After spending hours on getting my elevator made I compiled my map and started the game. When I spawned, my whole map spawned dark... This has never happened to me before. When I walk around the map, I see that the lights I put next to the prop light, light up, but they don't light up the whole map. I don't know what I did wrong, but the last thing I did was took this brush off from the top of the map to make a new hole for my elevator and then I got rid of this big hint box I made. (I don't know what hint does, but that's not why I am here)

I searched on Google along with the site and all I got was people talking about panels should be spawned in the open position to let light into part of the map. But this is not the problem. Please help...

Unless the light you used is dynamic. It will not follow the lift and light it up with it.

To check if the lighting is working correctly do a full compile. I know this sounds silly but make sure that you check your lights brightness and max distance it can cast light. Most probably your lights are 'conking it'.

Yeah sorry, I forgot to mention that, I already tried doing both a full compile and the slowest one possible as well. Before, my whole map was lit very well. I have a good 12 "sections/chambers" inside my map and this all occured when I took my brush from the top of the map and placed my elevator in it. The elevator already has a light that is inside. This elevator tho is far away from the point of spawning.

hmz strange; it seems like brushes aren't lit but models are.
You said you removed the brush from the top and then this happened? Did you have a big box around your map?
I think it's a good idea to share you vmf so we can look into it, try to figure out what's wrong.

My map is in a big box and I know saying this might draw some attention, but I really don't want to just share my map with everyone to see. Is there anything else you can offer to help fix this problem...

does your map leak at all? I can see how a leak could affect your leafs and not create correct lighting.

chickenmobile wrote:
does your map leak at all? I can see how a leak could affect your leafs and not create correct lighting.

^^ what he said
also, please never ever ever surround your map in a box again.... try deleting the box and compiling... you'll probably have a leak
so click [map]->[Load Pointfile], and it will take you to your first leak, do this again and again and again, until you have sealed your map, then see if you still have a lighting problem...also keep us informed

I agree with ben; although finding all the leaks will probably take quite a while; but if you worked on a grid it shouldn't really take too long. If you didn't work on a grid: this is why it is a good idea to work properly on a grid.

The advantage of getting rid of the box is that it's a lot better for performance, less lag and faster compile times. Building in a box should be avoided as much as possible. The only case where you need a box is in cave johnson maps where you can see the outsides and/or in enrichment spheres.

For clean/destroyed/wheatly style boxes are not-done. Because lag and compile times. Even in my big underground maps I try to keep the number of boxes as little as possible and the boxes themself as little as possible as well. Once again for the performance and for the compile time.

BenVlodgi wrote:
^^ what he said
also, please never ever ever surround your map in a box again.... try deleting the box and compiling... you'll probably have a leak
so click [map]->[Load Pointfile], and it will take you to your first leak, do this again and again and again, until you have sealed your map, then see if you still have a lighting problem...also keep us informed

Ok I tried doing what you said, but when I click on [Load Pointfile] it brings me to an "Open" screen where maps are seen and I click open, but it says map can not be found. Also, I wanted to make this big box of a map to fit in with the story, but I didn't know how else to protray what I was doing... It is impossible to just delete the box because it is the wall of my map. If I delete it, then the whole map is open to (BLACK-NOTHINGNESS) lol I'll try cruising around the part of my map where I made the last edit and see if I can fix it. But, if you have other suggestions, let me know ASAP.

EDIT 2: Alright so I did what I said and I reverted back to the normal before I added in my elevator. My lights all come back and everything is normal. So the new question is, how can I make an elevator shaft come out of this big box map without making the lights revert to black again.

You probably have a degenerate brush or face in your map, but it's hard to diagnose without the compile log.

There is this page on Interlopers.net which will check your compile logs for errors. After you compile a map ("normal" setting is fine), there is a <your_map_name_here>.log in the same folder as your compiled map. Open it with Notepad and copy its contents in the big text box on the page linked above, and see if anything comes up.

BlackBird Studios wrote:
Also, I wanted to make this big box of a map to fit in with the story, but I didn't know how else to portray what I was doing... It is impossible to just delete the box because it is the wall of my map. If I delete it, then the whole map is open to (BLACK-NOTHINGNESS)

Could you not make this big "wall of map" box into a custom skybox, then seal of your map with the skybox texture, and set the maps properties to your custom skybox... ?

I'm kinda guessing here as I'm yet to play/test/learn anything about skyboxes... All I know so far is they make the majority of "seen through the window" stuff, and you can make a 3D one that even shows off models and stuff....

Maybe someone with more experience can better help you on that ....

basically skyboxes are a copy of the outside of your map but scaled down. if you seal your map with this it looks the same but it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

Yup, sounds like a 3D skybox is your only option here. Should be fairly straightforward from there.