Light Textures

[Demyse]

Ok, this stumps me. I've tried probably just about all of the light textures for the game, but none of them actually emit light. For any experienced Quake III Mapper you become dependant on these surface lights, as they make levels look better lighting wise. I've compiled my map even using FullVis Extra, then even as a redundancy, I've run a relight, yet they still just glow, no light emitted around them. Has anyone else had this problem, is everyone having this problem?

 

Here is a screenshot of two light textures, glowing, but not emitting light. EDIT: Crap, let me create a small .html file for it, my webhost is being gay.

 

Anybody wanna help me figure out the fix to this problem? Oh, and I can't remember the name of the file, its been a while and Lithtech has rotted my mind, but isn't there supposed to be a file including all of the specifications of the surface lights somewhere?

[Demyse]

Ok, heres the url for the screenshot http://www.stormpages.com/csmd/lights.html

 

Com'on people, I need help with this, I hate using light entities cause they look like s***.

[UniKorn]

I have lights that emit light, I'll look in the shader tonight (am at my gf's place now, no jk2 here).

[Gizmo2k]

Sorry dude all i got is a little red X

 

could you also give use the names of the textures your trying to use?

[Demyse]

Hmmm, I don't get a red x on any of my computers here..... Oh well, I can tell you what textures. Like I've said, I've tried most of the textures, but the latest three, which are the ones I'm trying to use in my level, are kejim/kej_lights, doomgiver/lightwhited, kejim/ceilinglight01glow (although because of the glow on the end of that one, I'm suspecting that its not ment to emit light, I could be wrong though). This is really starting to make me angry:mad: .

[Gizmo2k]

Well ive chacked all 3 that you listed and you are infact right in saying that non give off surface light as non of the shader files for these textures have a surface light vaule's

 

some i did find with surfacelight values are

 

cairn/light01

impdetention/lightnew

impdetention/doortrim01

kejim/flatwhite

kejim/flatblue

kejim/flatwhite_half

 

it seems that there are'nt too many light's that have q3map_surfacelight values

 

i suggest that you either search through the .shader files with notepad looking for the wording "q3map_surfacelight"(without the " ") or just make your own shader file using raven's textures but with your own q3map_surfacelight values...(this will give you far more control over your levels lighting)

 

if you need help with building a .shader file just let us know

[Demyse]

*Sigh*, its like Raven doesn't want people to make mods for their games, these kind of nitpicky things are what kept me from making maps for EF. I'll just make my own shader, I've done it before, its just it takes so much damn time. Oh well, sacrifices.

 

Thanks Gizmo, I'll try those out, for now I'm just gonna make my own shaders for my levels though. Now all we need to do is get Raven to release BeHavEd for JK2, then we can REALLY make some SP maps.

[brigand1138]

Hey Gizmo, I'd like some help with the custom shader files please!!

 

Mal brigand

[Demyse]

Ok, well, I modified the shader file so kejim/lightpanel. It emits light all right, but heres the thing, A) You have to have another light source shining on it otherwise it looks like crap(fine by me, I can't quite remember, but I think Q3 may have made you do this too) and B) I can't seem to get the light to project very far out from it. I'm thinking that the first thing I might do for the community is make a custom shader file where all of the lights actually emit light. I MIGHT do this, I dunno, shader stuff is kind of tedious, and I really do suck at it. Anybody else want to contribute to this please tell.

[brigand1138]

Demyse, how do you make a custom shader file and apply it to the games textures?

[Demyse]

Actually, its pretty complex. Instead of explaining it, I'm gonna have you search for some shader tutorials. Your best bet would be to start at http://www.planetquake.com and look at some tutorial sites listed there for shader tutorials. The way I'm gonna do it is make modified shader files that give the light textures some lighting capabilities, rename them, then put them in a .zip file and distribute it. I'm fair at making/modding shaders, I don't have a lot of practice. Hopefully, this project will give me that practice I need. Hell, I don't even know if my method will work.

[Gizmo2k]

Well if you want to learn a lot about shaders quickly id like to point you to the q3 shader bible

 

http://qeradiant.com/manual/Q3AShader_Manual/index.htm

 

90% of this is relevent althought raven have made some change's added some stuff ect ect ect its a great ref guide and its well worth the paper it takes to print out

 

id agree with Demyse that its a little bit of a pain in the ass that raven didnt make more of the light texture emit surface light

i think making all the light texture emit is a great way for you to learn what works and what does'nt

one tip though and that is smaller texture need a higher surfacelight value that larger textures a tipical 64x64 light texture needs a least a value of 1000 to give off good lighting.....

 

brigand1138 what sort of shader are you looking to make?

[brigand1138]

I'm lookin g to make a small but bright light on the floor, I've worked out how to edit the shader files in notepad to change the values, but that's no good as it will change the values for all the other levels as well, all I want to know is how to make a shader file apply to the map I am using while using the games textures

 

Thanks guys!

 

Mal brigand

[UniKorn]

Just make a myname.shader

edit the shaderlist.txt

add myname to the shaderlist

and you'll see that you can load the myname textures that are defined in that shader. Do not forget that you have to include the shaderfile in your pk3 when you release the map.

[brigand1138]

Sorry, it must be just me being thick, but I did what you said Unikorn, and nothing changed in JKIIRadiant. I made a lights.shader file, defining the texture in the doomgiver directory. But when I click the textrues menu, "lights" does not appear, if I select the doomgiver set of textures, and use the the shader from there, it uses the doomgiver.shader values, not the lights.shader values, unless I rename the doomgiver.shader file with a different extension (like doomgiver.shader1)

[Gizmo2k]

It's a bug/feature of this version of radiant that it won't load shader files without having them also named as a folder in your texture dir

 

brigand1138 check your other thread about shaders for info on getting your light shader working