Some questions

[Encisco]

I am currently having problems lighting properly. I am totally new to mapping so I could use some help. I make a basic room, and a player start and add a few lights (I leave them at 300). When I join the game, the lights glare big time off the walls and floors. Like, you know where they are exactly. It looks really crappy and I know it's not right. Can anyone give me a basic way to light a room properly? Just a generic box room. Any help is appreciated. Thanks

 

Oh, also, where do I find a "light junior?" I don't see it anywhere.

[FEXX]

Not sure what a light junior is myself. If I find or learn I will post the info in this forum.

 

As for lighting a room, or outdoors, you really must learn the hard way in the beginning by trying it all out. I suggest you create a light in your room and give it a 'light' key of a value of '10'. Then clone it and go to change its value to '30'. Clone more lights and increment the value of the 'light' key. This will educate you visually what range of 'light' values yield what brightness. If a light is placed near a wall, the bounce of light will make that area hot, which could be a desired affect you want or not. One simple way to fix this hotspot is to move the light farther away from a brush/wall to reduce the bounce off hotspots. But also remember that 'radius' matters too (see below).

 

Another key to lights is their 'radius' key and '_color' key. The 'radius' key sets the attenuation of how far the light will go out till it begins to dissipate and fade out entirely. Like a flashlight, it cannot light an entire empty room in real life, it has a radius, and that is why it cannot reach as bright far away as it can close up; because if the target is close up to the flashlight, the radius encloses the object and it gets a high level of light. So play with a 'radius' key value of '10' and up. The larger it is, the more of a spherical shape the light falloff becomes basically. So at 300 it is really large, but the 'light' value matters too - they work hand and hand together to decide the final look of a light, as does its color.

 

A handy key for a light is 'scale'. The 'scale' key is a multiplier for the light's intensity and does not affect size. Think of the scale as the core hot area of light. Like a sphere of pure light.

 

The key 'style' for a light entity lets one pick how that light will flicker. You can use a value of '1' through '13'. You will need to try each out to actually see it in the game engine to know if you like or not. But very useful for setting a "mood", fire light, electrical problems or maybe a strange/damaged area of a map.

 

'_color' is great. To use, select the light entity and press 'K'. This lets you pick a color for the light. If the color is very saturated the light will be too, and so on. Remember though, even if the light has a '_color' key and a 'light' key of '0' or very low, the color will still work but the light is very low and barely noticeable.

 

You can also select several lights at once and change its settings to globally change all the ones you selected vs. doing one at a time if you want a bunch to be the same.

 

The only way to get good at lighting is to actually "finger paint" with them. Play around with them in a huge room maybe. Do not be scared of them. Throw them around at the start, get more familiar with their keys and in time you'll get a 'gut' feeling what you want your real professional and final lights to look like. You will learn to control lights differently in different situations; indoors, underground or outside - only by trying to do it. In a way, it's like a game of poker; you only know what to keep and discard after playing many hands - good and bad ones. Just keep at it and lights will soon be very intuitive for you - hopefully.

[Encisco]

Thanks for the help, I will do just that.