Lighting in Hammer - Falloff

General Development Black Mesa
#1

Hello again!
I hope this question isn’t too stupid, though hopefully it’s still easy to solve.

I’ve got my lights set up like this in my first ‘test’ map:

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As you can see, a spot light, with a normal light underneath it. This is how I saw the lights done in Anomalous Materials. I even took pretty much the same values from a couple of lights, though I toned down the blue slightly.

It results in this:

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I’m pretty happy with the lighting of the floor and main room, but the ceiling and top of the walls are unlit and the fade-away is sudden.

In the spoiler are the settings for my light_spots and lights.


I think I’ve seen a lot of people with this problem before, so apologies if this has been asked too many times - I couldn’t seem to find an answer.
Thanks!

#2

I would suggest using the %age falloff distances rather than the C/L/Q ratios. Much easier to understand and works way better. CLQ is only really useful for 100% constant light, and you only really want that in very specific scenarios.

#3

By that do you mean the “50 percent falloff distance” entry and “0 percent falloff distance”?
If so, which one should I use?
(Excuse the noob)

#4

That is what I meant, and you have to use both. The combination of the two allows you to determine almost exactly how you would like the light to fall off. For instance, if you set the 50% falloff to 64 units and then the 0% falloff to 512 units, you get a light which is very bright at its center (but only for a very small space), and then moderately bright for the rest of its lifespan (512 units). Or if you set the 50% falloff to 256 units and then the 0% falloff to 320, you get a light which is quite uniformly bright (but still brighter at its center), and then falls off abruptly.

#5

I remember having similar substantial difficulties with the tile drop ceilings in Office Complex- I’ve had good results by making the light_spots much weaker than the general lights, and moving said regular lights closer to the middle of the room rather than up against the ceiling.

#6

Thanks! With the combination of moving the lights down slightly (they were too close to the ceiling so now they spread their light out further), changing the colour to a less deep-bluey, and a pretty large falloff distance, I’m quite happy with the result!
Feedback is much required as this is my test map so I know a sort of “template” for future projects (in labs, at least.)

1920×1080

How does the lighting look now? Any problems? I had to decrease the falloff distance for the light closest to the camera (not seen in view, just slightly off) as it was close to the wall/elevator, and it produced too much glare/brightness off it.

#7

I think you could stand to even them out a bit more (the ceiling still looks a little dim, while the retinal scanner against the far door appears to be glowing), and you should also start messing around with and getting conversant in the tonemap_ctrl entity- this will help with the bloominess and potential really dark spots, and the Black Mesa default maps change tonemap values pretty abruptly depending on where you are.

Architecturally, the labs look a bit square when the walls usually have some more curved elements, and over all you could so with a few more detail brushes and props. To my knowledge, the brown maintenance door (and its frame) never appear in the lab sections, so you may want to consider replacing it with a white door or another sliding door.

#8

Thanks for the lighting advice. I’ll definitely try the tonemapping. As for the details, they aren’t finished yet - I was mainly worried about the lighting and I’ve since added a few more details (though I’ll be adding more). I’ll see what I can do with the door, it’ll probably have to become a locked generic lab door.

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