Hey guys, I am having trouble with dynamic lighting. I am really sort of a newb to lighting, but textures can give off dynamic light right? I can't seem to get it right on how to do this. Everything is too flat looking and I need to spruce it up so the bump maps are visible.

They can self-illuminate (ie be seen in darkness) but that doesn't mean they are dynamic lights. for that you'd have to add a light thing to the tag that the texture applies to. Then in the light tag check 'dynamic' that's an extremely rough tutorial but hey it should be enough to get you in the right direction.

So am I to understand that this is done by markers, and each marker location defines a dynamic light source in the scenario structure BSP tag?

I forget how I did it exactly but I copied the warthog light and added a few changes and yes u need a marker and better to use scenery to do it. I also thought that shaders could produce light too but never got around to trying it

P.S. When u add light to scenery u cant see the light in sapien only ingame.

is there a tutorial for those and adding the sprite light beams to them? or is there some scenery somewhere? never bothered with these before

Ya you can take it from the halo 2 map I converted http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=5145 its in this directory levels\test\burial_mounds\scenery\cov_floodlight

ah ok ty...that map is horrible btw

Do not use dynamic light to light your BSP. You should use shaders that emit light, as dynamic light in large quantities causes vast lag.

Also take note that these shaders don't have to be visible. Take a look at the inv shaders for some of the campagin maps. They are merely insible shaders that emit light. I am not entirely certain, but I think the light emited is at the top. Power is how strong the light is.

Hey! It was my first converted map and better than DSalimanders one. Also no one helped me on it D:

lol, at least you semi-admit it. you should go back and fix it.. could be cool

I laughed hard when i saw this :P

Just as a side note, you don't have to put them on scenery. They can be added to vehicles, weapons, bipeds, etc. I belive you can even put markers in BSP's so you can add lens_flares for lights and stuff, but I'm not sure.

Will having lens flares embeded in your BSP make it lag as well? Or is it just simply the fact that a large number of lens flares period will make it lag? Because, at least in certain parts, I would like the bump maps to show sort of well without having to use the flashlight or other form of dynamic light to get it to show.

Halo Lighting Tutorial (PDF)
http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=2810

I am not sure if this will help or not but Sunny was the king of lighting effects

yea sunny is king at lights....need a device light tutorial though, or maybe i RE one...