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FPSC Classic Product Chat / Lighting issues

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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 7th Jun 2010 23:19
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With most segments I use, no matter from what model pack, I get lighting issues. I know it must be due to the segments being tiles and the light is somehow picking out the seams and highlighting them, making them obvious. Is there any fix to this, or will 1.17 fix this graphical glitch?



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crispex
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Posted: 7th Jun 2010 23:54
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This is caused by close static lighting. Static lighting only finds the edges of the object it is focused on, thus making them obvious. Static light is good, but it does make things a bit obvious. Switch static lights to dynamic ones. Dynamic is a bit more to render, and you may need to use more of them for well-lit areas, but they look the best.

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Aaagreen
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Posted: 8th Jun 2010 00:19
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This is caused by Lee's lazy attempt to "fix" long lighting build times. To fix it, go to setup.ini and change the "lightmapquality" to 25 or higher.

And I don't know what Crispex is talking about, but static lights are the way to go. Dynamic lights create no in-game shadows whatsoever, and can be taxing in numbers.

I'd love to see things from your point of view but I can't get my head that far up my bum.
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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 8th Jun 2010 00:26 Edited at: 8th Jun 2010 00:27
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Changed the light quality to 100 and used dynamic and static lights together, statics being slightly above the dynamics.

Huge improvement:



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crispex
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Posted: 8th Jun 2010 03:45
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I personally think dynamic lights look more natural on the eyes, but that's just me.

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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 8th Jun 2010 17:35
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Got another problem that needs some insight. Am I wrong in thinking that static lights used to be able to turn on and off? Because in my test level my static lights are not turning on or off when I press the switch linked to them.

I am using lightoff.fpi with both static and dynamic, but at the moment only dynamic's start off, where as static's start on and will not turn off.

Any ideas? Because the dynamic light on it own looks terrible, hardly lights up the area the same as a static.

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Nbt
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Posted: 9th Jun 2010 00:10
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static lights cannot run scripts and are on all the time, as they are just used to create the light map textures. They are not realtime entities like dynamic lights, which can run scripts and can be turned off/on etc.

You can fake static lights coming on with a moving black wall with zero ambience etc. i.e. press on the wall shoots off down a room/corridor unveiling the lightmapped area.

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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 9th Jun 2010 00:28
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Static lights in the Source! engine are allowed to turn on and off, because what is happening is the lightmaps are switching from on to off textures, I don't get why FPSC can't do the same, as it already creates lightmaps.

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Flatlander
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Posted: 9th Jun 2010 00:45
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Lee's concept within the source code is that all static entities cannot run fpi scripts. However, anything designated as dynamic is capable of running a script. This is the convention for his engine and makes sense to anyone who is working with his source code.

Most lights in a game should be static. Only those lights that are required to be turned on or off or to flicker or whatever else you want to do with them would be added later. You should probably not have both a static and a dynamic light in the same location if you want to turn a light off and on as the static light will always give off light and you won't be able to tell if the light has turned off or not.

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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 9th Jun 2010 02:13
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The dynamic light doesn't cast any shadows, whereas the static ones are. So if you walk through my test scene and look up at all the lights, you will see shadows on the ceiling where the light can't get to and also shadows in the corners.

When you look up at the dynamic, you see no shadows and looks really plain, plus, some of the wall a layer down is not getting lit, even though the light has a range of 250.





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Nbt
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Posted: 9th Jun 2010 17:06 Edited at: 9th Jun 2010 17:07
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For me the red ring round a light marker is more the fall off range and not so much the actual full power light range.
So try to account for that when placing your lights.

Also make use of the "illuminationent.fx" and "_I" texture to get rid of them dead black light bulbs / light shades etc, so they look like they are actually giving off light.

As to the source allowing the turning on/off of lightmaps. This would be fine, if you could actually set a lightmap per room basis.
Yet even then you would have to tell any shader(s) that the static light source is on/off also.

Clever placement of static lights and use of a moving wall can give a very good on/off effect for static lights. Even a wall that moves down a long room in set stages to the end gives a sweet effect of lights coming on in groups like a factory etc.
Add a sound file timed with your moving wall and you can have that clunk, clunk, clunk sound as each light group comes on.

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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 9th Jun 2010 18:52
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Kind of disappointing that you can't turn on/off static lights, oh well, will have to try some work arounds like you have mentioned.

This moving wall, would you use a lift script to have it move down the hall and make it follow waypoints? Any way to stop the player getting to close to the fake wall and finding out its there? (Thinking of using a wall entity that is completely transparent to stop the player walking to close.)

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Nbt
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Posted: 10th Jun 2010 02:06
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Yups a transparent wall works and/or a trigger with script to tell player the area/room is too dark to enter and push him back each time he tries to enter etc etc

Sure you can use a wall entity to follow waypoints, or place a few sliding walls and set them to open one after the other etc for large rooms. Pretty much the same way doors work FPSC, so you can set each with remote script and set the 1st wall to the light switch and set each other wall to act as a trigger for the next in line.

Doing it that way makes it easier to set the nice lights on clunk sound (if needed) with perfect timing.

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Kravenwolf
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Posted: 10th Jun 2010 02:19
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Quote: "Kind of disappointing that you can't turn on/off static lights, oh well, will have to try some work arounds like you have mentioned."


Two methods that I've used in the past to get around this delima were (a) a black HUD that appears on the screen when the lights are 'switched off', and disappears when the lights are 'turned back on'. This of course, can only simulate areas that will succomb to total darkness when the lights go out. The other method;(b) a trigger zone that drops/teleports the player back and forth between two identical rooms with different lightmaps when the 'light switch' is toggled. This method, unlike the HUD approach, allows you to adjust the light settings to your liking. However, it does add more polygons to your level.

Kravenwolf

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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 10th Jun 2010 12:06
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I never thought of teleporting the player to an identical room, that seems almost perfect and a lot easier to do. The only thing that could spoil this, is that FPSC will play sounds through walls no matter what, so if I have a sound in the first room with the lights off, then I'll probably hear it in the light up room. Hopefully this is getting fixed soon XD.

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Kravenwolf
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Posted: 10th Jun 2010 12:22 Edited at: 10th Jun 2010 12:30
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Quote: "only thing that could spoil this, is that FPSC will play sounds through walls no matter what, so if I have a sound in the first room with the lights off, then I'll probably hear it in the light up room. "


Run a script with the light switch trigger that stops the music/sound when the player toggles the light switch again. I can't think of an example as to how this might be a problem, though. If the player turns on a radio while the lights are out, and then runs to the switch while the radio is still playing; the sound file for the radio should'nt stop because the lights are turned back on. Unless, you want the lights and radio to be running on the same circuit, in which case, the aformentioned solution would take care of it.

An admitted flaw with this method is that any dynamic entities in either of the two rooms will not update with their counterpart. A bedtray on a counter knocked on the floor by the player in the dark room, will be back on the counter when the lights come back on. If a zombie approaches the player while the lights are turned off (room B), and the player runs over to the light switch to turn the lights on (room A); that zombie will disappear in front of the player's eyes. However, this doesn't necassarily need to be looked at as a flaw

Kravenwolf

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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 10th Jun 2010 19:04
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Is it possible to spawn lights? And if so, can static lights be spawned? That way I could spawn the light on the first use of the switch, then destroy on the second and have it repeat this process.

If not I'll just try some of the ideas here, or just scrap turning on a light and have it unlock a door instead.

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crispex
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Posted: 10th Jun 2010 19:54
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I think scripting engines like Project Blue can handle all those things, though I'm not entirely sure.

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Kravenwolf
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Posted: 10th Jun 2010 22:17
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Quote: "Is it possible to spawn lights? And if so, can static lights be spawned? "


You can only spawn dynamic lights.

Kravenwolf

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