lighting on doors

This is probably a newbie question, but I'm having trouble getting light on my door correctly --

Light is hitting the front and back of the door naturally, but when the door slides open, instead of seeing a texture on the door frame (i guess is what it's called) I see nothing but black shadow. Is there a way to make the door have a default light value on it, so it starts with basic light (such as a very slight grey tone) rather than having just a black shadow on the door frame?

I'll leave this one to the pro's.

I'm assuming you mean the inside of the door frame is dark?

I suppose you could just change the ZHLT_LIGHTFLAGS value to default.
In default, the door won't cast a shadow on the frame. In fact, it's
ignored entirely in the RAD calculations, so it won't have any shadow
at all.

I suppose you wouldn't like this behaviour, but no matter what you do,
you can't get a door to cast a proper shadow, because a proper shadow
would involve dynamic lighting which HL can't do.

As a simple workaround, you might try to paint the insides of the frame
with a texture which has a lights.rad entry. So it'll be rendered
bright and no shadow would be visible, but it'll look quite ugly.

An actual solution is to not use doors like this at all. They just look
wrong. Find some other way to block the light, or light the two
areas the door connects with the same brightness.

Sure is, though I've never actually done it before. New FGD's should
give you the entity propery "light origin target", which I believe
allows you to specify a location for the door to act as if it was at
for its lighting info.

So basically, make an info_target or some other simple entity in a
location with the sort of lighting you want your door to be effected
by. Give it a name, and enter this name in your door's "light origin
target" property. Now compile your map, and hopefully the door will be
put to this location to get its light calculated, but will be in its
normal location to act as a door.

Please note that I've never done this, I'm guessing at how its done. If
I'm wrong no doubt somebody will correct me, but for the time being I
suggest you give it a try.

EDIT: Ooops, I for some reason pictured the sides / underside of the
actual door itself, while you obviously actually meant the door frame.
In this case, fraggard's suggestion of setting the ZHLT_LIGHTFLAGS
value ought to work.

agreed

I'm not trying to get it to not cast shadows -- even if I set the flags for default, RAD still does lighting calculations on faces (a face facing a light, gets light, a face facing away does not, but the object still does not cast a realistic shadow).

Think of it like this --

_______
|_______|

looking at forwardss, as you see it, you look at the front and back of the door. These have proper lighting on them, but looking at the outlines. The outlines are touching walls, so there for, are getting no light on them. Can I make a door have a default light value, so the the outlines areN'T pitch black?

Edit: ZHLT light flags gimme these joices: Opaque (Blocks light), Embedded fix, Opaque + Embedded fix, Opaque + Concave fix, and default.

If I wanted the door to cast realistic light shadows, I would select opaque (blocks light), I dont think however that any of these actually generate light.

ReNo: The answer you suggested, isn't right, but I learned something: That light origin value doesn't deicde where the door gains, but where is SUBTRACTS it. So if you had a door or wall that was incridbly bright, and wanted to darken it (could get tricky with how much darker) you would do as you suggested, and that was cast an interesting shadow on the door.

I got it. I over looked a value called "minimum light value". I added in a number there and the brightened of the door in areas with no light. I appreciate the help, thanks frag and Reno. And I learned something about the light origin value as well :smile: thanks again Reno.

LOL, how the hell did we come up with our answers when one so obvious
was staring us in the face :biggrin: Ah well, glad you got it fixed mate!

G.Ballblue said:
I'm not trying to get it to not cast shadows -- even if I set the flags for default, RAD still does lighting calculations on faces (a face facing a light, gets light, a face facing away does not, but the object still does not cast a realistic shadow).

First off, thats completely wrong... RAD will NOT perform lighting calculations on everything.

I'm glad you got it fixed though (you had me confused. I thought you meant the inner faces of the door frame were dark, but you meant the outer faces of the door itself were dark)

Anyway, my answer is correct for the other case :razz:

didn't read this so i will slip this in, in the hopes that it was overlooked..

func_doors are silly critters, they can create black surfaces on any closed side, that cannot be seen during a compile.

to fix this, you can do one of two things.

1) place a light entity in the closed area, and lighten it slightly, to force the dark side to be lit.

2) start the door open.. it will close after the level begins, but will be open while compiling thus ensuring the closed side is lit.

hope this helps..

Typical! The guy who starts the thread marks his answer right!

I Give Up!

/end rant

$loth said:
Typical! The guy who starts the thread marks his answer right!

I Give Up!

/end rant

XD

Well... All the other answers were wrong, and I also had to end the question so wouldn't stay marked as "unansored". I wasn't trying to cheat or anything, but that is the answer to my question :razz:

It just sounds a bit wierd to me, i answer my own questions lol.

/jking :wink: