Latest Sauer Editing - Issues and Lighting Help

by marcpullen on 01/06/2007 05:51, 38 messages, last message: 01/21/2007 01:08, 8812 views, last view: 05/05/2024 06:27

I'm working on a new map with the latest public version of Sauer, and I've found that pushing corners seems to be broken in some areas.

I haven't nailed down how to make it break exactly, but I do a lot of curvy corners, like for rocks or caves. So I usually select the corners of two sets of the smallest cubes to push them a little inward, to make them look rounded.

Sometimes one of the corners won't push if you've also pushed it in another direction.

For example, on a flat floor, pop up some cubes above it, then select the corners and push them down to 1 or 2 clicks above (so they are very thin). Now try selecting the corners of two cubes and push them from the side. One of them won't push.

I found it you pull the top part back up, then push the side in, then push the top down, that the top now won't push down like it used to in all older versions of Sauer.

I'm not using heightmaps, just manual labor corner pushing.

If this doesn't make sense, I can whip up a test map or do a set of screenshot or something.

Also, does anyone have any advice on lighting dark eerie caves? I've tried using a lot of smaller dim blue lights, but they still don't bring out the detail of the caves I have.

For example (these are test shots with very limited lighting):

http://www2.fanaticalproductions.net:8080/temp/screenshot_1.jpg

http://www2.fanaticalproductions.net:8080/temp/screenshot_2.jpg

http://www2.fanaticalproductions.net:8080/temp/screenshot_3.jpg

http://www2.fanaticalproductions.net:8080/temp/screenshot_4.jpg

http://www2.fanaticalproductions.net:8080/temp/screenshot_5.jpg

http://www2.fanaticalproductions.net:8080/temp/screenshot_6.jpg

I'm planning on using a "moon" type light as the sun, so I get some good shadows from that (but blue-ish), but I'm going to have a lot of caves and indoor castle type areas that the moon won't ever light. I really like the subtle lighting, but it hides too much.

Anyway, thoughts and ideas welcomed. :)

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#19: Re: ..

by Aardappel_ on 01/08/2007 23:27, refers to #18

better, but you're still using half intensity lights.

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#20: Re: ..

by kurtis84 on 01/09/2007 00:33, refers to #19

Nice looking terrain fanatic! Lighting looks pretty good I thought. I would use a bit more brightness from the torches, maybe move the light ents slightly above the torches, so the shadow from the torches isn't so large. Using 80 as a light radius seems too small to me, I would use at least 128...it'll just give you more shadows, and then you won't need to place light ents in the middle of the rooms. Those filler lights just kill the shadows from all that detail.

I really like the map so far. You've taken to a very small grid size on that terrain...you have my respect!

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#21: Re: ..

by marcpullen on 01/09/2007 02:32, refers to #19

Aard/Kurtis:

Have a try with this one. I added a hole to the sky in one area of the cave and raised the radius on the main lights, removed some of the filler lights, and added a fire log thing by the underground waterfall.

http://www2.fanaticalproductions.net:8080/temp/fanatic_test_map_3.zip (2.2 megs)

Better?

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#22: Re: ..

by Aardappel_ on 01/09/2007 02:50, refers to #21

umm... that version 3 still has mostly half intensity lights in it... changing the radius will not fix that.

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#23: ..

by marcpullen on 01/09/2007 02:54

I think I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "half intensity".

I know that I can control the radius and color of the light, I don't know what controls the intensity.

/newent light rad r g b

Right?

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#24: Re: ..

by kurtis84 on 01/09/2007 03:16, refers to #23

higher r g b values will make the light brighter, and I don't think theres a max. I do think it starts looking lousy if I go above 255. I recently used that same torch in a map I'm working on, I used 128 200 180 160...not sure if that would be enough to cure what Aard is asking for, but I hope so...or he won't like my maps' lighting either :)

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#25: Re: ..

by kurtis84 on 01/09/2007 03:19, refers to #24

I should also add, as this might be whats causing fanatic and I to both use slightly less than fullbright light ents- some of the gor textures, if run from the default packages.cfg, stand out like a sore thumb under bright lights. The specs on certain textures are really bright. I made my newest WIP to be a "moonlit" map also, just for this very reason.

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#26: ..

by SanHolo on 01/09/2007 18:01

The lights use the rgb color scheme, so [255, 255, 255] means full white, [0, 0, 0] is black and [180, 180, 180] is a light grey, but NOT white. If you want bright red light, use [255, 0, 0], not something like [160, 0, 0]. ;)

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#27: New problem with reflections

by marcpullen on 01/17/2007 03:31

How about this one?

http://www2.fanaticalproductions.net:8080/temp/screenshot_7.jpg

The reflection of the water is seeing the entire map and not just what it can see.

From the screenshot, you can see the wall in front of you, and the left half of the water shows that wall, but the right side does not, it shows stuff way on other other side of a thick wall.

I've optimized the map (from the editing/map operations menu) and I've done a full light build.

What is wrong?

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#28: Re: New problem with reflections

by kurtis84 on 01/18/2007 00:52, refers to #27

Thats an odd one. Never seen that error. Did you try to /recalc and /remip from the console? Maybe try flying into that wall in edit mode and see if theres a cavity in there causing the leak?

I've built several maps with the water, and never had this happen, so I'm not sure what to say about this.

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#29: Re: New problem with reflections

by marcpullen on 01/18/2007 02:33, refers to #28

Ah, it goes away if I edit and undo some action near a wall that separates two different bodies of water at different heights. If I do a /remip, the surfaces merge and the problem comes back.

There is no leak between them at that wall that I can find. Might be an engine/rendering bug with water surfaces that close together, maybe the engine thinks they are close enough to be merged when they really shouldn't.

Aard or any other coding guru with this, any ideas? Is there a way for me to tell what's happening? Like back in the Quake 1 days, there were some programs you could use to show you where leaks in the brushes to NULL space were. Is there something I can enable to find where the problem is?

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#30: ..

by makkE on 01/18/2007 02:54

Hmm maybe you could workaround it by finishing the level, calclighting it (includes a remip by now), then make that change/undo and use "patchlight" fo fix the area. Would only work given that patchlight doesn´t remip, wich I´m not sure about.

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#31: ..

by marcpullen on 01/18/2007 03:46

The patchlight doesn't look right. The end lighting will be pretty hard shadows (low error level and 8xAA).

I'm guessing I'll need to redo a giant wall that I suspect is the problem and make it thicker.

Is there a rule or something in the code that says how far apart two bodies of water have to be to be counted as separate? Like more than one or two of the smallest grid side?

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#32: ..

by marcpullen on 01/18/2007 04:20

Here's the latest build so you can see the wacky water stuff for yourself (probably about 85% complete, mostly just lighting and item placement left).

From the start point, go forward to the other side of the map, all the water on that side show reflections from everywhere.

http://www2.fanaticalproductions.net:8080/temp/fanatic_test_map_4.zip (4.8 megs)

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#33: Re: ..

by eihrul on 01/18/2007 05:23, refers to #32

So, umm, this was a bug in how bounding boxes for geometry were getting calculated in the presence of merged surfaces. This is not something you can map around. Just ignore it for now, since its not any problem with the map, just a rendering bug.

I added code to fix this in CVS, but you will have to compile your own bins since we haven't updated those yet.

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#34: ..

by marcpullen on 01/19/2007 04:41

Can anyone compile a new cut for me?

I don't have the ability or software to compile stuff...

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#35: Re: ..

by Aardappel_ on 01/19/2007 08:22, refers to #34

I emailed you a new exe... its also in cvs.

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#36: Almost Done!

by marcpullen on 01/20/2007 22:51

Ok, got everything working, the new EXE works great.

I'm pretty much done messing with the layout of the level. I've added a bunch of areas to explore, added clip areas around the edges of the map (so you don't fall off into nothing).

I also brightened up the lighting in general, so I'm pretty satisfied with the lighting now.

Last thing I need to do is add the weapons/ammo/health stuff for DM play (yes this is a DM map).

One thing I was considering was adding map models for vegitation, like trees and water plants. And adding a semi-thick forest on the top surface area. I had a hard time finding plants that fit the look of the map. Most of the trees are for the RPG game in Sauer, and are way too big for my little detailed map. I love the palm tree, but I don't think it fits this map.

Any thoughts on that stuff, or this latest test build in general?

This was a full light build at 8xAA with a light precision of 20.

http://www2.fanaticalproductions.net:8080/temp/fanatic_test_map_5.zip (4.7 megs)

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#37: Re: Almost Done!

by eihrul on 01/20/2007 23:29, refers to #36

Just a small caveat: the map version written out by the CVS exe is different from the GUI release, so people will need CVS exes to load it for now.

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#38: ..

by sinsky on 01/21/2007 01:08

This probably links directly to the exe download in cvs.. hope the link works:

http://sauerbraten.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/sauerbraten/sauerbraten/bin/sauerbraten.exe?revision=1.187

I like the look of water, especially where it goes green in the deep.

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