Dimming Light Texture

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jwien001
36 Posts
Posted Sep 20, 2009
I've got a light recessed in a wall, with the recessed portion textured with lights/white008. However, this is a bit to bright for my liking. Is there anyway to dim this texture (i.e. put something in front of it, change the texture itself)?
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Nacimota
345 Posts
Posted Sep 20, 2009
Replied 31 minutes later
You need to change the texture scale, can't remember if you increase or decrease it, i have a feeling it's increase.
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Aldéz
221 Posts
Posted Sep 21, 2009
Replied 9 hours later
Make your own material (vmt file) in the .../portal/materials folder, and make it use the same texture. Then add that material on a new line in the lights.rad file (or make your own rad-file) in the .../portal folder.

Example vmt:

UnlitGeneric // This shader will make your texture unaffected by light.
{
     "$basetexture" "lightTextures/theLightTexture" // The path to the texture
     "$surfaceprop" "no_decal" // Any type of material you want
}

Example rad:
myTextures/myLightMaterial  255 255 255 200  255 255 255 150(material_path LDR_red LDR_green LDR_blue LDR_intensity HDR_red HDR_green HDR_blue HDR_intensity)

There are good articles about this in the Valve Developer Community. If you need more detailed help, just ask.

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jwien001
36 Posts
Posted Sep 21, 2009
Replied 4 hours later
Changing the texture scale worked great. Thanks!
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Nacimota
345 Posts
Posted Sep 21, 2009
Replied 3 hours later
no worries
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Aldéz
221 Posts
Posted Sep 22, 2009
Replied 20 hours later

jwien001 wrote:
Changing the texture scale worked great. Thanks!

Are the lights at the same distance from each other as with the normal texture scale or did the scaling place them further apart?

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jwien001
36 Posts
Posted Sep 22, 2009
Replied 12 minutes later

Ald?z wrote:
Are the lights at the same distance from each other as with the normal texture scale or did the scaling place them further apart?

I'm not sure I understand your question. The problem was only with one light, and by light I mean a brush with one side textured with lights/white008. This produces a constant light across the entire face of the brush. So what multiple lights are you talking about?

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Aldéz
221 Posts
Posted Sep 22, 2009
Replied 6 hours later

I realize I didn't express myself very good. When vrad encounters a texture that's meant to give off light, it places a number of lightpoints next to it. These points are the ones emitting light, not the surface with the texture. They have an even distance to each other. So what I was asking was, are the points farther apart when you scale up the texture? If that's the case, you might end up with a noticeable drop in light intensity between the light points (like a wave pattern).

I found an example of what I meant on Google. If you look at the recessed lights on the floor to the right, you can see that the intensity of the light is uneven:

http://www.gamerbytes.com/portal052.jpg

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jwien001
36 Posts
Posted Sep 22, 2009
Replied 1 hour later
Ok, now that I understand, I think you're right. When you increase the texture scale, I believe you are enlarging and stretching the texture, therefore increasing the distance between the lightpoints, which I assume is what causes the drop in light intensity. I don't know any of this for sure, but from what you've told me it seems reasonable. What I do know for sure is: texture scale go up, light intensity go down.
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Nacimota
345 Posts
Posted Sep 22, 2009
Replied 2 hours later

Ald?z wrote:
I realize I didn't express myself very good. When vrad encounters a texture that's meant to give off light, it places a number of lightpoints next to it. These points are the ones emitting light, not the surface with the texture. They have an even distance to each other. So what I was asking was, are the points farther apart when you scale up the texture?

Yes.

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Aldéz
221 Posts
Posted Sep 23, 2009
Replied 6 hours later
Okey, good to know. Thank you both.