By the way, I like the red light projecting on the wall. That kind of thing is great for diminishing the rigid, cubical look of a map.

Quote:
ReepBlue's excellent Portal Warm Textures (get 'em here!)

NO WAI!!!

(Please fix my name to "reepblue". Thanks. )

EDIT: Also, I was 'thinking' of adding an example map on how to properly light the maps. If I do, I'll let you know.

By the way, I re-added the red stripes; there was a blocklight brush I'd put in to dim lighting from a pit. However, I took it out, and I found out it didn't actually look all that bad.

By the way, I looked at your screen shots on VDC. Looks nice, but I hope those invisible point lights are only temporary. The one on the "cube container" in the third screen is OK, since that is a plausible light source, but the white ones on the other screens look quite unrealistic.

A great way to light up a dark area is to have a bright light shine from an observation room. It will project the lines from the window frame onto the floor and walls which looks very nice, and this can be used to attract the player's eye to certain things in the room. Valve also does this a lot in the original levels.

reepblue wrote:
If you use blue lights like the testchamb_a_05.vmf example map has and Portals color correction, Your map will look a lot better. . .

Blue lights as in...the point lights? Or the lights ringing the ceiling? If you're referring to the latter, I'm working on putting those in where needed right now.
And color_correction entities are already placed in all the maps. Am I doing something wrong with them?

If you already have a color_correction, make sure it has the right lookup table set, otherwise it won't do anything. (Somehow I feel I'm again telling you something you already know, but hey... )

Mek wrote:
He meant that light entities in Hammer have a default color value of "white". There is an article on VDC regarding mapping for Portal with the recommended light color for light entities in Portal - it's a blueish one.

I was aware of the usage of bluish lights used in the testchambers, and I don't think I've left a light at its default value in any of the maps. I use a gray color, because it's pretty close to the blue used in Valve's maps; I also like the way it looks. Thank you for the advice, though--I'll try modifying all the gray lights to the shade of blue used in testchamber_a_05 and see how it turns out.

HMW wrote:
In the testchamb_a_05.vmf example map, there are some entities near the entrance that you may want to copy and paste into your map...

Thanks for the heads up. I already put color_corrections and shadow_controls at the beginning of the maps. I missed the env_tonemap_controllers, though, and those have been added. I checked just to make sure, and all the values for the trio are identical to those used in Valve's maps (or at least testchamber_a_05), and the lookup table is indeed testchamber.raw.

On a side note, while trying to find the VDC article containing the light values mentioned by Mek (couldn't find it--no big deal, but could you point me in the right direction?), I read up on pointfiles. Heeding the advice, I have now gone through and corrected any leaks; there were no actual gaps, just accidental func_details. I don't know if it will make a lighting difference (as there was only one in each map), but, hey, the fewer errors the better!

WinstonSmith wrote:
there was only one [leak] in each map

Be sure to re-compile and check the point file again when you have fixed the leak. It will only report one leak at a time, but your map may contain more than one. Leaks in maps are a lot like mosquitoes. You swat one, turn off the light, go back to bed, then the next one turns up...

You can also easily check if a map has leaks by using "noclip" in-game and move outside the map. You should be able to see the inside of the rooms, like a diorama. If you see all the outer walls of your map, you still have a leak somewhere.

As for the lights, the only point light I use is for the observation rooms. Valve uses the colour "183 204 218 800" for these.

For the light strips in the ceiling: LIGHTS/LIGHT_RECESSEDCOOL002
For block hole lights: LIGHTS/WHITE001.

If you have no leaks, the light from these textures will "bounce" off other surfaces and cause a pretty realistic lighting, so you don't need to manually place fill lights.

HMW wrote:
Be sure to re-compile and check the point file again when you have fixed the leak. It will only report one leak at a time, but your map may contain more than one. Leaks in maps are a lot like mosquitoes. You swat one, turn off the light, go back to bed, then the next one turns up...

Not for me. You just map neatly and you will be ok.

But yeah, from the image, looked like you had a leak, but I thought you fixed it already so I did not say anything.

WinstonSmith wrote:
On a side note, while trying to find the VDC article containing the light values mentioned by Mek (couldn't find it--no big deal, but could you point me in the right direction?)

I could't find it either now, sorry... but you can look up the color values in the sample test chamber vmf anyway..

reepblue wrote:
Not for me. You just map neatly and you will be ok.

Does mapping neatly get rid of mosquitoes? That would be nice

But yes, this experience is from the days when I just started out mapping and was placing brush entity centre handles outside the map, func_detail outer walls etc.

Once you get better at mapping, this problem pretty much goes away.

WinstonSmith wrote:
Mek wrote:

He meant that light entities in Hammer have a default color value of "white". There is an article on VDC regarding mapping for Portal with the recommended light color for light entities in Portal - it's a blueish one.

I was aware of the usage of bluish lights used in the testchambers, and I don't think I've left a light at its default value in any of the maps. I use a gray color, because it's pretty close to the blue used in Valve's maps; I also like the way it looks. Thank you for the advice, though--I'll try modifying all the gray lights to the shade of blue used in testchamber_a_05 and see how it turns out.

Done! I tested it out using the bluish color; it works much better. I'll change the lights to the new color throughout the maps.