Light Boundaries

(ratty redemption) #21

The blocker brushes are entirely covered with the “light_boundary” texure, do you think they shouldn’t be?

I think they should be.

thanx for posting the pics, and that is how I would of placed the blockers, but I`m puzzeled as to why the blockers were causing the inside faces of your building to become nodraw… does anyone else here have a theory on that?

qer_editorimage textures/_ratty_terrain/nodraw.tga
refers to the image you created for the editor right?

yep :slight_smile:

and… your first line:
textures/_ratty_terrain/light_block
refers to what?

thats the actual name of the shader, which is why it doesnt have an extension like .tga or .jpg

I have that pointing to the image that the editor uses again… does that make much of a difference?

well if the name of the shader is different, from the name of the image used in the first map stage, then we can use a qer_editorimage with a path to a different named editor image, but if they are the same then it should work fine as you had it …also the 2nd map stages onwards can have different names to the shader name.

if ever your writing a custom shader and its effects dont show up in game, its possible that youve used a plain tex on your brushes instead of your intended shader, which is why I tend to use qer_editorimages to avoid using wrong tex in radaint.

that could probably of been worded better, hope it makes sense, but if not, someone else here will probably explain it better.

Excuse me for being completely stupid with this , I haven’t had much time to look at shaders and their commands yet, mainly because I don’t know how you guys know what the commands are, or how you find out about them

np, and check the shader manual link in my sig, that`s the most up to date version outside the q3map2 forum, which is harder to use as a quick ref, unless you use the forum search for a shader command your interested in.

As usual, y’s post is very enlightening

agreed, and that was a good way of explaining the problem, ydnar :slight_smile:

(Mr_Tickles) #22

Yep, understood perfectly, thank you :slight_smile:

Oooh, goody, thanks again! :slight_smile:

You lot are going to hate me… still more problems… sorry.:bored:

Ok, i’m getting this problem. I read ydnar’s post on how the shader will blend across adjacent co-planar …planes. So, I sat down and decided to sink the walls into the floor. I first lowered the floor, then lowered the walls to line up. Then, I created another floor inside of the walls and on top of the lowered floor so that the new floor was up to the same level as the old one used to be. In other words, the walls now completely separate each room’s floor. So I thought that the compiler would understand that there was a vertical brush in the way of the nearly-adjacent coplanar brush. This however doesn’t work:

I can only think that i’m going to have to alter each floor again so that they are different levels and so are not co-planar :banghead:. Anyway… that’s something for another night.

I also had light spilling out of the doors:

even though it looks like a dead body rolled in a carpet had been dragged from the premises, I didn’t think it was too appropriate, so I used the shader ratty suggested above. Worked great, … lost walls left, right and centre though. Sorry ratty, same problem as the test map.

Also, since i’ve done the _lightmapscale and fiddled about here and there with the light blocking shader and raised and lowered the floor, walls etc… random brushes decided to have some fun and alter their shading without any prompting from any of the equally amusing light sources.

and yes, each of those brushes that are brighter than they should be have exactly the same parameters as the ones around them. I checked twice.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:

Oh, and there’s a light which doesn’t shine onto the wall through the ladder alpha texture… I give up. :frowning:

I’ve now decided to save you lot some hassle and revert to an old backup and continue in other areas of the map in the hope that either I’ll have more knowledge and experience enabling me to rectify this, or end up not finishing the map and not need to come back to this anyway.

Thanks for your help.

(P.S. I’m still open to fresh ideas on the subject though)

(ratty redemption) #23

@Mr_Tickles, glad I was of some help, but Im sorry to hear your having so many problems with the lighting, and if no one else has managed to help you, Ill try to in the next few days, but I`m too busy atm.

for now, just clarify if the walls you buried the light blockers in were structural?

because my cave walls were detail and my light blockers were also detail and they worked for me, so maybe it`s one or both of them being structural causing the nodraw problems with your walls?

(Mr_Tickles) #24

Nope, everything was detail, I haven’t really got round to using structural brushes yet, i think i may just select all and make them all structural when i finally compile my map because it could do with being improved performance wise, and then leave it over night… or over week.

I’ll try the different combinations later this evening or tomorrow.

Thanks

(ratty redemption) #25

understood, but learn to use the caulk hull method, rather then making everything structural :wink:

(chavo_one) #26

Does anyone else find it hard to read red text on a gray background?! I keep trying to read Mr Tickles’ questions, but I can never finish the whole post before I give up.

(MadJack) #27

It’s not too bad on my monitor but it’s not as easy as white on grey that’s for sure.

(The Wanderer) #28

Yes …yes I do.
I mean…I understand people’s need to be creative, but it’s really anoying to have to highlight the posts evertime just to be able to read them.

(Mr_Tickles) #29

Will do :slight_smile:

Well, thanks for your help on the thread topic, much appreciated. And as far as the text colour goes, you could have simply asked me to change it rather than slag it off. To be honest I thought it was a good idea that the thread starter (the one who has the problem) used a different colour so his replies stood out.

Well that’s good, you do know your in a mapping forum don’t you?

You know what I find annoying? Reading mis-spelt words, usually I don’t say anything but I’m trying to stop myself from being so pedontic. That, and it is a bit hypocritical.

(chavo_one) #30

I stated my post in that manner because I didn’t know if it was just me having problems. If I was the only one that found it to be a problem, then simply asking you to change it would have been a bit arrogant.

To be honest I thought it was a good idea that the thread starter (the one who has the problem) used a different colour so his replies stood out.

That’s what avatars are for, so you can quickly scroll through a thread and find someone’s post.

Regardless, I thank you for switching back to white. This was the first post I could read comfortably.

(Mr_Tickles) #31

No probs. I’ll try to stick to white from now on. :slight_smile:

(The Wanderer) #32

EDIT: Nothing to see here folks…Problem solved…keep moving :slight_smile:

(Mr_Tickles) #33

Hmmm, I apologize, I seem to have got you quite riled over this, didn’t mean to.

That was refering to the point that generally people who design maps are required to be at least a little creative to design good maps, no sarcasm intended.

And as for the other thing, well, that was just meant as a little light hearted humour, sorry you didn’t take it that way. The spelling doesn’t bother me, it’s not as if i’m some kind of an American spelling be champ. It was only a way to introduce the joke. Sorry. :fluffle:

(ratty redemption) #34

guys, I think this was simply a misunderstanding, ie I don`t think any real offense was ever intended.

and I believe its better we can ask each other to change things that make the forum easier to read, which I too would of asked Mr_Tickles to do, if I didnt have ie6 overriding default colors, although I do understand his logic in why he choose a different color in the first place.

as some of you know I recently had a go at someone in the q3map2 forum, until The Wanderer correctly pointed out to me, that no matter what the guy had done that I didnt like, it was foolish of me to allow myself to get so wound up by it, also I didnt need to speak my mind so frankly in public, I could of just pm`d ydnar about what I believed at the time was someone trolling.

the important thing Ive learnt is unless someone is deliberately trying to disrupt the general peace of the these forums, then we should assume most regular users have more in common then not ...ie we shouldnt need to be so ready to defend ourselves, when someone criticizes us for something quite minor.

sorry if this in any way sounds like Im trying to add fuel to the fire, Im not, I like both Mr_Tickles and The Wanderer, although like me Ive noticed The Wanderer can be a bit of a hot head, but thats all the more reason to listen to each other, as it can often help point out the character flaws we should be keeping in check.

(Mr_Tickles) #35

Wise words old ratty :drink:

(ratty redemption) #36

thanx, but considering my real age of 35 (thats human years, not ratty ones) its taken me too long to learn some of the most simple things in life, oh well better late then never, eh? :wink: