Hammer Mod Request: Instanced Atmospheric Lighting
Okay, so there are several different options for atmosphere, and they are:
Overgrown
Reconstructing
Clean
Behind The Scenes
Underground
Destroyed
Wheatly
Art Therapy
I was wondering if anyone could make some instanced lights for varying room types.(Room Size and Room Type) I have tried a number of times and I can't get lighting to work properly for me, and this is the only thing that's slowing me down from creating fully 'detailed' maps.
For all except Art Therapy, there's a corresponding global_ents preset (instance folder, near the bottom) (and even then, you can use a4 presets in Art Therapy) Then just use observation rooms and light strips (instanceslabs and instanceslights) (or sunlight for Overgrown) for lighting, and you'll be set.
For sunlight, use this: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Overgrown_(Portal_2)#Skybox
And then for cool shadows, an env_projectedtexture will work great.
That's the problem I guess. Art therapy doesn't have presets.
For sunlight, use this: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Overgrown_(Portal_2)#Skybox
And then for cool shadows, an env_projectedtexture will work great.
I know it's a sort of silly thing to ask, but can anyone do a video tutorial on proper lighting for the different themes? The wiki is there, and it's informative, however it really only shows how the lighting for the cave/underground atmosphere is done.
Also adding custom textures and whatnot, I already have a custom sound/music totirial, but textures elude me.
A video tutorial on the tools used for making holes and sections (the vertex tool) would be good.
Lighting in different themes is not something that you will learn from videos, it takes time and patience to become adept at it. 
To get you started, you can try looking at some Valve .vmfs to see what values and colors they use for their lights to get the theme right, or decompile a map from the workshop using BSPSource. As srs bsnss said, fog can really change the look and feel of your maps, global_ents is highly recommended. 
Lighting in different themes is not something that you will learn from videos, it takes time and patience to become adept at it. To get you started, you can try looking at some Valve .vmfs to see what values and colors they use for their lights to get the theme right, or decompile a map from the workshop using BSPSource. As srs bsnss said, fog can really change the look and feel of your maps, global_ents is highly recommended.
Lol I know it takes time and patients, however I'm more adept at following video tutorials than I at following written guides. It's kind of how my brain is wired I suppose, I learn better when I have visual reference.
MisterJhonLanz on youtube is one of the only reasons I've gotten as far as I have on making my own maps. Of course I could always open up the raw files in Hammer and see how everything is done.
If I'm going to do that, a list of the VMF names of certain rooms/levels in the game would be really nice. That way I wouldn't need to dig through all of the files to find out what I'm looking for.
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wik ... l_2_Levels
Here's a list of maps. sp_a1 is pre-GLaDOS reactivation, sp_a2 is GLaDOS's maps, sp_a3 is Old Aperture, sp_a4 is Wheatley levels. The map names are sort of descriptive.
[spoiler]- BEE2 Addons | (BEE2)
- Hammer Addons
Maps:
- Crushed Gel
- Gel is Not Always Helpful[/spoiler]
I don't mean following any sort of tutorial or guide, I'm saying the best way to become good with lighting is to look at other maps.
Also, to save you the trouble of BSPSource, there's a whole collection of decompiled Portal 2 maps here that I found very useful.