Quote from ChickenMobile on August 16, 2012, 7:13 am

Interlopers.net wrote:

To stop this error, remove lights, dont give the light names unless you need to, make sure certain lights dont shine on the face (max_shining distance or by blocking it with brushes) or simply dont use that much switchable lights. Dynamic lights are not used by vrad.exe thus dont count. Lights with the same names are counted as the same lights. Find the location of the error using the coordinates.

So what it is saying is to remove or 'un-name' light entities. Generally having named lights and/or lights with effects such as flickering create a light style and greatly increases your file size.

Quote from josepezdj on August 16, 2012, 7:32 am

Shane, there are already many threads about this in the forum. Please search before posting a new topic. Thanks

When you compile, vrad is in charge of storing a thing called lightmaps, a resulting texture applied to each brush's side that simulates lighting on each of those sides. You can have a max of 4 light styles reaching each side of a given brush, not more (or you'll receive that warning message). Normally it doesn't cause much visual issues, but sometimes it does; prevent it if possible.

Light styles mean ONLY the color/brightness of the light (the 3 first values you put in Brightness properties); so you can have for example 230 242 102 200 and 230 242 102 100 and they would count only as 1 light style.

Commonly, this issue appears when you name light entities because what vrad does is to store 2 lightmaps per brush face: one when the light is ON and other when it's OFF. This would be fired usually near the cube_droppers, why? because into them there are 2 light entities named and with I/O (one is blue shades to indicate it's inactive / and other orangish to indicate the dropper is active). This would suppose 4 light styles already! Only using 1 light more of your choice near it, and the warning message will be fired when you compile.

EDIT:

Read this awesome compendium about lighting by Nacimota as well...

Quote from Shane on August 16, 2012, 8:30 am

I don't have any named light entities in my map. I do have a flickering laser field texture but I have used laser fields in other maps with no errors. I don't have any flickering or switchable lights in my map either.

Also, is there any way to jump to the specific locations mentioned?

Quote from josepezdj on August 16, 2012, 9:18 am

Shane wrote:

I don't have any named light entities in my map. I do have a flickering laser field texture but I have used laser fields in other maps with no errors. I don't have any flickering or switchable lights in my map either.

I repeat: that could be caused by the cube droppers... Check that.

Shane wrote:

Also, is there any way to jump to the specific locations mentioned?

Ofc, in hammer go to VIEW > Go to Coordinates ... then introduce the ones the log tells you.

Quote from Shane on August 16, 2012, 9:28 am

You're right it is the cube droppers, specifically a couple of laser cube droppers I put into my map. Can it be fixed without me removing the dropper? Specifically it centres around a dropper I have behind a sheet of glass and next to a laser field.

And again, sorry I'm still feeling my way with Hammer I'm trying to teach myself so I appreciate everyone's help

Quote from josepezdj on August 16, 2012, 9:48 am

Man, you shouldn't apologize ever for asking for help, and less in this forum! remember that

You can do several things (only if that warning message REALLY annoyes you, balance the option of not touching anything if into that area everything looks good, ok? ):

1. Try to erase surrounding lights, as for instance that one of the laserfield (if you ever placed one)... as long as the func_brush is being rendered as a "constant glow", it'll look fine. Or check out for other surrounding lights and try erasing one of them.

2. Edit the cube_dropper instance (open its properties window and go to the bottom left corner button that says: "Edit Instance") and save it under a different name. This way you can go into it, erase those 2 lights I mentioned (blue and orange) and that's it.

Quote from Shane on August 16, 2012, 10:57 am

Good point, the tutorial on Valve's dev wiki did encourage me to place a red light at the centre of the field which could be contributing to the problem, I'll try removing that first to see if it helps.

Also, do you have any idea what texture is used for the vertical laser fields in the PTI editor? At the moment I'm using the normal one but obviously it looks a bit stupid on ceiling and floor mounted vertical laser trap

Quote from Mevious on August 16, 2012, 12:08 pm

josepezdj wrote:

Light styles mean ONLY the color/brightness of the light (the 3 first values you put in Brightness properties); so you can have for example 230 242 102 200 and 230 242 102 100 and they would count only as 1 light style.

This has nothing to do with light styles. Having two lights [255 0 0 200] and [0 255 0 200] (red and green) right next to each other will still only be one light style assuming they aren't named or flickering.

Quote from Shane on August 16, 2012, 12:17 pm

The light itself wasn't flickering but the texture I used for the laserfield was.