[GUIDE] Let's talk about lighting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MangyCarface

Wow, desertion is really intelligently lit. I may try to pester you for specific lighting advice at some point

holy moses do I ever got butterflies now

[grazr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fr0Z3n

Most of the dark maps, Nightfall, sawmill, TM, Manor all have bright environmental lighting. Pipeline and Double cross have the darkest enviro lighting iirc. If you see it anywhere it'll probably be in there.

Yea, not man people realise/notice this, but particularly for darker maps the enviro lighting is a tad brighter than the skybox ambient values. Players wont notice a slight variance like that and the extra light is beneficial in several ways, but most importantly for gameplay.

[xzzy]

Though it's not strictly a lighting problem, texture use does have a significant effect on how lit an area "feels".

A dark texture on the ceiling makes a space feel much more gloomy than one with a bright texture. Separating light sources from the ceiling by 100 units or more (and directing spotlights downwards) also has a significant effect on how much light bounces off the ceiling, which also impacts gloominess.

This is important because the play area needs to be bright. By putting darkness where it does not make the game hard to play, you can still make a place feel dark. My favorite example of this is Sawmill. The interiors are pitch black on the ceilings, but I'd challenge you to find a player who says the map is too dark.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xzzy

Though it's not strictly a lighting problem, texture use does have a significant effect on how lit an area "feels".

A dark texture on the ceiling makes a space feel much more gloomy than one with a bright texture. Separating light sources from the ceiling by 100 units or more (and directing spotlights downwards) also has a significant effect on how much light bounces off the ceiling, which also impacts gloominess.

This is important because the play area needs to be bright. By putting darkness where it does not make the game hard to play, you can still make a place feel dark. My favorite example of this is Sawmill. The interiors are pitch black on the ceilings, but I'd challenge you to find a player who says the map is too dark.

I can't believe I forgot about light bounce! This is really important.

This is especially apparent when you move from dev textures to detailing--suddenly rooms are brighter or darker than before.

It is important to note that you can also edit the .vmt file of the floor texture (or make a new one for corner cases) and increase the $reflectivity. I believe the $reflectivity value is in RGB, so you need to do it uniformly or you get weird colored reflections.

[stevethepocket]

And sometimes great lighting just drops into your lap.

For example, when I started working on my map for the artpass contest, I had found an early-dawn skybox and light environment Supersandvich had made that I really liked, and decided on a whim to try it out in the map. As it turned out, the light direction was just perfect for highlighting the first two control points. All I had to do was move the prop signs provided so they would also be in the light, and presto.

[Boylee]

Thank you yyler, this guide cleared up several things for me, some of which I hadn't even thought much about.

[xzzy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevethepocket

And sometimes great lighting just drops into your lap.

For example, when I started working on my map for the artpass contest, I had found an early-dawn skybox and light environment Supersandvich had made that I really liked, and decided on a whim to try it out in the map. As it turned out, the light direction was just perfect for highlighting the first two control points. All I had to do was move the prop signs provided so they would also be in the light, and presto.

Yeah, I definitely suggest taking a breather before starting detailing to play with world lighting. PIck your skybox and run four builds of your maps.. rotating the map 90 degrees each time. You can also just update the environment lighting entity, but I'm not as big a fan of this because I like it to match up with the light source in the sky.

At any rate, by rotating the map you can quickly identify which angle is best and save yourself a lot of work later trying to highlight certain areas. I wish we'd done this 9 months ago on Stoney Ridge.

[grazr]

I think to a certain extent there is such a thing as over designing something and this is applicable to making sure the enviro light highlights all the major objectives; this will often be impossible and you shouldn't pull your hair out/spend hours trying to achieve it.

Some of the guys here throw around that acronymm, "KISS": Keep It Simple Stupid. If you find things are getting a little complicated or overwhelming, scale back and go back to basics. I find this true for almost all areas of design.

Personally i really dislike the use of phantom lights in anything other than the most awkawrd of scenario's (high ceilings, for example). In which case it's prudent to simply use more than 1 light source. Such as those 2fort floor lamps which are a great way to light floors by placing them on walls 32/64 units above the ground level.

[RaVaGe]

Seeing as we are talking about lighting, you should read this article from Magnar.

http://magnarj.net/article_funclight.html

[stevethepocket]

Speaking of light brushes, here's something else you might find useful, that I learned when I was poking around 2fort. You know that room in the basement with all the racks of tape reels?



You probably guessed that those white brushes on the ceiling are light brushes. You would be correct; they're /lights/white002.vmt, a medium light level. But check out what they did to get more light projecting out of that room into the hallway:



That's a brush with /lights/white001.vmt (low-level light) on the front side, set to func_illusionary and with the render mode set to "Don't Render." It still creates the light entities when it compiles, but the brush itself is completely invisible. Even though this is more light than should logically be emanating from the room, the effect looks perfectly natural.