It's beginning to bug me lately that maps appear in a different tone. Sometimes it's very dark with sharp shadows everywhere, then sometimes it's significantly brighter and you almost can't make out the shadows in contrast.

Here is the latest example. While editing, the map seemed to be consistently dark and I had to add more lighting to avoid having some areas appear almost black. Then after publishing I enter the map and am greeted by a pretty bright interior. Very confusing. Other maps I subscribe to seem to have different lighting too. Some are displayed in the darker tone and some brighter. It's not the fullbright bug that has been discussed earlier.

Two screenshots, the first was taken after publishing and downloading from the workshop, the second after going back into the editor and looking at the same map again. No changes have been made since the editor built. Noticeable difference in the main observation window, in the second picture there seems to be very dimmed light inside.

2013-03-31_00007.jpg 2013-03-31_00004.jpg

I wonder if it is just my game behaving that way and why, and of course how others experience the same map. Having the stylechange mod installed has nothing to do with it. I only added it two days ago but this behavior has been going on forever.
If you like to take and compare screenshots, map is here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =135757448

I know exactly what you mean, it happens to me too. My best guess is that the different compile modes affect the quality of the lighting. In a regular testing compile, the map will build with a fast compile. In the publishing stage, the map will build with a full final compile that increases the visual quality of the map.

There are different compile modes? It would be nice to know how the map will look after publishing while you're still editing. But there's another thing. When I play a map from my queue I always quick save at the start after I enter and then load again, to get rid of the music. After quick loading it also appears to be darker than before. Also the targets of the faith plates are gone.

toncica wrote:
There are different compile modes?

VRAD

@toncica: I believe that you are talking of the PTI editor compile. Well, maybe when you build the test chamber to watch how it is going the editor uses only a standard compile, but when you choose to publish to the workshop it does a FULL compile. Difference in brightness is so noticeable between both compile modes: a full compile does the HDR (High Dynamic Range) altogether with the LDR (low ) compile, while a standard one does only LDR. For us who work with hammer it's common to use the env_tonemap_controller entity to correct brightness. Or it's also possible to choose a given 'environment' from the available ones in the global_ents instance

Thanks for the informations. I still find it strange though why the PTI editor would use different methods for compiling. As I read, the resulting files sizes of the compiled bsp file should be significantly smaller when using only LDR compile. But they are almost the same. The file that gets published is just a tad bigger, I guess because of the elevator rooms which are not included in the just for testing compile. I didn't even notice a difference in time both compiles take.