tool lightmaps

[sleepy1212]

maybe.

lol at "sort of" knowing things.


anyway...the answer about tool i'm looking for now should look something like this:

0 0.00000X - X X.XXXXXX

[Rob Oplawar]

Alright, fine. Back in my day... young whippersnapeprs... *grumbles*

tool lightmaps <quality> <threshold>
<quality> is 0 for debug, 1 for final
<threshold> is a range between 0 and 1, but the tricky thing about it is that it varies by the amount of light and reflective surfaces in your map. When you run lightmaps, tool periodically puts out decreasing numbers-
0.678
0.523
0.504
0.490
etc.
I think this has something to do with the remaining amount of rays to be reflected, or something, so if you only have a few lights in a small map, it will start at a relatively small number, but if you have a complex map with many light sources and many shadows to be cast, it will start at a high number.
Tool will cut off when that number dips below the specified cutoff threshold.
Also note that the numbers don't decrease linearly but logarithmically. The lower the numbers get, the slower they decrease. I'm not sure if tool will ever actually reach "0" if you let it run for all eternity... probably will in terms of discreet size limits on the arithmetic it uses. But anyway, the point is, pick a sensible cutoff threshold. I usually do this by running "tool lightmaps 0 0.001" first, and then hitting ctrl-c once the first number is output. Then I can run it again with a number that is small enough that it will go through a couple of iterations before cutting off. That makes the lightmaps look fairly good.

[sleepy1212]

ahh, thank you rob...i know it's annoying when people don't look things up...in internet time i belong in a nursing home lol.... appreciate you posting this.

so a threshold 0.999 would cut off sooner than 0.001 making the former a lower quality lightmap?

glad to know i can cut it off early as in sapein ( ~ - save). i might've guessed that part from the message tool gives...never tried it.

thanks again.

[paladin]

so a threshold 0.999 would cut off sooner than 0.001 making the former a lower quality lightmap?

Yes.

glad to know i can cut it off early as in sapein ( ~ - save). i might've guessed that part from the message tool gives...never tried it.

Yes. I do this all the time when I am constantly doing structural changes and updating/test a new bsp. I literally let radiosity run for 1 minute or so.

.

[sleepy1212]

awesome. i'm tired of planning my meals around tool...lol