Krypt on 1/3/2005 at 22:19
Quote Posted by Mandrake
Just wondering,
Does this achieve anything different than just adding the LightHardPointOffset property and setting it to an appropriate negative value ? (Which is a lot easier) Or is there a downside to using LightHardPointOffset ? (Apart from the fact that the light is not quite casting from where it should....)
Not really, as long as all the settings on the lights are the same. It's just a matter of preference.
doctormidnight on 2/3/2005 at 03:41
OK Krypt, I think I got this. If you or someone else wants to download this and tell me if it works correctly for them, I'll consider this fixed and move on to the 8 billion other things that need fixing :wot:
Edit: What you want me to post the file too? (
http://www.sherlockholmesarmy.org/lighttestfixed.unr)
Krypt on 2/3/2005 at 04:57
Quote Posted by doctormidnight
OK Krypt, I think I got this. If you or someone else wants to download this and tell me if it works correctly for them, I'll consider this fixed and move on to the 8 billion other things that need fixing :wot:
Yep, looks like you fixed it. You should set bLightOn to False on the lamppost though. I saw you set all the light properties down to 0, but you can never be too sure that it's not eating up any performance.
doctormidnight on 2/3/2005 at 05:23
Quote Posted by Krypt
Yep, looks like you fixed it. You should set bLightOn to False on the lamppost though. I saw you set all the light properties down to 0, but you can never be too sure that it's not eating up any performance.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but won't that turn the orange bulbs black? That's not what I'm trying to do.
Krypt on 2/3/2005 at 06:07
Quote Posted by doctormidnight
Maybe I'm wrong here, but won't that turn the orange bulbs black? That's not what I'm trying to do.
No, bLightOn just shuts off the light, regardless of what any of the other properties are set to. The glow on light meshes actually has no link to the light it emits. The only way to turn off the glow on the mesh is by setting Render>EmissiveScale to 0, I believe.
Mandrake on 2/3/2005 at 06:17
Quote Posted by doctormidnight
OK Krypt, I think I got this. If you or someone else wants to download this and tell me if it works correctly for them, I'll consider this fixed and move on to the 8 billion other things that need fixing :wot:
Edit: What you want me to post the file too? (
http://www.sherlockholmesarmy.org/lighttestfixed.unr)
Doesn't seem 100% fixed to me, there is a line approximately south west where the light gem dims right down. If you turn CastShadows back on for the lamp post you'll see its a shadow of the post itself because you have the light source next to it instead of inside it.
Did you try just adding the LightHardPointOffset property and setting z to -100 ? That seems to work pretty well, and is much simpler than seperating the light source from the model altogether. Heres a version of the map where I've changed that. (And thrown in a bunch of AI's and player inventory for fun :cheeky: )
(
http://homepages.igrin.co.nz/simon/games/tds/lighttest-sjb.unr)
By the way I notice you've added a ambient light level, not sure if you plan to keep that or not, but I find that the original deep shadows looked a lot cooler than having an ambient level of light. One of the things people complained about with the TDS OM's was too much ambient light compared to Thief1/2 making things look washed out, and I tend to agree - the really deep shadows look very cool.
Rather than an overall ambient light level, a few low brightness, non-shadow casting ambient light sources sprinkled around in areas where you need to see where you're going might look better...
(I realise you're probably just experimenting around of course, but the lighting of your original map made me go "that looks cool")
doctormidnight on 2/3/2005 at 06:45
Quote Posted by Krypt
No, bLightOn just shuts off the light, regardless of what any of the other properties are set to. The glow on light meshes actually has no link to the light it emits. The only way to turn off the glow on the mesh is by setting Render>EmissiveScale to 0, I believe.
This is what happens when I add bLightOn and change it to "false." Right after I did it, I did a build, then closed T3Ed and opened it back up to make sure I was seeing things correctly. I'll have to poke around a little more, but since I've already made the light for the pole as a seperate entity, I'd like to keep it around and use it.
Inline Image:
http://www.sherlockholmesarmy.org/blightonfalse.jpgdoctormidnight on 2/3/2005 at 06:50
Quote Posted by Mandrake
Doesn't seem 100% fixed to me, there is a line approximately south west where the light gem dims right down. If you turn CastShadows back on for the lamp post you'll see its a shadow of the post itself because you have the light source next to it instead of inside it.
Did you try just adding the LightHardPointOffset property and setting z to -100 ? That seems to work pretty well, and is much simpler than seperating the light source from the model altogether. Heres a version of the map where I've changed that. (And thrown in a bunch of AI's and player inventory for fun :cheeky: )
(
http://homepages.igrin.co.nz/simon/games/tds/lighttest-sjb.unr)
By the way I notice you've added a ambient light level, not sure if you plan to keep that or not, but I find that the original deep shadows looked a lot cooler than having an ambient level of light. One of the things people complained about with the TDS OM's was too much ambient light compared to Thief1/2 making things look washed out, and I tend to agree - the really deep shadows look very cool.
Rather than an overall ambient light level, a few low brightness, non-shadow casting ambient light sources sprinkled around in areas where you need to see where you're going might look better...
(I realise you're probably just experimenting around of course, but the lighting of your original map made me go "that looks cool")
OK, that map crashed after about 10 seconds, which is a shame because I was totally going to pull a jack move on that RatBeast. As you can see from my previous post, there's some confusion about what does what, so I'll give your method a try, perhaps by combining it with the method I'm already using "dual lights." For the brief moment I saw them in-game, I didn't see anything wrong with the method you used.
The ambient light level will be going back down, but not to zero; that's a tad drastic, I think 4-6 is a good "creepy" range. Besides, if I ever need more visibility, I can just hit the "SuperBrightness" button on my P95F+ :thumb:
Krypt on 2/3/2005 at 06:51
Huh, strange. I thought for sure that bLightOn could only effect the actual light the actor emits. Well I stand corrected then. Setting the radius to 0 should be enough anyway.
Mandrake on 2/3/2005 at 07:02
Quote Posted by doctormidnight
OK, that map crashed after about 10 seconds, which is a shame because I was totally going to pull a jack move on that RatBeast. As you can see from my previous post, there's some confusion about what does what, so I'll give your method a try, perhaps by combining it with the method I'm already using "dual lights." For the brief moment I saw them in-game, I didn't see anything wrong with the method you used.
Did you get a big viktoria error message with looping sound when it crashed ? I sometimes get that too when AI's say certain things, and not just on this map. It seems to be a bug in the looping of a few of the sound files that only affects the version of T3 that we use to launch from the editor. So the crash will only happen at random depending on what the AI's say. (Assuming this is the problem you're seeing)
Try creating a shortcut on your desktop that has the target box set to:
C:\Games\Thief3Edit\System\T3MainReleaseVersion.exe autoplay
This will launch the most recently built/run map (called autoplay.gmp) but using the standard version of the executable instead of the special debug build.
This has the advantage of giving much better framerates, giving you sound in full screen, and not crashing when buggy looped sounds are played :cheeky: The disadvantage is it doesn't have the debug console.
Unfortunately clicking Build All doesn't build the necessary gmp file, you have to do a build all, then use the joystick button to launch the debug version of the game, then exit out, THEN run the shortcut, for any new changes to apply.
I havn't found out yet how to get the editor to build the gmp file without launching the game directly, or how to edit the command line options that the editor calls...
As to the lamp post, I can't remember whether I left Cast Shadows enabled or disabled on the lamp post - either way no bogus shadows are cast, and the light gem works properly, the main difference would be that if you leave cast shadows enabled, and a torch guard walks past, (which I was planning to try) then his torch should cast a shadow past the lamp post if the lamp was off.
With the lamp on, it would be so bright that you probably wouldn't see any shadow, so you may as well have Cast Shadows off for the lamp post to improve framerate, provided that the light is always on...
Quote:
The ambient light level will be going back down, but not to zero; that's a tad drastic, I think 4-6 is a good "creepy" range. Besides, if I ever need more visibility, I can just hit the "SuperBrightness" button on my P95F+ :thumb:
Ok cool. Yeah less than 10 is ok. Thief2 had a very faint barely visible outline in completely "dark" areas, but a lot darker than is the norm in the TDS OM's.
