questions about texture lighting

[fury]

Hey guys.
I am still working on my own version of crossfire. I’m almost done, but I have wierd problems with the texture lights.
my .vmt:

“LightmappedGeneric”
{
“$basetexture” “dm_pro_crossfire/+0~fifties_lgt2”
“$surfaceprop” “glass”
“$selfillum” 1
}

my lights.rad (in bms folder):

dm_pro_crossfire/+0~fifties_lgt2 160 170 220 400

I often use lightmapsize 8.
Sometimes I want my lambs to be not solid (so I make them func_illusionary)…

When I compile and go in game my lamb texture is not fully lit (it should glow because I set “$selfillum” 1 right?)…
What am I doing wrong? Do I need to use a certain value for the lightmapsize? Do I need to have my blocks to be world geometry (no entity)? Or are there any other things that I should care about?
I read some tutorials online but somehow it did not help -.-
I have one lamb in my map where the whole block (atm it’s func_brush) is completely black ingame (totally unlit?) although I can see the light coming out of the texlight surface… So strange…
Help pls …

[Crypt]

First off, thank you for using func_illusionary.

Anyway, lightmap size isn’t causing your issue, but I suggest you read up on what they are and how to use them anyway, it sounds you don’t understand them and that could cause you issues later.
It being a brush ent also probably isn’t at fault.

I’d try setting its shader to UnlitGeneric and seeing if that fixes it.

If that doesn’t work, since everything else sounds right, what my first guess would be is your texture’s alpha channel. If there’s no normal map or defined mask texture, $selfillum by default uses the image’s alpha channel when figuring what pixels should be how strong in its self-illumination. Are you exporting your image w/ an alpha channel, and using a VTF format that uses it (DXT5, BRGA8888, etc.)? If so, it could be reading it as all dark, and blacking it out.

Also, personally I wouldn’t use a texlight for them, those are kinda sucky in Source (awesome in GoldSrc, though). Just the self-illumination.

[TextFAMGUY1]

Don’t use func_illusionary, it’s a defunct entity. You should never use it. Use func_brush with the solidity set to never solid. The issue, as Crypt said, is probably that the texture is set to lightmappedgeneric. If that doesn’t work, compare it to a working example of a texture light which does work in BMS, and try and fix the difference.

[fury]

Alright… Thx for all the quick answers and information. I think I will try out some things tomorrow…