How to make good "Billboards with windows and particles" ?

[HumiliatioN]

Yes. I need some advice and maybe tutorial for making Billboards and Particles with editor.

Quick help needed!

Cheers.

[Doctorcheese]

What kind of tutorial do you need? Placing them?

[HumiliatioN]

What kind of tutorial do you need? Placing them?

Yes but i mean also, make "Realistic shining light through the window" and how to make particles also realistic.

[Khyrpa]

Well I did this random guide some time ago:
http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-7973.html

The last example is the one that actually looks like something... Also frictionals maps have some nice billboards done with a very limited amount of them, suggest checking them out.

[Doctorcheese]

Well the way I place rays of light is by making one first, then duplicating it a couple of times and I make them into different angles. It looks more realistic if you do that.

[HumiliatioN]

Thanks guys, i check that guide but i have one question to ask too.

How to make good "Pointlight places" and good lighting some rooms?

[Doctorcheese]

Thanks guys, i check that guide but i have one question to ask too.

How to make good "Pointlight places" and good lighting some rooms?

Well getting the right color can be hard with pointlights, but just experiment and you'll get it sooner or later. For the lighting, make sure you have a boxlight covering the whole level and make it:
0.15
0.15
0.168

That's how I make my boxlights if I want dark, but not too dark areas.

Now for lighting more with point lights, give them more radius and it should be all right.

[HumiliatioN]

Thanks guys, i check that guide but i have one question to ask too.

How to make good "Pointlight places" and good lighting some rooms?

Well getting the right color can be hard with pointlights, but just experiment and you'll get it sooner or later. For the lighting, make sure you have a boxlight covering the whole level and make it:
0.15
0.15
0.168

That's how I make my boxlights if I want dark, but not too dark areas.

Now for lighting more with point lights, give them more radius and it should be all right.

Awesome thanks!

[Doctorcheese]

Don't mention it

[Khyrpa]

Make sure you read this:
http://wiki.frictionalgames.com/hpl2/tut...tutorial_2

And don't use the same values for every box light. Think about it this way: if the area is mainly lighted with torches/fires use the same color "ratio" as them for the box light. And if its very heavy for example on blue light from windows, make the box light faintly blueish.
And with the "ratio" I mean for example:

If you check torch_static01 in model editor, you can find the color values for its point light are:
R 1
G 0.7
B 0.45

You can create the same color, but darker sticking with the same ratio but lower values. (I multiplied every color value with 0.8 in this case)
R 0.8
G 0.56
B 0.36

This way you can create more delicate lighting with more point lights! Its necessary for areas where light can easily leak into unwanted places.

Using this style on box light in an area lit by torches I would probably use values close to these (remember that screen brightness can vary between players and box lights can be too bright or dark for others):
R 0.04
G 0.028
B 0.018
alpha 0 (as explained by frictional in the tutorial I linked above)

I got little carried away, but I feel like I'm just starting to get a grasp on how complicated lighting can go and its pretty interesting.
Here's an example of a room fully lit by a single candle (Its actually scripted so when lit, lots of point lights fade in and start flicker. I find this so interesting that I might post about it sometime).

Spoiler below!