My map was starting to run really slow, so I went over to IDDevNet and checked it out. They said overlapping lights could bog you down, and it certainly did!
I made the lights not overlap when possible, but now my map is so dark! The falloff from the center of the light to the edges is way to harsh, it should only do so very lightly.
Can I adjust this? In the light editor you have 0.0/0.5/1.0 but it doesn't seem to do anything
The default light material is a round faint glow. Select your light, press "J" to bring up the light editor window, and select another material. There are some in there which are more solid and make your light look brighter.
Its right that you shouldn't overlap lights as this reduces FPS, however, overlap your lights a slight amount so that you dont have solid black lines, but dont bog down performance too much. A happy medium.
Kev_Boy wrote:My map was starting to run really slow, so I went over to IDDevNet and checked it out. They said overlapping lights could bog you down, and it certainly did!...
Have a read of these and see if they help..
Principles of D3 engine lighting
This covers the 'priciples' you need to be aware of (if not already) when using lights in D3 powered games. Even though I wrote it I find it useful to keep refering to it to rimind myself to work with light 'zones' - breaking the map down into sections in order to get the results I'm after.
Using 'overbright' lights
Not recommended to just use on everything, but can help in certain situations and light types (not too effective with fogged lights from what I've found)
I've not done any HL2 editing so can't comment on any similarities between the lights.
Take a look through the master tutorial list on that site as there are a few things that might prove useful.. as well as the editing tips and .. bleh.... you get the picture. A lot of useful info.
Kev_Boy wrote:Thanks, I never used the texture field yet, just left it blank all the time.
It's doing a nice job
Is there one in there specifically for outdoor lighting aswell? Like the light_environment in Half-Life if anyone would be familiar.
Ys, use the Squareish one for better visuals outside, however if your going to do ambient lighting (Which is needed) then use the fullambient material and then take away shadows etc etc, so that it will effect everything, making your light cover your entire level. Drop the light value down to dark grey and it will keep the level bright.
