Section 1 - Lighting Your Room

So now you have a cool room textured the way you like, but it is too bright for the dark and moody tombs Lara explores. This is where proper use of lighting makes all the difference, but before jumping into lighting techniques, some physics!

Light Basics

Light is made up of three colors: red, green and blue (RGB). Equal values of each color create white light. Removing green and blue will create red, removing blue will create yellow, and so on. The lower the numeric value, the darker the color. It can take time to change the RGB values, but there is an easier, quicker way to get the color you want. We’ll get to that soon.

Lighting will only affect textured surfaces and lighting effects will not be visible unless you click on the LIGHTING BUTTON found in the LIGHTING PANEL. To change an existing light setting, you must have the lighting button activated. The values appear in the boxes next to the various controls beneath the LIGHTING BUTTON. Properties differ with each type of light but values will only appear in the boxes next to the controls pertaining to the selected light.

All types of light in the Tomb Editor can be assigned color values. The color of the light will affect the objects and textures in the room.

NOTE: Light will appear much brighter in the game than in the editor which means you need to set your light a little darker than you wish it to appear in the game!

Types of Light

Lighting can create the mood you want for your level. Tombs can be dark and ominous, while other spaces can be well lighted (to show off your modeling skills!). Lighting effects available in the Tomb Editor fall into two categories. “Ambient light” and “Placed lights.”

AMBIENT LIGHT - Every room begins with an AMBIENT RGB default setting of 128,128,128 (equal units of red, green and blue). Ambient light is the general light within the room – without it (RGB at 0,0,0) the room would be pitch black. The brightest setting possible is 255 of each color, but that is extremely bright!

When you load up a project, you will not see any settings. To make them visible, click on one of the RGB value buttons before clicking on the LIGHTING BUTTON. (If you click after turning on the lighting button, it will raise or lower the value and then you will have to reset it.)

It is best to leave the ambient light at the default setting until after you have textured your room or it will be difficult to see what you are doing!

Setting the Ambient Light - With 2DMAP button off go to the LIGHTING PANEL and click on the LIGHTING button (it will automatically turn on the FACE EDIT button). There are two ways to adjust the ambient setting:

1) Click the colored + or - buttons next to the ambient setting readout. Left clicking on the colored RGB buttons will adjust the color by one unit. Right clicking will adjust the color by 16 units. (Remember: equal RGB values create a “white” light, unequal amounts will create colors.)

2) Right click on any of the colored squares located at the bottom of the EDITOR WINDOW PANEL. The ambient light will now take on the color that you clicked. TIP: This is much quicker than manually adjusting the RGB values!

Additional lights placed in your room will be more effective if your ambient light setting is lower - for example, 30,30.30.

NOTE: When you switch from one room to the next, the ambient light settings will not automatically change with each room change. If your ambient light settings differ from room to room and you need to get a reading, click on one of the RGB values to bring up the settings for that particular room.

PLACED LIGHTS – All other lights fall into this category. There are five “lights”: LIGHT, SHADOW, SUN, SPOT and EFFECT. These “lights” can be placed anywhere in a room – their location is indicated by an icon - and they will only appear in your model if you place them there! To place a light, choose the type you want by clicking on one of the five buttons at the bottom of the LIGHTING PANEL, then click on a floor, ceiling or wall square.

Properties and Control Settings - To create the right mood, a light usually needs to be adjusted after it is placed. A light must be selected to make any adjustments (a selected light appears red).

LIGHT: Icon = bluish light bulb. This is a basic light and behaves a lot like a light bulb, sending light outward in all directions.

If a LIGHT is selected, the SHOW LIGHT MESHES button below the EDITOR WINDOW will enable you to view its “falloff” characteristics (think of “falloff” as how big a light is). The red circles represent the “falloff”, or where the light ends. The white circles represent the “hotspot”, or the bright part of the light. The greater the distance from the hotspot to the falloff, the softer the transition from light to dark. These distances can be adjusted using the OUT (falloff) and IN (hotspot) buttons located on the LIGHTING PANEL.

Just above the OUT and IN buttons is the INT (intensity) button - this adjusts the brightness of a selected light.

NOTE: The INTENSITY setting works with all placed lights.

SHADOW: Icon = purplish gray bulb. Yes, you can use shadows! Think of a SHADOW as an “anti-light”. It will affect very specific areas and works well for darkening corners. It can be adjusted using the same settings as the “light.”

SUN: Icon = Happy Face. The SUN light casts shadows and works well in outdoor settings. It can be used indoors for special effects; however, only one SUN can be placed in a room at a time or you will get an error message when you go to output the WAD. The SUN can be aimed in a specific direction. With SHOW LIGHT MESHES button on you will see a single white line indicating its direction. To adjust the SUN’s direction (along with its cast shadows), use the “X” and “Y” buttons on the LIGHTING PANEL

CAUTION: Careful when moving the SUN with Control+arrow keys. If you move it too far outside the room’s boundaries, the program will crash.

SPOT: Icon = upside down light bulb. The SPOT directs light at a specific place (just like a spot light). With SHOW LIGHT MESHES button on, you will see red and white cones representing its illuminated area. These cones act just like the “hotspot” and “falloff” of a regular light and can be adjusted the same way. To adjust the focal point, the SPOT light has an additional feature: LEN and CUT. The cones must be touching the surface in the direction they are pointing or the light will NOT illuminate that surface. The direction of the SPOT light can be changed using the “X” and “Y” buttons.

EFFECT: Icon = bulb marked with an “X”. This light is used to illuminate mainly one square (some light will spread to adjacent squares to create a smoother transition). With SHOW LIGHT MESHES button on, you will NOT see any direction/limit cones/circles.

NOTE: The default intensity for the EFFECT light is 0.00; you will need to adjust this up or down to see any visual effects.

Color Adjustments - To change the color of a placed light, either use the RGB settings above the word “colour” on the right side of the LIGHTING PANEL or select a color from the palette at the bottom of the EDITOR WINDOW as you did for the ambient light setting.

Moving Placed Lights - Once placed, you can adjust the distance of the light from the surface of the square by using the CEILING or FLOOR + or - buttons. If you placed a light and want to move it to another square, just hold down the left CONTROL key and move it with the keyboard cursor keys. (Another way to move the selected light is by choosing the “move object” option from “Objects” in the Drop Down Menu, then clicking on the square where you wish your light to be placed.)

Right clicking on the light will move it around the square on which it was placed. Each right click moves it to the edge of the adjacent side of the square and finally back to the center.

Copying and Pasting Placed Lights - This feature can save a good deal of time when you need to place many lights with the same settings or when you want to duplicate an effect from a previous room. Located at the bottom of the LIGHTING PANEL are the COPY and PASTE buttons for the lights. Select the light you wish to copy, hit the COPY button, then the PASTE button. Now click on a square in any room to place the light. It will retain the settings you copied. This is especially helpful for maintaining consistent shadow directions when placing SUN lights!

Deleting Lights - If you place a light and want to get rid of it, just select it and press the DELETE key.

Now take some time to play with each of the different lights to get familiar with what they can do. The lighting is up to you from this point on, but don’t forget that you can copy and paste lights from the demo model into your model if you are in a hurry to get through the tutorial!