Lighting

[Jizaboz]

Following the instructions included with the editing tools, I've run into an issue with lights. I made two test boxes, and with those I just sort of fell through the floor to my death because either the texture wasn't flipped or I had added the wrong type of texture.

However, on the 3rd try of this, the light doesn't seem to function. It's at 600 radius, and my box is 512x256x512. I have added the outside box with the false option the instructions point to. Does my light object need to be binded to my WorldProperties brush in some special way or something?

[TronFAQ]

I made two test boxes, and with those I just sort of fell through the floor to my death because either the texture wasn't flipped or I had added the wrong type of texture.

It wouldn't have anything to do with the texture. The version of the Lithtech engine that Tron 2.0 uses, doesn't have attributes associated with textures. Attributes are applied separately, later.

It's possible that maybe your floor is a plane with the wrong side facing up. But I suspect it has a lot more to do with what type of map it is and what form of StartPoint you're using. What type of map are you trying make?

If it's Single Player or Light Cycle, it needs to be a GameStartPoint. If it's Disc Arena or Derez, it needs to be an ArenaStartPoint. Otherwise, you'll encounter this "falling through" behavior.

Does my light object need to be binded to my WorldProperties brush in some special way or something?

Nope. It's hard to say what the problem with the lighting is, based on the bit of information you've given. But it might have to do with the World Processor settings (the map compiler). Take a peek at the lighting checkboxes and see if they're all checked.

I just realized that the post I made here long ago, with links to my map making video tutorials, is gone. Such a shame . . . we lost a bunch of very useful posts with more discussion about map making.

Setting up DEdit
Creating Light Cycle Maps
Creating Derez Maps

You might want to check them out. The editing tools documentation has a very poor tutorial on how to make maps. Even if you're trying to make a Single Player or Disc Arena map, these tutorials cover the basics which still apply to those types of maps.

The tutorial videos are viewed in a web browser using Flash, and probably will only work in Internet Explorer. I tried watching them in Firefox and Opera recently, and the videos wouldn't play in either of them.

[Jizaboz]

Thanks for the information. Yes, I intend on this being a single-player map, so I am using GameStartPoint. I don't know if I was clear in the first post but I did fix the fall-through thing, I just have nothing but blackness when testing.

I didn't get a chance to mess with this much yesterday, but this afternoon I'll give it another start from scratch, and check those videos. If I still just can't seem to get it, I'll put up a link to my test box or something

[Jizaboz]

haha excellent videos... I loved the joke about the texture folder names I started with the lightcycle map one tonight as I figured that would be the best example for making a SP map. I'm still having problems though. With this test newest box I made after watching, I tried just making a plane for the floor and adding a box with details=false around it... and I came up with some weird results.





Note: I've also noticed when processing the map, that the lightmap size generated is 0kb, and this just doesn't seem right by my intuitions.

One thing I did notice I had not done from your video though was disabling fog. I noticed in my old test box, just turning off fog made the greyish tones go away in my textureless map, making it completely black. Having the fog enabled probably would have caused problem later. Also, the music thing.. I would have tried an actual audio file before choosing one of those text control files.

[TronFAQ]

Note: I've also noticed when processing the map, that the lightmap size generated is 0kb, and this just doesn't seem right by my intuitions.

Yeah, something's not right there.

Based on that screenshot, I'm going to guess that your World Processor settings aren't set up correctly yet. It looks like the textures aren't being applied to the map, and neither is full lighting.

Your World Processor settings should look like this, when you go to compile your map before testing:


If you installed the game to the default path, the ProjectPath will be C:\Program Files\Buena Vista Interactive\Tron 2.0\Game. If you installed it somewhere else, you'll need to make the appropriate change to the ProjectPath.

[Jizaboz]

Alright! It works now.




I didn't have the projectpath set and I had shadows enabled. Note lightmap size is still 0kb, but I guess may be due to small mapsize.

Thank you!