Mesh, BSP, Terrain - each lighting in their own way

[legacy-BabyNuke]

See this picture:



The normally lit part is BSP. The dark part is a mesh. And I've got the same problem all the time. Meshes and terrain are lit different from BSP, thus creating very ugly scenes. In this case, there is a lantarn (not in the picture here) that gives off orange light. Yet, the mesh has different lighting plans. Same goes for terrain. I sometimes have bright walls on pitch black terrain. It's a real annoyance :down:

[legacy-sneaky_usb]

Originally posted by BabyNuke
I sometimes have bright walls on pitch black terrain. It's a real annoyance :down:

I'll bet your terrain actor is being covered by something.

Not too long ago, someone had a map with a small building directly over the terrain actor.. his terrain would not light at all.
Once he moved the building - all was well.

Had something to do with the zone it was in, I believe.

-=sneak

[legacy-BabyNuke]

Nope, nothing covering it. The terrain isn't pitch black everywhere, just on some places.

[Angel_Mapper]

Yeah, 2k3 lighting is teh suck. I usually end up doing a lot of bShadowCast=False, bSpecialLit=True and setting light effects to Negative to get the lighting right.

[legacy-Bonehed316]

set a wee light in the middle of the archway with a radius of about 8 or 12. meshes are vertex lit, and that black wall isnt being lit by the light inside the room. add a light IN the archway, and it will light. or it should, lol.

also make sure none of your vertices are embedded in anything else. also double vertices, or 0 poly surfaces can cause problems too.

[legacy-BabyNuke]

Ther is a light behind the camera (you can't see it here, but you notice the walls around it being lit), that should lit the mesh. Anyway, I just gave it ambient glow for now, doesn't look too bad, but there are more situations in just about every map I make like this one.

Also, my meshes and terrain seem to refuse the colored lighting.

Edit: I fixed the problem, and I don't even know what I did.

[Radiosity]

You can set bStaticLighting to false in Display on the mesh to make it light better, but it will probably look too bright and also won't cast or receive a shadow any more. However, there is a better 'workaround' that I appear to be the only person to have found

Go to the collision props of the mesh and set bBlockZeroExtentTraces to false. ZeroExtents are things like projectile fire, coronas and lights. Since meshes use vertex lighting, if you set this to false it'll mean that light can travel through the mesh, therefore hitting vertices that might otherwise be hidden from a light source. Obviously weapons will fire through the mesh too though, so add blocking volumes around the mesh, and set the above property to True (it's false by default on blocking volumes). Now do a full rebuild.

You'll notice that the mesh now lights nicely and still blocks coronas and weapon fire This method won't work in all situations, but for most things you should be fine. And here's an example - looking at the girders:

Before:


And After adding volumes etc:

[legacy-BabyNuke]

I just disable shadowcasting for that.

[Radiosity]

Eh? Disable Shadowcasting for what?

edit: Ok, I see what you mean, it does the same as StaticLighting basically. However, you get awful looking meshes using that, which you don't if you use my method, since the meshes light correctly without going horribly bright, and of course you still get proper shadows cast from the mesh as well

[legacy-Ironhide]

Originally posted by DarkSaber

Go to the collision props of the mesh and set bBlockZeroExtentTraces to false. ZeroExtents are things like projectile fire, coronas and lights. Since meshes use vertex lighting, if you set this to false it'll mean that light can travel through the mesh, therefore hitting vertices that might otherwise be hidden from a light source. Obviously weapons will fire through the mesh too though, so add blocking volumes around the mesh, and set the above property to True (it's false by default on blocking volumes). Now do a full rebuild.

OMFG

that roxxors mah boxxors

i love you darksaber:up: :up:

[Radiosity]

My pleasure