I'd really like to know how the guys over at "Black Mesa Source" pulled this off.



A very impressive technique that I wouldn't mind having for my next mod, or could I get it into a stand-alone map?

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

My guess is an overlay or decal of a black grid with some transparency. Probably supplemented with some actual blocklight so if the layer gets under that he won't be disappointed. You can get blocklight blocks that small, as well as the light grid, but for something that size, you'd have to have nothing else in the entire map.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

I think I heard the mapper mention that the effect is entirely based on clever "tools/blocklight" textured brush placement and a lightmap grid of "1".

Use sparingly because of filesize :wink:

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Why snark works.

i dont even think you'd need a blocklight.. how would you use it? put the lightmap scale to 1 and see what happens. i had it in ff_flare too with another grate texture on a func_detail, though i had a rougher shadow grid due to lightmap scale 16.

Well, how about the seemingly perfect outline of the cables running diagonally? Can you vertex manipulate a brush into those shapes (and at that small without getting "microbrush" errors)?

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Neat...totally doesn't match the grate above it though.

It's lightmap scale 1 and blocklight.

Campaignjunkie said:
It's lightmap scale 1 and blocklight.

I think so too; I went ahead and tested it for myself...







I think I got pretty similar results. So probably no new entities to create this effect, just good 'ol blocklight brushes and high intensity lightmaps...

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

ahem

"Blocklight"? :heee: What is this mysterious feature you speak of, and how would one go about executing it?

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

its a "tools/" texture similar to noclip and such.

It's a material - just apply it to a brush and then it will block light but otherwise act as if it doesn't exist.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Wow, that is a pretty sweet effect.

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http://maze5.net

Riven, I stand corrected.
How does that compare in FPS to the exact same map without the blocklight?

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Stadric</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>How does that compare in FPS to the exact same map without the blocklight?</DIV></DIV>

Well, I went ahead and conducted a test for this on my older machine that has these specs:

Model: Dell Dimension 4600
CPU: Pentium 4 @ 2.7 GHz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 with 128 MGb
Resolution: 1280x1024 with 32 bit color depth

I made 4 different maps each testing different setups for the shadows:

"test_lightmap_grid"[color=white] =LG (This means I set the map up with a lightmap scale of 1 on the surfaces producing the complex shadows and included the "blocklight" grid of brushes to mimic the grate's shadows.)
"test_lightmap_NOgrid" =LNG (This means I kept the lightmap scale of 1 but removed the "blocklight" brush grid from the map meaning no cool shadows.)
"test_NOlightmap_grid" =NLG (This means I set ALL lightmaps to a scale factor of 16, but kept the complex "blocklight" brush grid.)
"test_NOlightmap_NOgrid" [/color]=NLNG (Meaning I set the lightmap scale to 16 AND removed the "blocklight" brush grid. a.k.a. just a blank map with a light.)

[color=#808080]================================================================
[/color]In the first test I set all the settings in Half-Life 2 on high except for Vsync (which I turned off) and the filter mode to "Trilinear." Here's what I got:



(Above) This was map: [color=red]LG which gave me 62 fps.[/color]



(Above) This was map [color=red]LNG which gave me 63 fps (just one higher for no shadows).[/color]



(Ab..o...v...you get the idea!) This map was [color=red]NLG which gave me a considerable jump of 68 fps.[/color]



And this was map [color=red]NLNG which gave me just one more frame of 69 fps for no shadows.

[/color]Now, I conducted one more test with the maps, but this time I kept all the settings in Half-Life 2 the same except for the Filter Mode which I ramped up to: anisotropic 16x, and here is what I got:



This is map [color=red]LG, which now having anisotropic filtering of 16x gave me a considerable reduction of seven frames giving me 55 fps.[/color]



This is map [color=red]LNG which gave me the same thing at 55 fps.[/color]



This is map [color=red]NLG which just gave me one jump of 59 fps.[/color]



This is map [color=red]NLNG which gave me a jump of 58 fps (it was jumping between 58 and 59, so really no difference)

[/color]So here are the results in summary:

Test with Trilinear filtering (in fps):
LG[color=white]=62
LNG=63
NLG=68
NLNG[/color]=69

Test with anisotropic 16x:
LG[color=white]=55
LNG=55
NLG=58-59
NLNG[/color]=58-59

Conclusion:
I don't believe it is the shadows that slow down system performance, but rather, the lightmap scale that does so. So, if your deciding to give a surface a lower lightmap scale, then by all means, take advantage of applying as many cool looking shadows to it; it will just be affected by the lightmap scale and not by the number of complex shadows painted onto it...

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

+ The filesize! I had some surprising extra megabytes of BSP data from using too much of this! :wink:

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Why snark works.

Ah, good point, here are the file sizes with the same code for the map names:

LG=1.09Mb
LNG=1.02Mb
NLG=146Kb
NLNG=76.8Kb

(It was just that one room)

Well, Reaper, you're right, the shadows do affect file size, (and of course so do lightmaps) but if you're going to add low scale lightmaps to your level, might as well make 'em look good. :cool:

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Good job with the testing Riven :smile:

BM:S can get away with it because they're a mod, and you download all the maps at once for those :razz: I'd bet most people would rather have it look magnificent than save a few MB of bandwidth.

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o

It's sort of obvious that the light-map scale would be a large determining factor for file size, since more information is being recorded. The number of non-dynamic lights and shadows don't significantly take up space. The light map will be there no matter what. The number of elements per surface is what you're altering, what intensity each element in that map is doesn't matter when it comes to size. Chances are, if they're keeping compatibility, it's a floating point value in the range of -1.0 to 1.0. It will always take up the same amount of space.

It's very straightforward after you think about how the technology works.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.