light bulb mdls not lighting properly

[poseyjmac]

well the problem is they actually are, but the bulb isn't lit, so when you put a light near it, it lights up only a few faces of the bulb, leaving the rest very darkened and unrealistic looking.

some people said try and use another skin, well there is none, and there is no 'on' model that people talk about that i can find. no one at VERC or hl2world seems to know how to remedy the problem, so what the hay, maybe someone hear does

 

[The Dark Elf]

Use some sprite to give it a glow, or set it up to not get in the way of lights then stick a light in it to brighten it up aswell as the surrounding, or just edit the material it uses to make that bit 100% luminous

 

[poseyjmac]

ok, I went to go edit the material, but then i found another texture that is _on, although it looks the same from the editor. so i set skin to 1 and in the game it is lit up well! damn, i tried this before, but in the editor i saw no change so i just changed it back without checking in game. well thats that. thanks

 

[poseyjmac]

oh wait scratch that, it didn't work, i think im smoking crack, thought for sure it was lit up. how can i make the mdl use the _on VMT file?

 

[poseyjmac]

sorry for the triple post but it wont let me edit my previous posts.

id like to switch the VMT files, the _on one has a luminous flag in there, but the problem is, how do i make it custom, because the mdl file is made to look for those certain names, and wouldn't it conflict with the default ones? damnit this is confusing, i dont understand why valve didn't have an ON option for a damn lightbulb. so frustrating

 

[poseyjmac]

no one on the entire internet knows how to fix this including valve. in cs_havana you'll notice the same light bulb mdl im using and the top part is darkened unrealistically. but they are so high up that no one really thinks twice about it. :/

putting a bunch of light_spots around the bulb to try and light up every face isn't working, theres always 1 or 2 faces that aren't lit up to the same degree and with compile times taking 2 minutes per try, it becomes time consuming to reposition 8 lights to shine up one small light bulb.

now theres a _on vmt file, but how do you get the .mdl to see it, and i would make a custom one, but i dont know how to make a custom mdl that points at a different .vmt filefjaklsh93h9f82y593h2fskjh9r3w24hy9f32

 

[The Dark Elf]

Just make a new one, make it look like its lit up. Done.

 

[poseyjmac]

make a new one what? i dont know how to model. how do i make a new mdl without making a new mdl? can you be more specific?

i know how to do basic shit but i dont know what youre saying. i can't get the mdl to point at a custom VMT, because its all garbled text, and plus i would need to rename all the mdl, phys, and those other files to be custom.

edit:

ugh its 2am and im tired and can't make sense of what im saying, but the problem is i can't get the existing mdl to point at the _on VMT, let alone a custom VMT+VTF that i could make to fix this. i have all models and materials extracted in dirs to make this easier, but i dont know what to do exactly, i know that if im going to make a change to how a mdl is displayed i need to make it a different name so it doens't conflict with the original when i release the map eventually. time for bed, so then i can wake up and be frustrated and lose all of my hair over this mapping problem and spend all my $ on therapy because im going insane over this

 

[indy]

anyone ever thought of creating it with brushes then making it a func_detail.
use textured lighting for the bulb texture, add a halo and whalla!

 

[poseyjmac]

yea i guess i could make it out of brushes. i still dont know what this 'textured lighting' people are talking about though, cant seem to find any info on it

 

[Kyorisu]

yea i guess i could make it out of brushes. i still dont know what this 'textured lighting' people are talking about though, cant seem to find any info on it

Texture Lighting not textured. Look it up you'll understand.

 

[poseyjmac]

alright i looked it up in source sdk documentation. not mentioned. looked it up in hl2world's tutorials and did a search for 'texture lighting'. not mentioned. the problem is searching for 'texture lighting' brings up a million matches. can someone please elaborate on this hidden feature called texture lighting? :/

ugh, if hammer was more flexible i could make a lightbulb, but theres no option to make vertexs not snap to grid.

 

[Kyorisu]

Fine then. Texture lighting was used commonly in Hl1 where in a file called lights.rad you could specify texture names and light data. Then ingame those textures mentioned in the lights.rad would emit light.

Something similar goes for Hl2.

 

[poseyjmac]

after searching for lights.rad and texture lighting was i able to find more info, so thanks.

indy have you tried making something like a light bulb in hammer with brushes? the one thing that keeps it from working is the automatic vertex snapping. so when i go to make the top part of the sphere into a bulb shape, it snaps away and isn't straight.

 

[The Dark Elf]

after searching for lights.rad and texture lighting was i able to find more info, so thanks.

indy have you tried making something like a light bulb in hammer with brushes? the one thing that keeps it from working is the automatic vertex snapping. so when i go to make the top part of the sphere into a bulb shape, it snaps away and isn't straight.

work on a larger scale and resize down?

 

[poseyjmac]

i tried that too, the problem is when dealing with a sphere with that many sides, the majority of vertices are not on grid points, and because of that, when i attempt to shape the top part, the vertices i grab will snap, while the others will stay snapped to no grid point. thus creating a slanted top.

until someone can prove that i dont know how to brush properly, this is how it is. im back where i started.

 

[poseyjmac]

there isn't some VMT type file for a MDL that tells what materials it uses? there should be, then i could just take the extracted mdl with materials, rename them and make my own texture. but apparently its not possible

but alas im stuck with a darkened light bulb mdl that can never be lit. god forbid someone actually use a lightbulb mdl in the SDK and have it light up, valve! i mean lightbulbs are for decoration right? they don't really light up, its just magical that it happens in real life, some force from the divine mothership bestowing its powers into the lightbulbs of the earth. but no, not in the source engine. lightbulbs must stay darkened, for they are never to be turned on!

oh silly poseyjmac, you noob! learn how to model in 3dsmax and make your own damn light bulb! ahh! your'e right! i should learn a whole new program because someone else can't make a model correctly. i will also become a certified mechanic and scuba diver while im at it, since i have so much time to compromise and do all these wonderful things.

 

[Shady]

I'm actually wondering just about all the same things poseyjmac is wondering. Any good tutorials on lights concerning texture lighting, sprites, and skins for the models??

Much appreciated...

 

[indy]

i made a simple light bulb with light source for ya.
enjoy

 

[poseyjmac]

i appreciate the help but it just doesn't look enough like a light bulb. i need it to look like the lightbulb01a from props_interiors.

ive been manipulating your brush and my own for a while now, to try and get a good looking bulb, but the lame vertex snapping is keeping me from getting it done.

if this was unrealed, it wouldn't be a problem, i could convert the static mesh to a brush, texture it with my own textures, and convert back to static mesh.

 

[poseyjmac]

bump. bumped until a solution is found

 

[Shady]

I wish there was a full tutorial with everything out there... no real tutorials covering lighting in full detail

 

[poseyjmac]

yea. the thing is with this particular problem, the lights are doing everything they are supposed to do. its just the game doesn't know i want the lightbulb to be lit up, so it treats it like its off.

if only the info in the mdl files was editable. i tried editing it and pointing to a different material, but then hammer crashed when i tried to load the model.

 

[poseyjmac]

the unsolvable problem. emailed valve about it