texture lighting
by Very Interactive Person · in Artist Corner · 06/11/2002 (8:00 am) · 29 replies
People who have mapped (or still map) for Half Life will probably know what I'm talking about. It was one of the keys for making a map with realistic looking light and good atmposhere: texture lighting.
How it worked for HL:
When you compile the map to bsp, it would read in a lights.rad file. this file contained entrys like this:
lightAA1 255 255 255 500
lightAA2 100 125 250 600
the first would be the texture name, the 3 number are RGB, and the fourth number would be the brightness.
The lightmap was then created using this information. So textures would emit light. Becuase of this one could make cool neon lights, let water reflect light, have realistic sqaure lights (with light entity its always round), etc...
My question: Could map2dif be changed to support something like this? It would help me a lot, right now neon lights are kind of impossible to make.
Another question, and again I'll make the link to Half Life. In HL, a one could let textures cycle just by having the texture names like this:
+0Texture1
+1Texture1
+2Texture1
This would cycle trough the textures creating an animated texture. It was very easy for the artists... no special settings etc. In Quake this is possible with shaders...
The reason why I'm posting this:
I run a map in Torque with textures even up to 512*512.... still when I run it in Half life or Quake (with the textures reduced to 256*256 offcourse)... it looks better!! All of this simply becuase of the light (I think... seems to be the main reason).
How it worked for HL:
When you compile the map to bsp, it would read in a lights.rad file. this file contained entrys like this:
lightAA1 255 255 255 500
lightAA2 100 125 250 600
the first would be the texture name, the 3 number are RGB, and the fourth number would be the brightness.
The lightmap was then created using this information. So textures would emit light. Becuase of this one could make cool neon lights, let water reflect light, have realistic sqaure lights (with light entity its always round), etc...
My question: Could map2dif be changed to support something like this? It would help me a lot, right now neon lights are kind of impossible to make.
Another question, and again I'll make the link to Half Life. In HL, a one could let textures cycle just by having the texture names like this:
+0Texture1
+1Texture1
+2Texture1
This would cycle trough the textures creating an animated texture. It was very easy for the artists... no special settings etc. In Quake this is possible with shaders...
The reason why I'm posting this:
I run a map in Torque with textures even up to 512*512.... still when I run it in Half life or Quake (with the textures reduced to 256*256 offcourse)... it looks better!! All of this simply becuase of the light (I think... seems to be the main reason).
#22
09/19/2002 (12:18 pm)
yeah - we defenetly need texture lighting. at the moment i'm not satisfied at all with the lighting of the v12 engine.
#23
Sounds a little more resonable and eisier to get running, again I am not a programmer though.
In Red Faction, they do not use texture lighting but they do have alot of shapes for there lights. It makes a big difference.
Matt
09/19/2002 (10:07 pm)
I am not a programmer but I think light shapes would be eisier to implement than texture lighting. You could not only have omni(sphere) but cubed or cylinder ,directional or non directional lights. With the falloff setup like it is you could easily simulate certian areas of texture lighting. Sounds a little more resonable and eisier to get running, again I am not a programmer though.
In Red Faction, they do not use texture lighting but they do have alot of shapes for there lights. It makes a big difference.
Matt
#24
09/20/2002 (2:05 am)
texture lighting isn't only about the shapes of the light. it is much smoother and the light doesn't seem to have its source at a specified point, but really makes the impression that the whole surface is shining. another pro for texture lighting is the smoothness of the light-fading-
#25
Zoners tools could be a good reference.... so if someone with some programming skills could just look into the matter and tell us if its possible at all, and how hard it would be? Like I said before.... i'm still willing to trade this for some artwork (textures/skies/GUI/website)
09/20/2002 (3:36 am)
I think I posted this in the wrong forum. Lots of level designers want it in.... but not much programmers who want to give advice or want to give it a shot.Zoners tools could be a good reference.... so if someone with some programming skills could just look into the matter and tell us if its possible at all, and how hard it would be? Like I said before.... i'm still willing to trade this for some artwork (textures/skies/GUI/website)
#26
I would be willing up some 2d/3d work for anybody who would be willing to implement either texture lighting or adding shapes to the lighting thats currently in the engine. But good luck finding a programmer to take the offer.
Matt
09/20/2002 (5:38 am)
You could fake the thing with shaped lights. I know what texture lighting is. If you have certian shapes, and setting to control the fall off of the light you can give textures the appearance they have a glow or whatever. I would be willing up some 2d/3d work for anybody who would be willing to implement either texture lighting or adding shapes to the lighting thats currently in the engine. But good luck finding a programmer to take the offer.
Matt
#27
06/04/2003 (12:34 pm)
Has anyone been able to figure out a good solution/trick/patch for this?
#29
06/04/2003 (2:32 pm)
cool, thanks! 
Torque Owner Very Interactive Person
Imagine a long neon light. Using the omni light entity you'll have to place a couple here and there before the neon face. Omni light is calculated starting from the origin point of the entity, causing the light to be circular. The result won't be a nice neon "line" that emits light, but a series of circular lights. Calculating the lightmap using a complete face as start of the light source would fix this (omni light is a "point" that emits light, not a face)
You get the picture.. or not? Believe me, texture lighting looks a ton better! Its just way more realistic and adds so much to the atmosphere of the map.
It wouldn't slow down anything.. I think if map2dif is changed to write the lightmap differently, using texture information rather then entity information, that's the only change that needs to be made. But I could be wrong offcourse.