HDR - extra light in dark areas
I'm creating a map which is pretty dark, but I don't want it to be too dark to play in daylight. I'm playing on a laptop and at full screen brightness the level gets too dark during day time. Well, to the point...
I think a good way to keep my dark areas and not making them too bright would be to use HDR. I'm not very familiar with HDR, so far I use full compile (Slow!) to get the HDR effect from my lighting, but I feel it's not enough. Is there a way to instensify the effect? Kind of like the eyes of the player would adjust to the darkness. Thanks in advance!
put some lights in your map with brightness ~5 and constant 500.
Should help, otherwise check if some models are casting too big shadows (in this case set "disable shadows" of some models to Yes)
Should help, otherwise check if some models are casting too big shadows (in this case set "disable shadows" of some models to Yes)
What do you mean by "~5"? I put the constant to 500 on a couple of lights, just light, not light_spot. No effect 
I think most of the objects are controlled with the shadows.
here is an example of the light. These are normally for the bts scene, but you can edit the color etc.
These lights should light up your map. (When you place them correctly).
Can you send a screenshot of your map? So i could see whats wrong.
These lights should light up your map. (When you place them correctly).
Can you send a screenshot of your map? So i could see whats wrong.
Thanks for the vmf but I still don't get it. From what I can see you've put a very large number in "Constant". I constructed a room 512x512x256 with your lights and I didn't see anything specific. Sorry man, maybe I'm slow, I just don't get it.
However, just as you requested I've uploaded two screenshots that I hope will explain the matter in other words:
1.
2.
The first image shows a room with three lights. I'd like that room to be very lit up when your in the dark room. Giving the illusion that it's a big light difference. However, I do not wish to increase the lighting itself as it won't look good. It'll be too bright against the walls, objects and the portal gun's reflection will just turn white.
The second image shows when I'm inside the lit room. What I wish to achieve is to make the constrast higher, giving the HDR feel a bit of a twist, giving the illusion that when I walk from a dark room to a brighter room the player's screen will have to adjust. Compare it with our human eyes. When we walk from a very sunny outdoor environment and walk into a dark room, we don't see anything at first. Then our eyes start to adjust. The same effect applies when we walk from a dark room into a very bright environment. Then our eyes will think it's too bright untill they adjust themselves. I hope this makes it a bit more clear what I'm trying to achieve.
You probably want to mess with the settings of the env_tonemap_controller. There's one named @tonemapper in global_ents.vmf you can fire outputs to. (Ent_fire works well to preview settings). The tonemapper is designed to mimic the adjustment of eyes to different lights, and should do what you want.
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Around 5 is what he means. And to contribute to solving your issue, a dim constant light is usually a good way of slightly illuminating an area. Alternatively, an env_tonemap_controller.
I've been experimenting with the Constant, both in light and light_spot entities. I've noticed that the effect occours when the brightness is pretty high, well above 40 I'd say, and when the constant is set to a high value such as 9999. And the the wall has to be bright like a simple white wall.
The first problem is that most of my walls are dark. The second problem is that when I use a high constant, it seems like the light travels a lot further away, which I do not wish. I'm considering to check the ent_tonemap_controller out.
So I've been playing with the different HDR console commands and noticed that it's HDR that I want to work with. I've been trying to follow these articles:
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Advanced_HDR
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wik ... g_Settings
I believe that the env_tonemap_controller is what I want to work with. I've been trying to create a trigger_multiple and trigger different settings with OnStartTouch and OnEndTouch, just like in the article. However, ingame it doesn't work at all. No changes what so ever in HDR.
So I thought that I have to first compile the map with "Full compile -both -final (slow!)". Then I'd copy the .bsp to the dlc2 foler, open it from there and type in mat_hdr_level 2 in the console, then buildcubemaps, then mat_hdr_level 0, then buildcubemaps again. Sometimes the game crashes when it start to load again (after the buildcubemaps), but that shouldn't matter because I see the cubemap reflections ingame (how awful they might look).
The HDR still won't work AND just to piss me off even more, the cubemaps seem to work but they look terrible. Low texture reflections of something on every glass texture. And I use a lot of glass in my map. Does this make any sense and is there a way to help me?
I'm not sure where to look for answers anymore, but I know there are a lot of kind mappers here, hopefully with more knowledge on this matter. I don't know how to troubleshoot. Perhaps directions to a good tutorial, step by step instructions or .vmf. Anything would be helpfull.
Thanks in advance!
That -final parameter is only useful if you have light_environment shining into darker areas (more ray tracing, better light spread). Ignore that command if you don't use light_environment.
The correct usage of env_tonemap_controler is described in exactly those tutorials you just wrote about. Try a bit harder there, it works and is beautiful.
A recommendation: only use -hdr for testing maps (otherwise you compile light two times which should be only done for releases as ldr should be supported).