Sun?

[DMShadow]

Hey guys, I've had your page bookedmarked for awhile but this is my first post. I was wondering if you could give me some help with my lighting? Oh K, so I was working on this map. I read the IW web page about how to insert a sun. I did what they told me to but for some reason the program won't read my .txt files. I need to copy another file and edit it. I had to with my .gsc and my .csv. I didn't have any other .sun files and naming it .sun doesn't work.... My work around for this was to open the mp_test.map delete everything and go from there. I don't think the mp_test.map use's a .sun file but it's in the worldspawn. I was able to get my lighting to sorta work from there.

So my question now is what settings do what? My outdoor lighting has a blue tint. Sorta like a moon light. I'm using sky_pripyat. The sun in that sky is located about x 1808 y 2018 on my map. Would they be my settings for sundirection? I want it coming away from that point? I'm a little confused on why each value has 3 #'s behind it. Not sure on the differance between _color and suncolor. Also, ambient is set to 0?

My light preview and in game lighting has a pretty drastic differance.

my settings look like this

_color .4 .3 .2
ambient 0
classname worldspawn
contrastGain .40
diffusefraction 0.40
suncolor 0 0 0
sundifusecolor 0.5 0.6 1
sundirection 900 900 0
sunlight 5
sunRadiosity 1

While compileing the map I also get.

"WARNING Increasing sunradiosity from 1 to 2 to match ambient + diffuse"

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Drofder2004]

To get started, I have always 'copied' a official maps wolrldspawn settings. Remember, there are people employed to simply adjust the lighting on maps.

Linky

Copy those settings from one of the similar maps to your own.

I have never used 'sunRadiosity' and some of your values seem way out.
Direction - 900 900 0

Direction is a basis of 3D direction, the maximum any of those values can be is 359.

(x, y, z)
x - Between (-90) and (90)
y - Between (0) and (180)
z - Always 0.

Sunlight of 5 seems extremely high, between 0.5 and 2 is usually recommended.

Also, create a GRID file.
Linky

[DMShadow]

Thank you for that link! I did create a GRID file. Question about that..Does it always say error in game when you're running around eating them dots? The error comes up in pink and it's followed by ********** or something similar? Thanks again for your help.

[Drofder2004]

I would need to know the exact error.
To save some time there is a texture called "lightgrid". If you make large boxes in areas around your map where the player CAN travel, it will save you a lot of time 'eating' the dots.
Also, when making a grid file, put your run speed (or timescale) up to x3 and save yourself a long process

[DMShadow]

The error must be normal, it does update the grid file so I'm not to worried about it. Thanks tho
Next step is the minimap and the loading screen. Uhg..hope I can find some good tuts. Took me a few days to do the custom decals. Hopefully I'll be done bye the end of the week. Thanks for your help!

[Drofder2004]

No problem.