Thoughts on lighting

TinCan

Everyone has the same complaints about the map I'm working on. Its too bright, there's nowhere for Aliens to hide, not enough dark spots blah blah blah. TBH I always thought it looked like crap in the lighting department too so last night decided to roll up my sleeves and try to figure out the lighting part. I did my usual research which is open up some good maps (Tram/Descent) and see what is different from my map. Well I noticed right off that white is not the most used color for lights, if at all. On my map every light was white. I did a quick run through of the lights on my map and changed the colors to mostly yellows or Blues and oh my god the map looks so much different now I am exited to really start "painting with lights".
So I ask you the mapping veterans to share your lighting tricks and tips. From what I can tell I will mostly be playing with the spotlight things the areaLight(ambient?) things and the normal light things. Is there a best practice? Should I avoid anything? Should I add colors to corners and stuff? Should I expect to only use custom colors or are the standard defaults ok? What about the low lighting part? I haven't added them yet is this the right time or wait until I'm satisfied with the regular lighting?
Also please share your thoughts on brightness and range, is it better to have one larger radius light cover a whole room or several smaller range? What brightness do you guys default too on average? If there is an average does it change for different colors?

Mephilles

well as @Flaterectomy taught me you should avoid using white light. A coloured light will make textures from different sets look like they belong together. Also lighting is one of the 2 tools for routing (the other ones are trims). That means the exits of the rooms and vent (vents usually have a different colour to set them apart... mostly it is orange) entrances are usually brighter and that way stand out more. Can't tell you much about the general brightness of the room. Depends how atmospheric you want your map to be. Something I need to do more aswell is using less... normal... lights and use more ambient lights. They usually are not as intense as the other lights so using them should give the map a darker feel I guess...

Tbh I would need to experiment with this aswell

Vetinari

I advice to pick a few colors as your "theme" of the map and sticking to them. Going too wild with the colors will look messy and all over the place. (hydra is an offender here. Sorry, brainfood ) However, as you noticed yourself, having too little/too bland colors looks boring (Take a look at jambi for an example). You have to find a sweet spot where the lighting (and it's color) give the map a visual identity without looking random. The official maps do this well. (veil, descent and biodome come to mind)

Mephilles

Tbh I would recommend on how official ns2 maps used to look like 2 years. They had a colour theme but put alot of small lights onto details on walls and stuff to give contrast.
Horrible for performance but damn that looked good ^^

EDIT: @IronHorse can you link your comparisn screenshots of old vs new lighting on maps here aswell

The_Welsh_Wizard

Mephilles wrote: »

Tbh I would recommend on how official ns2 maps used to look like 2 years. They had a colour theme but put alot of small lights onto details on walls and stuff to give contrast.
Horrible for performance but damn that looked good ^^

EDIT: @IronHorse can you link your comparisn screenshots of old vs new lighting on maps here aswell

It is really a shame you cannot use simple lighting without extreme FPS cost. Not even because of looks, but also because you would have way more power over the character of rooms and more control over highlighting things you want to hightlight, for example different routes etc.

Mephilles

well light is one of the 2 ways for visual routing so you kinda do highlight the routes in ns2 maps

The_Welsh_Wizard

Yea that's what I am saying, it would extremely help for taht if lights would not be so laughable performance heavy.

Kouji_San

Mephilles wrote: »

well as @Flaterectomy taught me you should avoid using white light. A coloured light will make textures from different sets look like they belong together. Also lighting is one of the 2 tools for routing (the other ones are trims). That means the exits of the rooms and vent (vents usually have a different colour to set them apart... mostly it is orange) entrances are usually brighter and that way stand out more. Can't tell you much about the general brightness of the room. Depends how atmospheric you want your map to be. Something I need to do more aswell is using less... normal... lights and use more ambient lights. They usually are not as intense as the other lights so using them should give the map a darker feel I guess...

Tbh I would need to experiment with this aswell

Hate to be that bee... buzzing around to sting ya. Wait that's suicidal, well I'll let ya off the hook than!


anyways, pure white lights can work very well if you are using it exclusively with perhaps some light blues thrown in there. Alongside a dark and grey theme. @kawak's ns_leïa was a perfect example of this, but alas the map was never finished and the screenshots in the thread are also gone.



Also be sure to check out the NS GoldSrc "post your screenshots thread", we did some amazing stuff with that old baked lighting engine. I still believe NS has a better lighting theme than NS2 due to that baked lighting compared to having to fake bounced lighting with the dynamic system in NS2

http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/97624/the-post-your-screenshots-thread/p1 (for the shots that are still online )


better yet, download and install NS and walk around in the thing (requires original Half-Life though)
Git yerself some downloads and customs maps while you're at it: http://www.brywright.co.uk/downloads/files/index.php?dir=natural-selection/

IronHorse

@Mephilles

http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2301035/#Comment_2301035