I have been playing around with elevators a bit and have been unable to properly light the little bit of floor and ceiling directly around the elevator.

I have even pulled the lift right out of the sample map and it doesn't seem to light properly either.

I have all the necessary light strips set up in conjunction with the prop_static of the outer walls, but they don't seem to be giving off light.

Any ideas?

Here is a comparison shot to better show the problem I am having. As you can see my lighting strips don't seem to be giving off any light.

Disable Shadows > Yes
(on the elevator and room models)

By disabling shadows on 'elevator_caps.mdl' (and only on 'elevator_caps.mdl') I am able to get a effect that is similar to the official maps, but I can't seem to get the shadows right yet.

I'll keep messing around with different setting to try and figure it out.

I just really wish the demo map had everything set up the same way as it is in the game.

Does compiling with Vrad on normal instead of fast change things? I think I did the lighting in my elevators the same way as in the demo map, and its pretty close as far as I remember. Lots of portal's lights have Linear set to 20000 or something, which changes the way it acts a lot.

Interitus wrote:
Does compiling with Vrad on normal instead of fast change things?

Yes, in a nutshell it does less bounces, and the ones it does it does them faster (a/k/a more poorly).

Check for leaks.

Darksoul wrote:
Check for leaks.

Not the issue.

Thanks for playing.

After trying a lot of different ideas, I determined that the 'elevator_caps.mdl' was the culprit of all the trouble of the "wrong" shadows.

Simply disabling shadows works as an easy fix, but it didn't give the exact look of the official maps so I kept looking for a solution (and the real problem).

And the problem is: By default, shadow cast by proc_statics are generated at compile time from the COLLISION MODEL and not at polygon precision.

Once I figured this out, all I had to do was add the parameter '-StaticPropPolys' to the '$light_exe' command. Now everything looks fan-freaking-tastic.

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback in this thread. It gave me a place to start and kept me going.

Aslo - I need a really long break now.

taco wrote:
After trying a lot of different ideas, I determined that the 'elevator_caps.mdl' was the culprit of all the trouble of the "wrong" shadows.

Simply disabling shadows works as an easy fix, but it didn't give the exact look of the official maps so I kept looking for a solution (and the real problem).

And the problem is: By default, shadow cast by proc_statics are generated at compile time from the COLLISION MODEL and not at polygon precision.

Once I figured this out, all I had to do was add the parameter '-StaticPropPolys' to the '$light_exe' command. Now everything looks fan-freaking-tastic.

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback in this thread. It gave me a place to start and kept me going.

Aslo - I need a really long break now.

This man speaks the truth.