Light environment

GoldSrc

Source Engine

Source 2

light_environment is a point entity available in all Source games.

It casts parallel directional lighting from the toolsskybox texture to approximate the light cast from the Sun or Moon.

Tip:Use with env_sun and shadow_control (if no CSM) or env_cascade_light (if CSM).

Note:

• The light_environment still inherits most properties from the basic light entity. This means that the light_environment can be named (by adding the targetname keyvalue with SmartEdit off) and even disabled/enabled, although it will look very crude as vanilla VRAD does not calculate bounced lighting for named lights. Furthermore, there is a bug in games other than Counter-Strike: Global Offensive where light from a named light_environment on static props will break when the light is changed.
• The properties of this entity apply to the whole map. Using more than 1 entity for areas with a skybox toolsskybox texture does not create errors provided If all instances of light_environment have identical info. It is pointless to have more than 1 though.

Confirm:Multiple light_environments with different info seem to not cause issues if they are in areas that are not connected; see halls3, which has a different light_environment for the 3D Skybox compared to the main playable space. The limit might actually be "no more than one light_env per PVS".

Bug:

• You can have only one light_environment and toggle it. Others will not work.
• Ambient light can't be toggled and doesn't work with custom appearances.
• If you use a named light_environment, env_cascade_light's shadows will not display on world geometry.
• With a custom appearance, env_cascade_light will not display shadows on world geometry.  [todo tested in ?]

Skybox lighting

Note:Specified or user language subpage unknown or nonexistent, showing en

Skybox lighting/en

Keyvalues

Pitch Yaw Roll (Y Z X) (angles) <QAngle>

This entity's orientation in the world. Pitch is rotation around the Y axis, yaw is the rotation around the Z axis, roll is the rotation around the X axis.

Pitch (pitch) <angle>

Overrides the pitch value in Angles, even if omitted, so it needs to be specified. Contrary to Angles, the rotation of this pitch is measured counter-clockwise from the horizontal, so that 90 is straight up, while -90 is straight down. (It's simply the negative of a normal pitch value.)

Brightness (_light) <color255 + int>

Color and brightness of the direct sunlight.

Ambient (_ambient) <color255 + int>

Color and brightness of the diffuse skylight.

BrightnessHDR (_lightHDR) <color255 + int>

Override for Brightness when compiling HDR lighting. Defaults to -1 -1 -1 1, which means "same as LDR".

BrightnessScaleHDR (_lightscaleHDR) <float>

Amount to scale the direct light by when compiling for HDR.

AmbientHDR (_ambientHDR) <color255 + int>

Override for Ambient when compiling HDR lighting. Defaults to -1 -1 -1 1, which means "same as LDR".

AmbientScaleHDR (_AmbientScaleHDR) <float>

Amount to scale the ambient light by when compiling for HDR.

SunSpreadAngle (SunSpreadAngle) <float> (in all games since )

The angular extent of the sun for casting soft shadows. Higher numbers are more diffuse. 3 is a good starting value. Remember: on cloudy days, the shadows will be blurred because the sunlight is being diffused by clouds.

Suggested starting values:

• 1 - Sunny day; reduces aliasing on low-res lightmaps without increasing prominence of penumbras, and subtly softens high-res lightmaps.
• 3 - Slightly overcast, but still sunny
• 5 - Valve's recommended starting value
• 90 - Hazy day
• 135 - Cloudy, rainy, and or foggy day
• 180 - Nighttime

You'll also have to turn down the shadow alpha in your shadow_control entity - try changing the Shadow Color variable to something such as 50 50 50.

Different SunSpreadAngle values. The quality of the soft shadows depend on compile options as well. Click if preview is not animated.

Specular Color (specularcolor) <color255> (only in )

Color of the light that reflects off of certain surfaces. (i.e. water).

Flags

Initially Dark : [1] !FGD

Only works when the light_environment is named, and it must be added with SmartEdit off by putting in a 'spawnflags' key with a value of 1 (Hammer doesn't allow setting non-FGD flags in the flags tab).

External links

• Nodraw.net - brief explanation with screenshots of various sunspreadangle values