Best way to light the outdoors?

[Mikemc]

If you have an outdoor area, what's the best method of lighting it? Sunlight or texture light? Or just one big bulb?

- Mike

[Le Ray [Q2C]]

I always put a box around my map. Then, I make all faces of the inside of that box my sky. Then, I give these faces a light value, which lights my map.

[m]

Jul 27, 2009 1:35:42 GMT -5 Mikemc said:

If you have an outdoor area, what's the best method of lighting it? Sunlight or texture light? Or just one big bulb?

- Mike

What atmosphere are you going for?

You can do as LeRay suggested (I use this method/style more or less in every map, mixed with other forms and sources). That method/style works great for nighttime settings and space maps. You can use different colored texures on each 'face' of your sky box to lend a different colored ambient glow, or...

You use a source and a target and getl hard variences between shadows and lighted areas. I don't care for the 'jaggy' shadows so I've seldom resorted to this. Musashi was/is a pro at making this work. or...

You can use arghrad and go with the -minlighta or if you are using arghrad3 you can use the -ambienta. Pick a low number (2-8) so you don't end up blowing out all of the shadows or with too 'flat' a lighting look.

If you want more detailed info on the arghrad dealio, I'd be happy to share what I know/do as well as an easy to use pre-made batch file to help you along.

I'm sure there's more options, none that come to mind at the moment though...

[Mikemc]

Anything outside "_sunlight" or not within QuArK is completely over my head. I am aware of the good old command line but have never used it for compiling - I'd much rather something else do the work for me
I think I will start with the lit skybox and then revert back to _sunlight as I am familiar with them. Too much hassle and I'll drop out again..

Thanks for all the tips though, I have a nice sh*tty idea for a backup map if this falls through.

- Mike

[Mikemc]

Ok, on my second map I am using a lights texture set to 5000-10000 and there's lava. But for whatever reason I cannot figure out the worldspawn thing to add an ambient light to get rid of the darks corners :(

[X7[Q2C]]

Try the _sun_ambient in the worldspawn.

ArghRad Mamual
arghrad.planetquake.gamespy.com/manual/index.html

Sunlight
arghrad.planetquake.gamespy.com/manual/sun.html

This sunlight option involves a type of ambient lighting. This ambient sunlight value will be added to all points that can see any lit sky surfaces, even if the actual sunlight does not shine there. This is generally used to brighten up the sun's shadows. Low "_sun_ambient" values tend to look the most natural, as high values generate prominant, unrealistic light/shadows. The color of the ambient lighting will be derived from the color of all of the suns.
Example:

{
"classname" "worldspawn"
"_sun_ambient" "20"

"_sun_ambient" "# # #"

This special alternate form allows you to explicitly specify the ambient sunlight color. The value is specified as three separate brightnesses: red, green, and blue, respectively. It is NOT an RGB color value, it is three separate brightness values.

Example:

{
"classname" "worldspawn"
"_sun_ambient" "20 10 0"

X7

[peeweerota]

x7 said:

ArghRad Mamual
arghrad.planetquake.gamespy.com/manual/index.html

If this were turned into a cracker, would it be a mamogram?