The Oculus [WIP]

[Thothie]

What light flag settings are you using on your door? Cuz I get no shadow at all. :/ Also, is that texture scaled at all?

I dunno if you could compensate for it by turning on another light once the door opened, hrmm...

 

[Crow]

Opaque(blocks light) - Solid - 255
The usual. Not scaled no, but I thought I had one that was scaled and it worked fine... I'll have to test that once I'm done with this compile.

I dunno if you could compensate for it by turning on another light once the door opened, hrmm...

That would be weird XD

 

[Thothie]

Opaque(blocks light) - Solid - 255

Nope... Still not doing it for me... :/

You using any minlightlevel or anything?

And now I'm noticing that this damned water, that I had to make 100x brighter just to be visible, while it now lights the tunnels, is now failing to light monster models. So they are all coming out black. *sigh*

 

[Crow]

Scaled texture works fine.

I don't know what you use to compile, but I'm using a "batch compiler" program.

This is what my RAD looks like:


Granted, this is for use with ZHLT, so I'm not sure if all of these things still work, but I've never really messed with it. Most of the things checked were checked by default.

 

[Thothie]

Except for -scale and -notexscale, -gamma 0.5, and -smooth 50.0, that's the same setup I've got. I suppose I can try those, although I don't see off hand where the desired change would take place.

I was asking about "_minlight" on the entity's ZHLT flags, rather than the compiler though.

 

[Crow]

Oh, don't usually use that one. So... 0? Don't have it set to anything.

 

[Thothie]

Meh, IDK... I'm waiting on one last VHLT compile with those extra params, but I'm not hopeful.

SHLT model lighting:


VHLT model lighting:


^ That kinda kills any chance of me using VHLT, at least on this map. I've submitted a thread question regarding that too, but I suspect this alternate lighting system is just bugsie. It might work okay on The_Wall1&2 - but, well, dunno if it's worth investing what time I have left to find out. Likely just go straight to releasing the patch tomorrow, given the time I'll have.

Gods, using 100x the original brightness on that water texture, and it's STILL darker than the SHLT compile.

 

[Thothie]

Compile's done... Maybe my imagination, but light looks a *little* better...

But...

Still don't work.

...and the models still don't light.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

@Crow, can you upload your testmaps so that Thothie and/or I can try to figure out how to achieve the {-texture lighting thing?

@Thothie: I kind of hope you're going with SHLT now

Edit: Wow, I was reading the replies of wolf-3d in that thread you posted. What a dumbass >_>
Edit 2: I might fiddle around with VHLT this afternoon because I noticed it can produce some seriously fancy lighting:


Edit 3: @Thothie, that pic in your post right above mine. These images are both from the VHLT compile, right?
Edit 4: @Thothie again: I was browsing zhlt.info and suddenly I saw a working link to OPT_ENTDATA v1.1.1. I vaguely remembered you were looking for that once, which I confirmed by finding this thread. Anyway, without further ado: You can find v1.1.1 and the development version of v1.1.2 on the Other useful Half-Life mapping software page of zhlt.info.
Edit 5: @ Thothie, once again: Perhaps you can try Darkulator (scroll down a bit) to quickly adjust the lighting levels of the map? Not sure if it works though; "I'm throwing science at the wall here to see what sticks."

 

[Thothie]

Edit: Wow, I was reading the replies of wolf-3d in that thread you posted. What a dumbass >_>

I maybe forced to kill him the next time talks. Now he's trying to convince me that water not emitting light is a "realistic" feature of VHLT, as in real life, water does not emit light. Nevermind the fact that's not entirely true, and that we've already established that VHLT water does indeed emit light - just not enough, and said light doesn't light models standing in or near it.

Edit 3: @Thothie, that pic in your post right above mine. These images are both from the VHLT compile, right?

Jez, as you can see, it no workie for me.

Edit 4: @Thothie again: I was browsing zhlt.info and suddenly I saw a working link to OPT_ENTDATA v1.1.1. I vaguely remembered you were looking for that once, which I confirmed by finding this thread. Anyway, without further ado: You can find v1.1.1 and the development version of v1.1.2 on the Other useful Half-Life mapping software page of zhlt.info.

Thanx, I shall look into it. I was looking for the older non-retard Python build. (effing Python... >_>)

Edit 5: @ Thothie, once again: Perhaps you can try Darkulator (scroll down a bit) to quickly adjust the lighting levels of the map? Not sure if it works though; "I'm throwing science at the wall here to see what sticks."

I can fiddle with it, but I don't think it's going to affect any of the issues here.

For Deraliasewers, barring someone finding a solution, yes, I'll have to go with SHLT. I dunno if I'm going to fux with trying to compile the_wall1&2 with it... They do compile in under 10 minutes ea, so maybe it'll be worth trying.

===

Potentially Useful Info from Vluzacn himself regarding "Door shadow not moving" issue:
"A better workaround is to use VHLT's light_shadow entity, which can make the shadow generated by certain opaque entity disappear when it is triggered."
...which would be great... You know... If I had a shadow to be causing me the problem to begin with. [Crow: link that map sauce, FFS ><]

Sadly, I think Wolf-3D's epic retardedness has distracted Vluzacn from my other questions. >_>

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Potentially Useful Info from Vluzacn himself regarding "Door shadow not moving" issue:
"A better workaround is to use VHLT's light_shadow entity, which can make the shadow generated by certain opaque entity disappear when it is triggered."
...which would be great... You know... If I had a shadow to be causing me the problem to begin with. [Crow: link that map sauce, FFS ><]

Sadly, I think Wolf-3D's epic retardedness has distracted Vluzacn from my other questions. >_>

Wouldn't this break if someone blocks the door?

Suppose this: A door (with shadow) opens. The shadow vanishes because of this trigger.
Now the door closes and some dumbass blocks it. The door goes back up again, but the door's shadow has returned.
D:

Edit: And snap, I thought I finally found something useful, but now it appears you're looking for an older version of OPT_ENTDATA >.>

 

[Thothie]

Wouldn't this break if someone blocks the door?

I suppose... Although not an issue with this one (one being unblockable, and the other, not being openable at all.) Generally, you want to avoid your doors being blockable in MSC anyways.

I dunno if I'm going to fux with trying to compile the_wall1&2 with it... They do compile in under 10 minutes ea, so maybe it'll be worth trying.

Then again...



"Hey, look at me! I'm a glowing face texture that emits NO LIGHT AT ALL!"

*sigh* /me tosses VHLT out window.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Try upping the brightness here too? Maybe the wooden border around the glowing face somehow blocks the light? Unlikely though, I know...

By the way, do you remember what version of Opt_EntData you were looking for?

Edit: Works for me, will upload screenshots + see if I can catch you on MSN.

 

[Crow]

Source

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Ohi Crow, in answering your question: The floor texture was too blurry to get lighting through that {-texture, so downscaling did the trick. I assume lowering -chop and -texchop values would do the trick, too.

 

[Thothie]

Ohi Crow, in answering your question: The floor texture was too blurry to get lighting through that {-texture, so downscaling did the trick. I assume lowering -chop and -texchop values would do the trick, too.

No... No it wont... Not there at least.

However, this method does work fine on those fancy metal shin-diggs on the_wall.

I suspect what it really maybe is that these gates are scaled down too far, and have too fine a mesh for VHLT to really work out, even with chops at 32/16. I think there is a faint blurry shadow there, it's just too diffused to make out.

VHLT has delayed this patch 12 hours, thus far. (Was ready to release at 8am this morning - it is now almost 8pm. ><)

I'll probably give up if this runs past 9pm, but it seems to be finally working out now... Encasing the func_waters in SKIP brushes seems to have fixed the model lighting thing - but it also released so much extra light, I can't quite figure what the proper lighting level for the texture is yet.

I'm letting the laptop compile VHLT variants of the_wall while the main rig does deraliasewer attempts.

 

[Crow]

So I want to do -maxlight, but the opposite of -maxlight.

As in, set a minimum light level for the map. The shadows are too dark, there as a lot of black in my forest and I don't like it. Ive tried increasing the environment light but it doesnt help much, and I don't want to increase it so much that it seems like day rather then night.

 

[Thothie]

Very trial and error with this proggie... One thing I've done is increase -texreflectscale to 4.0 on the hlrad - seems to help the bounce lights generate more... light. Beyond that all you can do is increase the brightness of the individual lights, texlights, and sky.

The brightness of the actual texture affects the light it'll put out rather dramatically as well.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

So I want to do -maxlight, but the opposite of -maxlight.

As in, set a minimum light level for the map. The shadows are too dark, there as a lot of black in my forest and I don't like it. Ive tried increasing the environment light but it doesnt help much, and I don't want to increase it so much that it seems like day rather then night.

Use the "-ambient r g b" parameter on RAD.

Set ambient world light (0.0 to 1.0, r g b).

This option sets a minimum light value to every face so that nothing comes out pitch black. The values are red green blue, scaled from 0.0 to 1.0

So if you want to light every face with the shade of grey 1 1 1, you need to set "-ambient 0.003921569 0.003921569 0.003921569", because 1/255 = 0.003921569 (rounded).

 

[Thothie]

Then ya wind up with no dark areas at all. :\

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Yeah but the colour (RGB 1 1 1) you light surfaces with is near-black so it won't produce fascinating amounts of light or anything.
Good morning by the way Any news yet concerning the sentient being that is VHLT?

 

[Thothie]

Got it working, more or less... Uploading patch now.

This was in no way worth the effort btw... For every spot the lighting is better, it's worse somewhere else.

1000% effort - 1% result.

Deraliasewers, The_Wall1&2 are now all using VHLT though.

I shall have to splain this sh*t on the sven forums tomorrow... I may not even get a changelog up with the patch.

 

[Crow]

Error: Exceeded MAX_MAP_CLIPNODES

 

[Thothie]

Change cliptype in HLCSG.


Try "precise", "simple", and "smallest", in that order.

Plus the usual advice: clip brush / illusionary complex objects, and KISS.

 

[Crow]

Oh yea, the clip brush. That'll prob cut it down by 4/5ths

And simple is boring