blur dark areas

(gynec) #1

How everybody know q3map2 cant blur dark areas nicely. It always looks blocky. But i made a dark starbase map and the shadows look horrible. Even with bounce and stuff like that. Is there any way to get blur and soft shadows (without bounce 64)?

(Loffy) #2

Select the floor (or the wall) that has the shadow. Make it a func_group. Then add key/value _lightmapscale/0.25 to that func_group.
That will create sharp shadows.
You can set key/value _lightmapscale/0.25 on everything, if you want to. But the compiling will take longer, and the file-sizes will grow.
You can use values lower than 0.25 (lower = sharper shadows). For example 0.125.
// Loffy

(gynec) #3

yes i know.
the lighting is rasterized. so it looks also blocky with small blocks. isnt there a way to make a smooth transition beetween the blocks or is it principle qualified? i know its not the unreal engine 3…

(MadJack) #4

You can always use -filter in your light compile though ydnar doesn’t advocate its use anymore but that would remove most of the blockiness.

(ratty redemption) #5

I prefer -filter to even -samples 3, imo the shadow edges are much smoother with -filter, although we loose some detail from the lightmap like around thin shadows from grates etc, but for most surfaces it looks better.

(obsidian) #6

Are you using a sky shader to illuminate your map? If so, you might want to check to see if your sky shaders are up to date with Q3Map2. Read these:

Q3Map2 Shader Manual Appendix I
http://www.shaderlab.com/q3map2/shader_manual/apI.html

Shader Lighting Experiment
http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Archives/Archive-000004/HTML/20040311-6-027331.html?

(Godmil) #7

I’d agree with ratty… its like a guilty pleasure… I know I shouldn’t use -filter but I just cant stop myself :wink:

(ratty redemption) #8

yeah, were being heretics but hey... if it looks good, compiles fast and doesnt hurt fps or bsp size, then why not use it? :wink:

(gynec) #9

i know all this lighting stuff but its a fact that you just lower the lightmap blocks with better filtering. when you have a normal texture on the wall it looks ok but if you have a texture which is more like one color you see these blocks and it looks horrible. what says ydnar?

(gynec) #10

look at the lightmap in raven maps. its the same. in dark areas its blocky without texture.

(ydnar) #11

What compile options are you using?

(gynec) #12

different switches.
bounce, samples, smooth, pong shading, …
its all the same. just the blocks get smaller.