making it an answer.

btw, have you tried compling the model with any of the textures rendered as additive?