Decent Spotlights?

[SeriousStu]

I'm having a crack at spotlights and no matter what I try they always seem way too blurry and nothing like the nice sharp looking ones I've seen in game. The fact that there's very limited information on properties like "Linear" and "Quadratic" doesn't help either.

So anywho... anyone know how to get GOOD looking spotlights, not that pooey blurry ones I keep creating?

 

[The Dark Elf]

I'm having a crack at spotlights and no matter what I try they always seem way too blurry and nothing like the nice sharp looking ones I've seen in game. The fact that there's very limited information on properties like "Linear" and "Quadratic" doesn't help either.

So anywho... anyone know how to get GOOD looking spotlights, not that pooey blurry ones I keep creating?

If your having problems making them sharp in the spotlight properties.. Try upping the lightmap (lowering the number) of the surface they effect. To increase the quality.. it wont be perfect but it'll be sharper. Might take a little longer to do aswell, and keep an eye on surrounding surfaces otherwise it might look strange with suddenly sharper lighting/shadowing.

Could also try the dynamic spotlights.. fun if the light needs to move around.

If you want absolutely perfect light effects, your best bet is to paint the effect onto the material itself.. Or use an overlay perhaps or decal. Those would be better, give you more control. You'd still need a light of somekind though in the area, so it effects NPC's/yourself.

 

[StardogChampion]

Changing the lightmap from 16 to a lower number will give you sharper lighting on the faces the light shines on.

 

[SeriousStu]

Played lads! I knew of this setting but hadn't really played with it much. I should've known better with my 3DSMax experience.

The spot light on the left is shining on a face with a lightmap scale of 1 and the one on the right is on a lightmap scale of 16 (which is default).

Picking up quite a bit of knowledge here... maybe I should have a go at making tutorials like IchI

 

[PvtRyan]

Something you need to keep in mind though: a lux/units setting of 1 will subdevide your map greatly. To give you an idea on how badly, a simple cubical map with a single wall in it had 2200 triangles. Wouldn't use it unless you really have to.

 

[SeriousStu]

Yeah, I'm aware of the massive impact on compile times Spotlights create. Still though, Spotslights really look like utter garbage unless you fiddle with the lightmap scale. Usual lighting and shadows from Omni Lights look find to me on a 16 lightmap scale.

 

[AJM2K3]

So the lightmap scale only affects compile time? Not in game rendering performance?

 

[Death.Trap]

How do you change the lightmap scale?

Doh, nvm =)

 

[Osilo]

stu how do you get that info on the bottom right screen to display?

 

[Tynan]

Linear and Quadratic (and Constant) are methods for calculating light falloff.

Choose the one you want by putting 1 in it's value and 0 in others.

Quadratic is what happens in real life. The light gets dimmer by a factor of the square of the distance. Brightness = (light luminosity)/(distance)^2.

Linear means the light falls off linearly. Twice the distance, half the brightness. Brightness = (light luminosity)/(distance)

Constant means the light never falls off. Brightness = (light luminosity).

 

[AJM2K3]

So the lightmap scale only affects compile time? Not in game rendering performance?

Anyone?

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

To give you an idea on how badly, a simple cubical map with a single wall in it had 2200 triangles.

a single wall will usually have under 20 polys.

 

[Osilo]

I tried to compile a map i'm working on (17 lights) with a lightmap of 1 on the textures and vrad stopped responding once it had 2GB of ram usage 1GB of which was on my HD. So I wasn't able to see if it killed the framerate. I think I've proved myself worthy of the nub of the week title.