Lighting help!

[skuzzzz]

Hey guys! It's been a while for me, and I haven't even had a chance to upload some screens of my current project. This is due to me getting engaged and moving in with my wonderful woman Now it seems I have a little more time on my hands.

I need serious help and suggestions. This is aimed at the mapping veterans. How do you create effective light in your environments? My current map is completely inside (no exterior environment). I have been using light TEXTURES (the textures themselves give off light) and when rendered in game it looks great but requires many lights to cover important areas. I then tried to use JUST light entities and the same effect (I would have to place a lot of them).

So, what are your solutions?

[xandaxs]

Mix between textures and entities. Can we see a demo of the map?

[skuzzzz]

Absolutely, I will do that when I get off work. I have this screen shot. The image is huge.

http://i.imgur.com/iGnRi4g.jpg

[Rayne]

Long long time ago i made a suggestion to some developers that was addressing this exact problem.
My solution was simple and well known to all that use 3ds max, a light entity that doesn't casts shadows.

However since we still lack such entity you are stuck with what you were doing, placing light entities across the map.
And use light entities instead of shader lights, light shaders are always a bigger performace hit than entities.

[skuzzzz]

Ah I see. Thank you xandaxs and Rayne.

Well, UrtHD sounds extremely promising and would most likely defeat this issue. I can't wait for the engine to be officially announced.

[Rayne]

Ah I see. Thank you xandaxs and Rayne.

Well, UrtHD sounds extremely promising and would most likely defeat this issue. I can't wait for the engine to be officially announced.

Don't hold your breath, UrT HD engine is something we'll have to wait to arrive a little longer. Don't expect it to be here til summer/fall 2014 at best.
Developing an engine even with an already existing graphics renderer takes a lot of time.