Anyone know whats up with this? My Panels aren't getting affected by lighting, also this is a func_instance.

http://imgur.com/a/UTosY

Anyone ?

They're in an odd position when the map begins, aren't they? That causes lighting weirdness unfortunately - starting the robot arms in any animation state other than pulled into the wall causes this to happen since the lighting where the panels start is different from the lighting where they end up (Source lighting isn't all that dynamic... :).

Luckily there's a work-around: if you start the robot arms in their final, pulled-in state when the map starts, then have a logic_auto move them to where you want them (presumably sticking out from the wall limp-like) after about 1 second after the map starts. That way the lighting works, and they're where you want them when you first see them.

A little tricky, but it works.

You can still (presumably, I haven't tried this) hook up logic entities to get them to do this as an instance, just targeting the entities within the instance rather than within the map.

What about using an info_target (or a path_corner) to set the lighting origin to a lighted area?