Ok, so... I've been working on maps for portal 2, and actually am getting at it! But one thing that just gets me stuck every time is lighting! Can anyone point me to a portal 2 sdk advanced lighting tutorial? Or help me... :3 I want to start mapping for actual purpose... I just need some help!

What kind of lighting do you want?
Skybox lighting?
Dynamic Lighting?
Fog Lighing?
Normal Lighting?
Or Wall lights lighting?

All of it. Except skybox... My maps just seem darker than normal maps should... It's not a problem, I just am lost when It comes to lighting...

Fog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz-qwPfYpbs

Dynamic Lighting (only shadow):
Compiling with
-StaticPropLighting
-textureshadow
-StaticPropPoly

Normal Lighting:
Add a light or light_spot to your map and set your colour

Glass Lights:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taKtmMYbIRY
(this is easier than the light holes from portal)

Here is my situation

First I tried this Instance... (Pretty fail-ish)

Then I tried these Panels (Instances). Which seem to give off barely any light what-so-ever (Also Fail)

Then I added normal Lights to the panels giving me this: (We're getting somewhere!)

I even tried env_projectedtexture (Nevermind)

I want my light-panels to look like this [Which in fact have no entity:lights above them, like I tried] (Good job valve...)

This is where I get frustrated

So you place the instance model of those lights you want, where you want. They don't cast any much light if no light is in the instance. Now you can do 2 things.

1: Place a Light in the middle of the model. Make its brightness about 185 225 219 100 (At the picture above i see there is used 2 lights at every model. You can do that too. You can easely see where the light is place if you look where the light casts out from the model)

2: Place a Light_spot at the same place as where you would put the light, and make it point up. I guess the brightness would be the same: 185 225 219 100

Hi,

If you find some lighting that you like or want to try out, just decompile the map that has it in, and see how Valve did it.

I hate lighting, so that's what I did to try to learn and see how to do it.

Rob.

If you think your room is too dark, just set a single "light" in the middle of the room. Don't place it at the wall, but exactly in the middle. that should really make your room brighter. The player won't notice it, but these lights are the main source of brightness. If its too bright reduce the last number in the "brightness"-property.
Then, to lighten the white panels like you showed on the picture, just take the normal lights/light_panel_x_med instances. Those emit only very less light, but enough to give these panels a nice touch.
I've also learned that if you don't change any of the quadratic/linear/constant/50%falloff/100%fallof the light will look the most natural.

Hope I could help

BrainstoneX wrote:
The player won't notice it, but these lights are the main source of brightness

Sometimes you do notice it if the room isn't that big. Then when you walk beneath it the portal gun gets lit up. That kinda annoying

Using different textures may help too, some have different volumes of reflectivity than others. Observation rooms are also a must, and are best put at high places. This way they can illuminate the usually dark ceilings and high walls. Light panels are best placed on low walls and ceilings. Looking from the pictures you provided, you may want to try the warm panel instances around the door, but the cool panel instances in the actual room. Valve usually uses the warm panel instances to draw the player's attention to certain game-play elements. You can find examples of this during the Single-player and Coop Campaigns.

Good Luck!

To make the glass lights lighter, just change the white light texture to a higher number in the face edit from .25 to 8
For me I like to add lights near entities e.g:
prop_tractor_beain, in the middle of the base, a light_spot with a blue light and change the color with an input if it reverses
Floor buttons, a small red light in the middle of the button
Doors, add a grey light_spot pointing to it
Gel droppers and cube droppers, add a grey light for the cube droppers, and use orange, blue, or white for gel droppers.
grey lights on the laser emitters
Light bridges, add a sky blue light,
Faith plates, add a grey light.

I just put a prop_static glass_light on the ceiling and a light entity under it.

Thanks All for replying... I'll decompile some maps and take a look at what valve did. Thanks for all the tips

I got it! Just made my own instances, so I could customize them...