Best light rendering?

(Mike Nold) #1

Hello,
I have a problem with shadows in my map. look the screenshot:

i used this settings:

Q3map2 BSP -meta -vis -light -fast -filter - samples 2 -bounce 8

any idea on how to get better results?

Thank you in advance,
Mike

(Loffy) #2

Hi Mike!
The blurryness is partly because you have tweaked your ET.
But there are ways to make shadows sharper. You can make all shadows sharper, or just the shadows that hit a group of brushes.

To make shadows sharper in the whole world:

  1. Select a brush and hit “N”. To bring up window for worldspawn.
  2. Enter key “_lightmapscale” and value “0.5” (or lower). It will make the lightmap sharper
  3. Recompile.

To make shadows that hit a group of brushes sharper:

  1. Select a brush (SHIFT + Left click)
  2. Select another brush (SHIFT + Ctrl + Left click).
  3. Now you have two brushes selected. You may keep on selecting brushes untill you have selected all brushes in a certain area, for example all brushes in a room (including the walls and floor).
  4. While they are still selected, right-click in the 2d window, and select “func_group”.
  5. You have now grouped them all together.
  6. Make sure you still have they selected, or atleast one of the brushes in that group selected, and then hit “N”.
  7. Enter key “_lightmapscale” and value “0.5” (or lower). It will make the lightmap sharper, but only for those brushes!
  8. Recompile.

You can combine the two methods. Below are two pictures from two maps, where the worldspawns have a lightmapscale and the walls (with the nice shadows) are func_groups with much lower lightmapscales (I think 0.25).

loffysctfprefab2_9.jpg600x600

alliedspawn1.jpg800x600

//L.

(Mike Nold) #3

thank you for your big help loffy!
I put _lightmapscale 0.5 on worldspawn and 0.1 on those walls of the screenshots. while writing i’m waiting for q3map2 to recompile it. it takes so long with those bouncings!

anyway, thank you very much for the fast answer!

Mike

(Mike Nold) #4

…bounce 4 of 8…

:bored:

(Loffy) #5

Great! Toss in a screenshot afterwards!

I use the following values:
0.5
0.25
0.125
0.0625 (This is the lowest possible value - I think, not sure.)

I.e. I divide the previous number with 2 always. Why? I don’t remember. it is just some “law” that I am following.
Maybe some other guy can expand on this?
You could also search this forum, using the keyword “lightmapscale”, to read more about this concept.

The default lightmapscale is 1, so you will never have to enter “1”. It is already there.

Here is a tip: Put lightmapscale 4 in worldspawn. And use func_group and lightmapscale 0.5 (or lower) for those special areas where you want sharp shadows.
Just try it, to see how it looks. Sometimes you do not need lightmapscale 1 (or even 2) for your world. It looks sharp enough with 4. (or perhaps 2 or 3).
Why? Well, using lightmapscale 4 in worldspawn gives much faster compile. And if there is no visual difference between 1, 2, 3 or 4 in worldspawn, you can go for 4. (or 2 or 3).

One last thing: Some mappers put the key “ambient” and a value of, for example, 20 in their worldspawn. Do you? I never do that. Ambient will add an ambient light to the whole map, including the shadows. In other words: Ambient = weak shadows. No ambient = dark shadows. No ambient = a more dynamic map, with contrast.

//l.

(Mike Nold) #6

thanks again for the tips… damn the result was the same… i didn’t META the map…that’s could be the cause? so much time wasted…

anyway, i’m starting the new compile rite now…

:bored:

screenshots coming as soon as i compile it again

Mike

Update: Changed worldspawn _lightmapscale to 4
Update: Changed func_group (those walls) _lightmapscale to 0.25
Update: Started…

(]UBC[ McNite) #7

Dude u don’t need any bounce for testcompiles… they r just multiplying your compiletime for barely nothing tbh.

(Mike Nold) #8

actually i suspected i was wasting too much time…
what’s the best compile settings to see the real shadows and light effects in tests?
-meta -vis - light -fast -filter -samples 2 (so just without bounces?)

or what else?

(Loffy) #9

When I compile just to check the shadows, I do a - light -fast -external
Another tip: do not use filter, just -samples 2.
//L.

(]UBC[ McNite) #10

BSP: -meta -v
VIS: -v
LIGHT: -fast -v

Simple and clean… works fine for me to see how shadows get cast or light is shining at objects. Most of the other things are only for polishing stuff up iirc/ getting effects into it.
You could safe some time in the VIS stage by using -fast too… check your log whether its taking much time. Although when u want to check your soundwork and FPS you better not use -fast.

(Mike Nold) #11

ok just finished.
Compiled with -vis -light -fast -filter -samples 2.
Here’s the screenshot:

_lightmapscale settings: walls and floor .025, worldspawn 4.
as you can see, still pretty bad result. i should render it again with same bounce 8 setting to compare it precisely with the other, but anyway the shadow isn’t that sharp line i expected…

this evening i will recompile it, now gotta go. I’ll keep you in touch!

Mike

(]UBC[ McNite) #12

3 things: plz make your screenies smaller, then… are u using a vanilla config for the screenies? Means… a standard ET config without any tweaks? And: where does that light come from (sky/ lamp/ light-entity)?

(Mike Nold) #13
  1. okay i will do them 640 next time
  2. the first screenshot has brightness rised with photoshop to highlight different color squares on the walls. the second one is pretty normal, i think with gamma at default settings
  3. that light is from the sky. there are little lights inside the room behind but they are ininfluent in these screenshots.

see you tonight!

(]UBC[ McNite) #14

I strongly disagree with loffy about not using ambient and _color. Having no ambient in the map makes everything where you don’t put in light-entities pitch black and that looks shite (imho). I d really suggest you try
a low ambient (like 10 or so) and
a neutral _color (e.g. 1 1 1 = white or 0.9 0.9 0.9 = light grey, you can even use this to get a certain coloring for atmosphere into the map)

Well… as it is sky-light… plz post your skyshader. I m sure you can get a lot better shadow by using penumbra shadows, and that s easy to get when using the right shader-settings for the sunlight.

edit: just looked it up on my notebook: I m using

q3map_sunExt 1 .95 .9 65 60 55 3 16

in my sky-shader of The River II, and that gives nice smooth shadows from the sunlight.

(Mike Nold) #15

For now i’m using the Fueldump sky with the default skyshader.
About ambient light and other skyshaders, i think i will begin thinking about them when i will learn how to cast smooth, non-cubic shadows and lights. ATM that’s the main problem.
Thank you anyway for suggestions.

Mike

(Shaderman) #16

IMO using _minlight and _color with the same color values the sky shader has, gives nice results.

This seems to be another option:

Found in this thread.

Shaderman

(]UBC[ McNite) #17

Don’t use ambient light. It’s really quite crappy and just makes your map look flat.

Not true if u use it carefully (=like 10 or 12). Look at The River II, that map doesnt look “flat”. With a low ambient value a map surely looks better n having pitch dark areas in all corners. (Saves you a lot of light-entities too.)

Make a spotlight like you normally would in Radiant, and give it these additional two keys: “_sun” “1” “_castshadows” “0”

I wonder what happens if u do that with _castshadows 1 in a map that doesn’t have a real high ceiling… like whether the shadows of trees that stand in a circle below that sun-spot all cast the shadows in diff directions. Does anybody know about that?

And as for a foggy map (or simulating high clouds or a time of day where the sun simply is not over the horizon) you ll certainly get more realistic atmosphere if you do not have sharp shadows cuz there s no sun that can cast them.

@ Shaderman: What is the diff between _minlight and ambient?

(Detoeni) #18

Hands up all folks that think ydnar knows whats hes talking about?

Ambient looks crap, thats why it got replaced with something better years ago. It just flushies the map with an un-natural looking flat light.

“_sun” lights get removed from the map and added to the sky lighting at compile.

What is the diff between _minlight and ambient?

yndar ansered this in the thread thats linked to in Shadermans post.

-vis -light -fast -filter -samples 2

filter and samples contradict each other, one blurs, one sharpens, theres no point to having both.

lightmapscale 4

This is too big to have with tight, small scales, you’d be better off with the default.

(CooperHawkes) #19

/me raises both hands :slight_smile:

(Mike Nold) #20

ok here we are.
Here there are the two screenshots. the first is with global lightmapscale at 1, the second with worldspawn lightmapscale 4 and walls and floor 0.25.
BOTH compiled with these settings:
bsp -meta, -vis, -light -fast -filter -samples2 -bounce 8


as you can see, i still have weird colors on the shadows.
Skylight is grey, texture on the wall is grey almost white, so… WHY these colors? look down the detail.

Mike