Ok, this is really not a great issue, but as I suck at decent lighting (and for aforementioned fps issues I'm not using dynamic lighting) I have a couple of issues.

I'm trying to make a room/corridor a dark red lighting. Only if I make the lights (2 entities) cover the room, they leak through the doors. Not pretty for the other rooms.

If I shrink the lights, they don't light the room enough. Catch 22.

So, Question 1, is how can I make this room lit dark red without it leaking through the doors.

The other question is : can you use areaportals on plats? Or something similar. Because I'm just adding the second floor to my building (after spending a few weeks on the first floor) and I can see tris through the ceiling.

I was thinking maybe a small "func_door" activated from triggers at either end of the plat movement which "zip" open, but it would be kinda weird.

Any guidence, ideas, criticisms all welcome :)

Phrases like "you suck at lighting" will be gratefully welcomed as truth :lol:

q1:It leaks through the doors because the doors are not brushes per se - the compiler lights the map with the doors in the "open" position. Not much you can do about this i'm afraid.

q2: good question - don't know the answer, but you could try using hint brushes - this does pretty much the same thing. I'd suggest searching for a tutorial on google for one and then experimenting with them on a simple map.

I downloaded a tutorial on hint brushes last week, so I'll give it a go on a simple map and see what happens.

As for the doors, how can I create a room with a red tint then, but bright enough to see, with minimal light leakage?

I guess it's one of those "keep tweaking the light entities" things is it? Annoying 20 compiles per hours watsit :lol:

Thanks :)

I tried to hunt it down for you but couldn't find it...there was a shader you could use that was posted for either EF or JO that was transparent but light blocking so you could place it in doorways and light would not leak through.

:) Sounds ideal.

Any idea who created it Wade?

I've fiddled around a bit for you;

textures/dcg/lightblock
{
qer_trans 0.5
surfaceparm nonsolid
surfaceparm nomarks
{
map $whiteimage
alphaFunc GT0
alphaGen const 0
}
}

You can use any path for it, and any qer_editorimage if you feel like adding one.

Thanks so much :D

I'm on my first REAL map so Shaders are something new to me. So I've saved that in /shaders/lightblock.shader
(original, I know), is that correct for step 1?

Now I have a highly embarassing question to ask. *whispers* how do I apply that to a brush? *blushes*

You add the shadername to shaderlist.txt first, and you apply it like you would to any brush. However, you'll probably only need like 1 or 2 sides covered, you can use nodraw for the rest.

Thanks GothiX :)

1. I saved the file lightblock.shader into the shaders file
2. I added "lightblock" to shaderlist.txt
3. I loaded Radiant and it appears in the textures menu but when I click it, it loads nothing.

Am I supposed to have a corresponding image?

Told you I knew nothing about shaders... lol

It will probably show you shader image missing because you don't have an image to go with it however in this case you don't need an image to go with it so as long as you can cope with it, it's fine.

Change the first line in the shader file to "textures/lightblock/lightblock".

Perfect :D loads in radiant all nice. Will test it out tonight when I'm not SUPPOSED to be working :lol:

I really appreciate your help Wade and GothiX :D

Had a long weekend off, which provided me with some time to work on my map AND to test the shader.

It works GREAT :D perfect, almost :D


Just one question...

I occasionally get the HoM effect, because of having areasportals AND this shader in the same door.

Is it safe to do the following:

1. Create a brush
2. Cover it in system/skip
3. Texture one side with areaportal (inserting said surface in the middle of the door)
4. Texture the other face of the brush with the lightblock texture
5. Shrink the brush so it is completely within the door?

At the moment I have two brushed, kinda inter-embedded, but I'm looking for a more ... efficient way of doing it :)

You'll want to use a seperate brush for each shader.

That's what I feared you'd say, and that's what I've already done, lol.

For my areaportals, after following a little diagram I believe Codja gave me, the system/skip sticks out from the door a little, if I embed it completely in the door and then have the lightblock behind the areaportal & skip brush, it should still work right?

Oh and on areaportals (yea yea), they do work, so I'm not asking for help to get them to work, just a question on behaviour.

One of my areaportals, still draws the wall and doorframe beyond it (i.e. another door in the room beyond the area portal), but hides all the detail brushes/crates (etc). Is there a good reason why it still draws some struc brushes behind the areaportal (ie. the floor brush and the backwall)?

And Thanks for that Shader GothiX, I really appreciate it :) *nodnod* I hope to release this map (several months on, of course) and you'll be credited in it :)

I always use areaportal so that they're completely inside the door, and lightblock at the same edge as the door (Which, if the shader was an actual texture, would've caused z-fighting).

Yeah, in Radiant it does look like Z-fighting, but works perfectly in-game, so I am very happy.

Now with the technicalities out the way, and hint brushes starting to make sense and work properly, I think I can get back to doing some mapping lol.

I still have joys of wading through all the threads relating to func_plats to do, but I'll leave it as late as possible. I hate func_plats....I hate func_plats...I hate func_plats.

Many Thanks again GothiX, just to let you know you're not taken for granted :)