Help with lighting

[Vectorspace]

I am attempting to learn how to make maps in UnrealEd for UT3.

I've subtracted myself a room and a corridor, and added some catwalks high up in the room. I've applied materials to give those objects texture.

Now, I'm working on lighting. But I need some help.


I have a cylindrical corridor, with 3 light points along each wall. I increase the brightness and radius, and I decrease the falloff exponent so those 6 lights light the corridor very brightly.

If I click Build > Lighting with BSP and Static selected, the lighting goes, strange...

The surface the light points are actually sitting on is well-lit, but absolutely everything else is completely unlit. If I Build > Geometry for current level it undoes it and the lights work again.

Screenshots:
Before building:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vectorspace/light1.jpg

After:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vectorspace/light2.jpg

Can anyone explain what I'm doing wrong?


P.S. Do you always have to use materials rather than simply textures now?
P.P.S. Can you group objects together so you can select them all with a single click?

[HykCraft]

It would be nice to actually see WHERE in your level your light actors are.

1. You need to use materials FIRST before using textures in Unreal Editor 3. This is the new process.

2. I think you use CTRL or CTRL SHIFT LEFT CLICK on the items you want selected together, then go into the Generic Browser > Groups Tab > Edit > New Group > "type a name" > click OK > now you can select multiple objects that are in a predefined group.

[Vectorspace]

The light actors are visible in the screenshots, barely. I didn't notice how hard to see they were after I made the images.

You can still just see them, half way up the two curved walls, three on each side. Here is the wireframe view of the same corridor showing their positions:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vectorspace/light3.jpg

I think its because I'm potting the light actors directly on the wall surface (select surface, right-click on it, Add Actor > Add Light (Point). I subtracted a chunk out of the wall, effectively making the three light actors on the right side float in free space, and they worked.

So, all I need to do is move the light actors away from the wall. How do I do that? I can't seem to move them... Ctrl+Left Click allows me to move meshes, the brush, and the coloured arrows that appear when you click on the light actor, but not the light actors themselves

[Wowbagger]

Your lights are inside the wall thats why it looks like that.
In Top view selsect the lights and move them a little bit towards the middle so that they come clear of the wall.

Edit: bah! this was old and probably solved ages ago :)
Ah well, hopefully it will help someone else on a searchingspree ;)