problems with lighting

[Mandaria]

hey guys hope ya can help me, i have managed to build one of the largest maps jedi outcast Xia Reloaded, but have encountered a problem: when i try to bsp the map, it tells me in a nutshell, that i have exceeded the amount of lightsources i can use in one map. The result of this is when i try to play my map after the bsp, its all bright and nasty looking. My question is this:

 

Does anyone know how to increase the amount of lightsources i can have or access in one map

 

Thanks again guys

[UltimateZeus]

Ok, I am not sure if this is the same problem. Is could be that your grid size is too small.

 

Edit the worldspawn entity and double or even triple the grid size. Try that and let me know if you still have problems.

 

Zeus

[Mandaria]

ok that may be it but how exactly do i make the grid size bigger? thanks zeus

[Karshaddii]

Too many lights on the grid eh?

 

Just how big IS your map =P

 

In the worldspawn key enter "lightgrid" and in the value put "64 64 64"

[Mandaria]

my map is approximately 21 MB and its the followup to City of Xia. Its called Xia Reloaded, and its probably the biggest map in JO. Should be Very fun. Its got evrything a city has, and i mean everything. awesome for rpg's and just messing around. It includes the following:

 

Bank

McDonalds

Beach

Beach House

Hotel

Bar

Boxing Arena

Factory

Secret Manison only few people know where to find

And my favorite.....the batcave

 

It's all done accept for the lighting issue, so thanks again

[Sam]

can you you go in all these places

[UltimateZeus]

Ok, sorry, to change the grid size - press n with nothing selected.

 

Select worldspawn and look in the info panel

 

It will say I think it is gridsize (64 64 128 default)

 

So in key put gridsize and value 128 128 256

 

I'm not sure if it is gridsize - just check in the info window in the entity window.

 

Hope this helps

 

Zeus

[Mandaria]

of course you can go into all those places! anyways, zeus i had already done that b4 i posted , i think it may be the lightgrid thing, because my gridsize is already at 128 128 256 Thanks again guys.

 

Oh and i forgot to mention in my list the underground temple with a secret dueling area, as well as the original , and yes u can enter it LOL

[Kengo]

http://66.250.145.38/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72368

 

^ Might help maybe.... Having just finished an 8 hour + fullvis extra compile, it tells me that it exceecded the light grid thingy again, with my lightgrid standing at...grid size = {512.0, 512.0, 512.0}. I got a funny feeling this is because I did fullvis extra, it seemed to be OK with fullvis before, but then I have added a lot of lights since last compile. I must have between 300-400 light entites, and some 2000 intensity ones outside (with the express purpose of reducing the overal number of light entities :S)

 

grid size = {512.0, 512.0, 512.0}

 

8 light emitting surfaces

 

Only 10320 gridArrays used out of 1048576

 

0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9... (2)

 

48 x 43 x 5 = 10320 grid

 

559 unique grid light points

 

0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9... (1207)

 

Lightmaps exceed max memory (8699904 > 8388608)

 

 

completed.

Run time was 8 hours, 46 minutes and 31 seconds

 

Any ideas anyone? Would setting it up to 1024 or 2048 actualy help, just if it's gonna take 8 hours or more for the next compile, I'm hoping to get it right

[Kengo]

For now I'm gonna try setting the gridsize up, 2048 methinks, set up a small settlement next to the computer and guard it for the next day or so. I'll make some coffee too.....

 

Guess it'll be a good (if long) case study into whether setting a massive gridsize solves the problem.....

 

Talking of which, are there any negative effects to setting a bigger gridsize, so far they all seem to be positive?

 

Woohoo, 100th post, let's get compiling!

[giganerd]

Good lord, 21MB, 8 hour compile times? How much time do you guys devote to your maps? I wish I had time like that to map. Anyway, kudos to you and this Xia Reloaded sounds interesting.

[Shadriss]

This is just an idea, but why use so many light emitters? If it's simply to light the arena (so to speak) then there IS another way to handle it.

 

Instead of messing with gridsize, why not set a base ambient light level? Easy enough to do... Then you use the light emitters as accent lights instead. That would easilly cut down on the number of needed light emitters.

 

Just a thought.

[Kengo]

"This is just an idea, but why use so many light emitters? If it's simply to light the arena (so to speak) then there IS another way to handle it.

 

Instead of messing with gridsize, why not set a base ambient light level? Easy enough to do... Then you use the light emitters as accent lights instead. That would easilly cut down on the number of needed light emitters. "

 

An interesting idea, and after all these problems with lighting...I'm getting preety open minded! The general consensus on ambient light seems to be that it normally looks preety bad, I guess because it doesnt allow for lights and shadows in the same way. I see what you mean about a low level and other lights to accent lots of lights, it might work better for an outdoor map than an indoor map perhaps? I don't really know much on this, sure there are some people around here who know more on ambient light.

[Mandaria]

hmm by ambient light do you mean one light source that projects ALOT of light? cuz ive sort of heard of that but dont know how to do it if its possible tell me how:)

[Leslie Judge]

Not exactly. Ambient light is done by adding the ambient key to the worldspawn entity.

 

If you want to light an area with only one lightsource, then you can use the scale key for the light entity which multiplies the light radius without the need of a greater light value.

[Shadriss]

And as for using it only for an outdoor arena, no. it DOES work with indoor places as well.

 

In one of the maps I'm doing (the RCS ELdritch Storm) I set a key of ambient and a value of 50 in the worldspawn. Looks pretty good. Fairly dim, but still dark enough that accent lighting draws the eye to what I want them to see. Shadows and such are created by the accent lighting, and the ambient lighting lights up the corners and nooks and crannies where those other lights wont reach. And, ,should you want an area completly dark, you could just use negative valued light entities to suck up the light.

 

If you work the numbers and values right, ,it COULD be the solution to your problem.

[Kengo]

I stand corrected, sounds like using ambient light can be effective if well done, nice one

[Kengo]

If you're still having that problem, I managed to fix it on my map (after a lot of advice by the guys on this forum):

 

: I redid all the lights as suggested to me, carefully saving a version before I deleted them all just in case, and then re-did them. It's a pain, but it seems to work sometimes, I was lucky enough that it worked for me

- Once I redid the lights I din't have the lightgrid problem again

 

: I set the gridsize for the lights up to 2048 2048 4096, I was told setting them to 2048 2048 2048 would work better...I don't know why but it did. The downside of a bigger gridsize turns out to be that it makes the compile time longer

 

: With the map working, I have a little under 400 light entities, so I guess that proves you can have at least 380 or so light entities without any trouble (although I have no idea if the size and intensity of these lights comes nto the combination?)

 

: I did have lights with light set up to 1500, so you can have lights at least this big without problems

 

: Not really anything to do with lighting but I found how much of a difference going through everything again and making everyting possible a detail brush massively speeds up compile times, took it from 15 hurs down to less than 3!

 

Hope this helps, good luck

[Shadriss]

I went back through this thread, and another think you may want to try struck me. It'll help your compile times even more.

 

I noticed you say 380 - 400 light ENTITIES, and only 8 Light Emitting surfaces. Frankly, these numbers should, if anything, be reversed.

 

I'd hazard the guess that about 90% of those light entities are there just to light up the map. No because they are a spotlight or acting as, say, the light source for a overhead lamp.

 

You can rid of those easilly enough (In your next map, since you've finished this one...) by using the ambient command I talked about earlier. Second, by using light emmitting textures (or L.E. shaders) you eliminate a few more of those remaining light entities, since the shader itself lights up part of the area. And, it's more compile friendly, so you wont be waiting as long to find out if the new additions to the map work. And, as an added extra bonus, it gets rid of all those annyoing green lines that show light radius and get in the way of the map itself.

 

Well, that's my final two cents, I think. I hope that Xia Reloaded makes more sence than Xia did... I STILL can't figure out what about 70% of those rooms are supposed to be...

[Kengo]

I hope not to have this problem in future because I've learned a lot about lighting from this map, over the time from starting to finishing it. I actually couldn't have gotten away with removing light entites in this map because I created a light of some kind for almost every one (inside anyway ), which generally looks more realistic I guess but takes ages.

I see what you mean about the light emmiting shaders, they are handy and I shall use them more in future, I only really used them to good effect once in the whole map.

If those green lines are really getting on your nerves you can take them off going to show then unticking light radius, sorry to be pedantic

 

All round, thanks for the help

 

Mandaria, hope you solve the problem and get the map done, it sounds a lot of fun! Would be interested to hear how you solved it when you hopefully do:)

[Mandaria]

hey kengo, good job on fixing that problem! im gonna go ahead and delete all the lights in the map and redo them to see if thats the problem. It's gonna be tough tho hehe.

 

BTW: i held my first beta playing of my map Xia reloaded on MSN Zone the other day and it rocked even with it being to bright! i cant wait to release it, it's sure to give new cantina some competition muahahaha lol thanks for all the help guys cya around.

[UltimateZeus]

I have scanned through most of the comments and I am sorry If somebody has mentioned this before but this could help.

 

You can set the radius of the light to something like 500 and set the light to 1000. Then you can set scale to about 4. This will give you extreme light if you want that will take up a lot of space. I used this a few times in my Emperor Maps.

 

Zeus