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Fullbright intensity in Source

Started by March 02, 2006 03:21 AM
5 comments, last by Sandman 18 years, 11 months ago
Can you change the intensity of fullbright for Source-engine based games? I am nearly finished with my third level, DE_Human, which takes place inside a human body. It's been going really really well. But... Lighting it has been a real drag, omnis look inconsistent considering there are no light sources in a human body and texture lighting takes waaaaaay to much resources (LDR Ambient is at 91% doing just 1 texture!) Fullbright actually looks quite good, but a bit too bright, can I change that? Posting this question here makes you KNOW i'm desperate, I can't find an answer anywhere, so I hope somebody here can help me :)
if you can't change things, could you override all textures to darker?
Old Username: Talroth
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You need lighting entities in your map and compile it with vrad. This could take a while depending on how large your level is.

Try visiting some Source mapping websites, as I'm sure they will be able to answer your questions much better than this forum:

http://interlopers.net/index.php?page=hl2.htm
http://interlopers.net/index.php?page=css.htm
I'm sure there's some vrad settings for scaling up minimum light levels. I haven't investigated that much yet, though, but I guess looking into that direction will be helpfull.
Alternately, I recall that materials have some properties that define their light levels. If I'm not wrong this has to do with alpha-layers. Take a look at some of those lamp model materials, I'm sure you can find some properties.

However, the fact that there are no light sources within a human (interesting thing actually, as biological reactions could emit energy and light and all, right?) shouldn't be a reason to light everything equally. Take a game like Tron. We all know that's not how computers look like from the inside, but the levels did a good job I think. Also take the creature planet level from Unreal II, they had a level taking place inside a creature but what they did was placing science equipment and torches/other light sources as if humans were studying the inside of that creature.

Personally I think such solutions will work much better, not only to add a twist to the map but also because even in such an organic map lighting can work wonders when it comes to defining shapes and adding interest. Though I'm aware of the fact that a certain group of CS players prefers full-brightness due to gameplay issues...
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Interesting concept, but the Ts are viruses and the CTs are white blood cells, so it's not like it's shrunken people in a larger body like in some sci-fi flicks. Cells apparently secretly wield AKs/M4s, bet no biologist knew that yet ;)

The aim is to make the level as close to the real thing as possible, unless something significantly hampers gameplay, so I don't really feel light sources would be what I want. Someone did mention a good point though, darkening the textures might achieve the result. I'll keep you posted on that.

Another problem when I actually light it with something (Whether that be point based or texture lighting) my func_detailed brushwork in the corners that very effectively fake a tube look becomes... well, fake looking! It's not contiguous anymore with the other brushwork and you can tell it's just 2 added brushes tilted a bit, looks very very bad.
I really want some specular and bump mapping on my textures to get that wet look and sense of depth. I haven't yet tried this, but I'm quite positive with fullbright this is impossible :)

So I tried light_spots and light with a constant again and it does look good now that I gave it a second try, but my func_detailed brushwork is still faulty, check the screenies located here: http://www.chatbear.com/board.plm?a=viewthread&t=456,1141379441,5373&id=968966&b=4989&v=flatold
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