Zone Light Help

[legacy-Dark Elf]

So I'm using light maps to light my level (cause I'm using GI). I'm using 2K4. Obviously, when my character enters a dark part of the map, she stays brightly lit (cause there's no real lights). My level is all static meshes (except for the skybox).

Is there a way to section off the map with a zone or volume and then use a zone info to control the light in different areas? What sort of brush would I use if I didn't need the thing to render? I just need something to define the lighting for the zone in that area.

Thanks if anyone can help,

Adam

[legacy-Ein Stein]

Sorry, you mean you've baked lighting into your textures and are "lighting" the level that way?

That's cool, all you need to do is set the meshes to bUnlit = True in their properties, and then go through adding lights where they need to be. So your meshes be unaffected by the lights, but players, weapons, etc etc etc are all lit properly.

[legacy-Dark Elf]

We plan on having 30 characters or so in the level, all seen at the same time. So we're trying to be efficient.

I guess either way (zone lights or regular lights) its all still lighting. Would one way be less expensive (frame rate wise) than the other?

Thanks for your reply!

Adam

[legacy-Dark Elf]

Yeah, the level is all lit with light maps.

[legacy-DaJMasta]

technically the zone light would be a little faster, cause zone light has pretty much no calculations to it, but it would make bad transitions between light and dark. UnrealEd would bake the lightmaps the same way if u made light actors there, they would just be slightly slower because of some calculations to find out how bright the character is. Luckily all these calculations are raytraces, at relitively large spacings (simmilar to terrain lighting), so it does not impact preformance much. By the way, the engine is effecient enough that this kind of lighting problem would only minimally impact decent machines, using projectors, more meshes and such would make much more of a difference, so dont worry about it.

[legacy-Dark Elf]

Hey, thanks for the info! I appreciate the technical information a lot. That is very helpful. Exactly the kind of thing I need to know.

Adam