Best of the best lightning setup for mapping.

[Guest KENNITHH]

As some of you might know, I'm a freak when it comes to quality and details but it's becoming worse and worse. The thing I wish to be better is the lightning, as most of the maps I see, have terrible shadows and lightning. Even my own eventhough I do my best reading and testing

 

Now the main reason I started this topic is because I would like to discuss with you how to get the perfect lightning in SOF2 but also JKA/JK2 by the use of a sky-shader combined with q3map2 settings.

 

I know this is the best place to ask/discuss because there are so many talented people around here and I'm possitive the end result of this topic will be spectacular.

 

What my idea is of realism and quality: very clear, crisp light, shadows that ain't blocky

 

 

 

Some examples what I'm aiming towards but I know I can't get exactle the same thing.

 

WARNING: 9 (large) images of MGSV, DragonAge, AC and Skyrim

 

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[DarthStevenus]

This is something I'm interested in as well, lighting is the main thing I'd like to improve about my maps. I just saw a tutorial here about making "fake" shadows using shaders and patch meshes which produced some impressive results, but obviously that's not ideal for an entire map.

[hleV]

Lightning

Lighting

[Tempust85]

I'd certainly love to have better lighting for DF2, what do the pros do?

[Guest KENNITHH]

Man I feel embarrased, I've been using it wrong my entire life , thanks for clearing that up @@hleV.

 

Now back to the topic, I've been doing some tests for the last 4 hours, my current result looks quiet neat, just the shadows have to get fixed.

 

Settings and screenshots in the spoiler:
PS: I'm also using QEffectsPro

 

 

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Screenshots:

 

The shader:

textures/ziba/ziba

{

qer_editorimage textures/tools/editor_images/qer_sky

q3map_sunExt 0.921569 0.878431 0.796078 450 150 20 3 16

q3map_lightmapFilterRadius 0 64   

q3map_skyLight 325 3

q3map_backsplash 0 0

 

q3map_noFog

 

surfaceparm sky

surfaceparm noimpact

surfaceparm nolightmap

surfaceparm nomarks

surfaceparm nodlight

 

skyparms textures/ziba/ziba - -

 

nopicmip

nomipmaps

}

 

The Spawnflags:

_lightmapscale 0.50

ambient 50

 

The compile options:

-meta

-vis -saveprt

-light -dirty -dirtscale 3 -dirtdepth 32 -fast -filter -patchshadows -bounce 3 -bouncescale 3 -samplesize 4 -samples 8

 

 

[Boothand]

The ceilings look kind of overly lit, from these screenshots, primarily the two first ones. I wouldn't expect bounce light to be that strong. Where is the light source(s) in screenshot #3?

[Guest KENNITHH]

  On 9/11/2014 at 4:05 PM, Boothand said:

The ceilings look kind of overly lit, from these screenshots, primarily the two first ones. I wouldn't expect bounce light to be that strong. Where is the light source(s) in screenshot #3?

 

Guess you're right about that, maybe the ambient light is too high cause there is no light entity, only the sun as this map is still in early phase.

But I kinda like the brightness outside but it should even be more bright imo

 

this is the original map btw, I made it from scratch, something similar lighting would be nice

 

[DarthStevenus]

I vaguely remember seeing some tutorial somewhere years and years ago where you could open up a compiled lightmap, in Photoshop or something, and you could actually go in and manually smooth out the shadows that way. Am I crazy? Because that sounds crazy.

[Guest KENNITHH]

 

  On 9/11/2014 at 4:27 PM, DarthStevenus said:

I vaguely remember seeing some tutorial somewhere years and years ago where you could open up a compiled lightmap, in Photoshop or something, and you could actually go in and manually smooth out the shadows that way. Am I crazy? Because that sounds crazy.

 

You ain't crazy: http://sgq3-mapping.blogspot.be/2009/01/using-hi-resolution-external-lightmap.html

But I think there are easier ways of getting awesome lighting and shadows

[IrocJeff]

I know when I ran into my Max_Shader_Errors I had to reduce the quality of my light in my map by a bit. Now, I also learned that you can increase the quality of the shadows by using a _lightmapscale of less than 1.  like .5 or something. I'm not sure if works in conjunction with ambient light, though.

 

This is the hardest part of making something I think. I've got some rooms that came out great and some I'm not content with regardless of the changes. Maybe it has to do with the architecture and whatnot in each specific location. 

[Tempust85]

I'll post this here rather than post a new topic:

 

Is there a way to reduce the "stair" effect on shadows?

 

 

 

My compile line for lighting: [light] -lightmapsize 2048 -fast -samples 3 -cpma -samplesize 1 -patchshadows -shade -v "[MapFile]" Adding -bounce 8 or upping the -lightmapsize changes nothing. Any ideas from the pros?

[Guest KENNITHH]

@@DT85 this is what helps me for getting smooth shadows

 

it's still not 100% what I'm looking for though but its getting closer and closer

 

in the skyshader

q3map_lightmapFilterRadius 0 64

q3map_skyLight 60 6

 

but I think it might be better for a bit lower filterradius like 32 or soemthing

[Boothand]

@@DT85, you could try to make the offending areas into func_groups, and add a _lightmapscale key with a value lower than 1 (the default) to them.

Also, have you tried different settings on the light entity casting the shadows?

[Tempust85]

I'll try the _lightmapscale, thanks.

[Guest KENNITHH]

So once again I tried some different settings (slightly different) and its already getting better again, no use of Qeffects this time

 

Any ideas on how to get the walls even more bright? But keeping the shadows dark?

 

 

More info here:

 

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Shader:

textures/ziba/ziba

{

skyparms textures/ziba/ziba - -

 

q3map_sunExt  0.921569 0.878431 0.796078 450 150 20 3 16

q3map_lightmapFilterRadius 0 32

q3map_skyLight 600 6

 

surfaceparm sky

surfaceparm noimpact

surfaceparm nolightmap

surfaceparm nodlight

 

nopicmip

nomipmaps

 

qer_editorimage textures/tools/editor_images/qer_sky

}

 

Worldspawn:

"_lightmapscale" "0.125"

Removed the ambient light as it doesn't seem to need it anymore

 

Compile:

-meta

-vis -saveprt

-light -dirty -dirtscale 3 -dirtdepth 32 -fast -filter -patchshadows -bounce 3 -bouncescale 3 -samplesize 4 -samples 8

[Tempust85]

I think there's a surface light somewhere you can adjust in the sun shader.

 

Btw the q3map2 manual says to use samples instead of filter.

[Tempust85]

Does qeffects work with openjk?

[AshuraDX]

  On 9/14/2014 at 12:34 PM, DT85 said:

Does qeffects work with openjk?

las time I tried it gave me some nasty graphics glitches

[Tempust85]

Damn I was hoping to use it with DF2 mod.

[Archangel35757]

@@KENNITHH -- Couldn't you use a specular map on your wall surfaces where you want more brightness?

[DarthStevenus]

  On 9/14/2014 at 1:33 PM, Archangel35757 said:

@@KENNITHH -- Couldn't you use a specular map on your wall surfaces where you want more brightness?

 

I would try this. If the specmap comes off TOO bright then you can tone it down to your liking by using "rgbGen const ( 0.X 0.X 0.X )" in the shader.

[Guest KENNITHH]

Anyone has an example of a normal wall shader with a specular phase?

I never used/saw one , only for models.

 

Scratch that, it kinda worked. I'm happy with the light now , even though it might be still a liiiiiiiiiiitle bit brighter but then the walls that have shadows become too bright.

But the shadows seem to be bad on some places like jagged or not detailed enough.

 

Btw, any idea why when I use lightmapsize on the compile, it doesnt create a shader? I'm using q3map Gui

 

[Guest KENNITHH]

My god this is stressful, I've created a small map similar to http://victorkarp.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/sunfilter_6_16.jpg?w=300&h=225 but 8 times with 8 different skyboxes. I change every setting of them before I compile and then test ingame.

But still, I can't get faded, sharp shadows . Only possible way is a bigger lightmapsize I assume then?

 

Sickens me that irl I'm constantly looking at shadows 

[Xycaleth]

  On 9/14/2014 at 2:18 PM, KENNITHH said:

Btw, any idea why when I use lightmapscale on the compile, it doesnt create a shader? I'm using q3map Gui

Why would it create a shader? Using lightmapscale only affects the resolution of the lightmap - once the lightmap is written to the .bsp file, there's nothing the game can do to change it.

 

You also need to be aware that using a global setting for lightmapscale will restrict the available lightmap space for the whole map. Setting it to 0.125 for example will effectively give you 8 times less space because you're scaling it up by 8 (1 / 0.125 = 8).

[Futuza]

I'd love to see someone like @@Pande share some tips.