So I'm making this map that's only using natural light/light_environment, and I don't want to use spot_lights or any artificial light entities at all. I have a few hallways in my map that are practically pitch black due to the lack of windows and openings for light to get through. Is it supposed to be so dark? Is there a way to make it dark but unnecessary for a flashlight? That's the kind of darkness I want. I have no place for windows, either. I'm also using HDR and color correction, but that only helped a little. It's still very dark, though. Could it be that I'm using cordon temporarily? If not, are there any ideas?
in the light.rad file make it so the walls in the coridoors emit a very low light. Learn to do it from the valve dev wiki.
You can also use reflective textures. Try the dev reflect texture 90% on all your walls and see how the lighting looks. If you are happy, edit the vmt file for each of you textures and manually put the reflectivity up to 90% or a number of your choice. You can also change the colours of reflection to get a realistic ambient light colour in streets etc.
It looks pretty good having very few lights, light an area using reflective textures. A useful command is mat_fullbright 2 this will let you see the lighting in the map on white textures, useful if you want to get an idea of the real lighting without the texture colours getting in the way.
Thanks! That's the answer I was looking for. I knew there was something like that because I had always wondered why Valve's hospital was able to look so amazing without any light in some of the areas.
You could also use light entities with very low brightnesses and then set the falloff to 100% constant.
[url]https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Constant-Linear-Quadratic_Falloff[/url]
That'll probably be my last solution since I want to keep the run/compile time down. But thanks that's a good idea.
Edit:
Wait... could it have anything to do with running everything on fast when I run it?
Shouldn't have a huge effect on compile time but ok
Yeah it doesn't. However now all of my entities (props) are pitch black. I'm guessing it doesn't effect props?
It should affect props
Use cubemaps. Props rely on cubemaps when reflected light is a significant factor
Yeah it was the cubemaps causing the problem for some reason. Either way the lights worked well but you could tell they were there. Are there any other techniques I could use that don't involve using entities like lights?
Reflective textures like i said
Doesn't there have to be a light source present for those to work? I tried it and it was still really dark.
Sorry...i can't work this out. You want rooms with no light at all, yet you are wondering why it's so dark?
You should get some light through doorways, but only if there is light in adjacent rooms.
For a more practical example...turn off the lights in your room at about midnight...you should notice that it is dark...
What's the theme of the map you're working on?
[QUOTE=IronPhoenix;35619559]Sorry...i can't work this out. You want rooms with no light at all, yet you are wondering why it's so dark?
You should get some light through doorways, but only if there is light in adjacent rooms.
For a more practical example...turn off the lights in your room at about midnight...you should notice that it is dark...[/QUOTE]
Try to add a light entity with a weak value of brightness that should work too
The problem with 100% constant atenuation light entities he is trying to describe is just as the example image we can see in the SDK docs:
[img]https://developer.valvesoftware.com/w/images/thumb/4/4e/ConstantLight.jpg/200px-ConstantLight.jpg[/img]
You can tell where the light entity was placed. He tries to achieve that form of soft lighting without the actual light entity being so 'visible'
[QUOTE=IronPhoenix;35619559]Sorry...i can't work this out. You want rooms with no light at all, yet you are wondering why it's so dark?
You should get some light through doorways, but only if there is light in adjacent rooms.
For a more practical example...turn off the lights in your room at about midnight...you should notice that it is dark...[/QUOTE]
There is light in the hallways, but something is making it pitch black. It looks really bad, and it shouldn't even look bad when it's that dark.
[QUOTE=Azzator;35619632]What's the theme of the map you're working on?[/QUOTE]
It's kind of like an abandoned school/apocalyptic feel. Kind of like what the interiors in Fallout look like.
If I remember right those were quite dark with a fluorescent light here and there
[QUOTE=Kommunist;35626328]The problem with 100% constant atenuation light entities he is trying to describe is just as the example image we can see in the SDK docs:
[img]https://developer.valvesoftware.com/w/images/thumb/4/4e/ConstantLight.jpg/200px-ConstantLight.jpg[/img]
You can tell where the light entity was placed. He tries to achieve that form of soft lighting without the actual light entity being so 'visible'[/QUOTE]
You could always place the light in the center of the room to put it away from any walls. That would stop it from being "visible".
[QUOTE=mopman999;35629787]If I remember right those were quite dark with a fluorescent light here and there[/QUOTE]
Yeah but still light enough to where you don't need the flashlight.
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