[WIP] City13

You'll get a default shadow with a light_env, but to edit it so its going in the right direction you need the shadow entity.

And yeah if they are already in its obvious they need to be darker cause you can't see them :)
 
Yeah in general the lighting does seem a little... washed out... I dunno how to put it really, but it doesn't seem to have the same vibrant eye catching feel city 17 has, even though they are all the same textures... Maybe you could try turning up the brightness on your light_env, changing the angle to about -80, and putting some more yellow into the light colour?

Actually come to think of it, if you haven't set the angle to something negative, then that'll be exactly what is causing the problem: Everything already is in a shadow...

EDIT: Take another look at that last batch of screenshots you posted with the NPCs in it. See how there are really bright patches of light hitting the tops of some of the skyscrapers?
 
Revenge said:
Yeah in general the lighting does seem a little... washed out... I dunno how to put it really, but it doesn't seem to have the same vibrant eye catching feel city 17 has, even though they are all the same textures... Maybe you could try turning up the brightness on your light_env, changing the angle to about -80, and putting some more yellow into the light colour?

Actually come to think of it, if you haven't set the angle to something negative, then that'll be exactly what is causing the problem: Everything already is in a shadow...

EDIT: Take another look at that last batch of screenshots you posted with the NPCs in it. See how there are really bright patches of light hitting the tops of some of the skyscrapers?
Click to expand...


Yeah I havent been able to figure out why thats there! I thought it was the sun but I moved that and its still the same, so obviously ive f*cked up with the env light somewhere. Will check it out.
 
The actual position of the light_env entity makes no difference. You need to go into it's properties and change the "angle" into a negative number between -90 and 0, with -90 being completely vertical and 0 being completely horizontal (which by the looks of those screenies is what you have left it on).
 
chestburster said:
have you tried a slight blue/purple ambient color? it might add some realism.
Click to expand...

It's dawn in that map (assumably) so orange light is realistic....
 
i didn´t say the sunlight would be wrong. i think the shadow areas might look even nicer than it does already. i didn´t want to critisize your work it´s been a suggestion nothing more.
 
ITs a dawn map as chestbuster said but the lighting isnt 100% finished so it might change yet.
 
Just a tester -

city130080.jpg
 
hm... not bad, looks quite warm now. i like it better, somehow. what do you say nightwolf - do you like it?
 
nice. that shot looks very pleasant with the lighting the way it is.
 
Nice! The map's come a long way from those first WIP shots on the C13 forums! It'll really look excellent after all the detritus, debris, and decals have been added.
 
Ive been playing with the shadows and stuff since then, thanks to The Dark Elf, so hopefully when this compile finishes i'll have some decent pics to show off.
 
lookin awesome.! :D n1 m8.

btw Can i change my name to "BolteR" its my css name.
thx (if you can) :)
 
Now that you've got the lighting fixed up, that looks a million times better. It's amazing what a difference it makes. Was it the angle setting in the light_env entity or was it the shadows entity that fixed up the angle of the sun?
 
It was both of them Revenge! I hadnt set the angle or done a shadow control. A bit of fiddling and it looks ok now!
 
I am just wondering what kind of video card you have, because it seems to be running very smoothly on yours. Those train tracks the train fell off could use work... They are very square.
city1300859oi.jpg

It is kind of hard to read, so this is what it says:
It looks like a brush with a ladder texture placed on it. Try looking for a model, or making a better looking brush with possibly a twisted shape.
 
The trouble is the only train track models they have are reaaaaally big, so I had to use the texutre...which sucks! Any ideas greatly appreciated! :bounce:
 
Try altering the size with the scaling tool. Just a suggestion, but it probably won't work. :\
 
hehe answered before I saw that! Ill maybe model each piece of it or maybe get a modeler to make one for me.
 
Night-Wolf said:
hehe answered before I saw that! Ill maybe model each piece of it or maybe get a modeler to make one for me.
Click to expand...
just hollow that brush and place the texture on both sides, make the hollowed brush sides thin enough and it'll not be so easy to spot the trickery.
 
No that's a horrible way to do it.

Just change the texture on the sides to something more metal-looking and scale up the ladder texture so that the railway slabs are bigger and farther apart.

Hollowing it will just create more brushes when you honestly don't need them, not to mention adding compile time (brushes, vis, rad etc.)
 
Its a proper rail texture, it just looks crap!


A Park im working on, the statue is a temporary one which we'll replace when we've made one!

city130101.jpg


city130100.jpg
 
-Crispy- said:
No that's a horrible way to do it.

Just change the texture on the sides to something more metal-looking and scale up the ladder texture so that the railway slabs are bigger and farther apart.

Hollowing it will just create more brushes when you honestly don't need them, not to mention adding compile time (brushes, vis, rad etc.)
Click to expand...
yeah cause it'll add another seven hours wont it.. couple or so extra brushes grouped together as a func_detail :rolleyes:
 
The Dark Elf said:
yeah cause it'll add another seven hours wont it.. couple or so extra brushes grouped together as a func_detail :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
winner: TDE

the map's getting better and better, night. I'm not sure how, but see if you can find a way to detail the statue's base - it's sort of a random bland pillar. Maybe have one of our artists make you a plaque (I might have butchered that word, I can't tell) that you can put on either side of it.
 
Yeah but in the long run let's face it: you'll be a lot better of inserting that broken railway as a prop_detail or prop_static by getting somebody in your mod team (if you have any modellers yet) to make a railway model specifically for that map.
 
I'm working on a SP map myself.

Some of those buildings are undetailed. You need more chimneys, balkonies etc...
 
looks great so far, keep at it, cant wait for it to come out
 
Those last shots look good, but there are no defined light areas. Try playing with light and shadow a bit more so areas (like under your bridge) have more contrast. Right now the map looks heavily saturated with yellow light. Play with color and shadow to give the map a feeling of depth.

Try more directional lights (like spots) and lower the ambient light level so shadows have more contrast.

Hope you don't mind the criticism, the map looks good, just needs a bit more focus on lighting.

keep up the good work.
 
The trouble is, what people cant see is that its a sunset sky. So that means the sun is low on the horizon, which is why 95% of the map is in shadow! Thats really why theres no other shadows, its ALL shadow!
 
I was well aware of the sunset sky.

In city130101.jpg I can see the brighter sun light hitting the top of the building. But even for a sunset environment, the shadows would have more contrast. There is just way too much ambient light. You need darker darks, and lighter lights.

Light given off by the sun during a sunset is diffused by the clouds in the sky, so the cloud color should be the basis for picking your light color pallet. So rather than leaning toward the yellow end of the color spectrum, you would need more orange/red/pink to match the light that would be emitted by the sky you selected. Orange/Pink sky = Orange/Pink ambient light.

And even if the whole world is technically in shadow (which I agree that it would be with a low trajectory sun) there still needs to be shadows within shadows. For example your bridge, even though technically in the shadows of buildings, would still produce a lower light level environment beneath it.

Since a light_environment is clearly creating the majority of your light, you lose control over how light effects more detailed areas (like your bridge)

Don't rely too heavily on the light provided by the light_environment entity. It provides a good canvas to build the foundation of your lighting, but a lot of hand placed directional and standard lights are still required to provide detail and structure. Take a look at the deathmatch prison map that valve released, and you will notice they use a great deal of spotlights to create shadows and produce a more elaborately lit environment.

Lighting is one of the hardest steps in creating a good map, but it can have the largest effect lending to the realism of an environment.

Sunset is a time when harsh silhouettes are created in the distance (like on your tall smoke stacks) and ambient light decreases drastically. Do a google search for various sunset keyword combinations and you can find some good examples of sunset light environments.

Here are a few examples:
http://www.petergof.com/nyc/images/nyc_sunset_s.jpg
http://www.brownfields.com/Feature/images/Phoenix2003/r1-sunset-inn.jpg
http://www.oldtucson.com/film_office/photos/streetscenes/Mescal_streets.jpg


You can see the large contrast between the well lit westward faces of the buildings and their shadows.

When working on lighting, having reference photos can make a huge difference.


Keep in mind that I'm not trying to give you a hard time, I'm only taking the time to write all this to help. I know criticism is not always fun. You've clearly put a lot of hard work into creating this map.
 
Thanks for that Exavior some fantastic points. I like to take criticism and its one of the reasons I post my pictures, it lets me see things through other peoples eyes and see things that I dont. You know I never thought to add in other external light and more the fool me for not looking at valves maps! Thanks for the help and the pics, really appreciated!
 
you can't scale models in hammer, but if you make an oversized brush based one you could scale that down and rotate it.
 
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