newLight_Spot
newLight_Spot
is a point entity available in Black Mesa. It is a cone-shaped, invisible deferred light source, includes lightcookies with animations for them. The animations is based on row and column atlases or scroll mode.
Represented by class CNewLightSpot
.
Keyvalues
- Name (targetname) <string>
- The name that other entities refer to this entity by, via Inputs/Outputs or other keyvalues (e.g.
parentname
ortarget
).
Also displayed in Hammer's 2D views and Entity Report.See also: Generic Keyvalues, Inputs and Outputs available to all entities
- ReverseDir (ReverseDir) <choices>
- By default, the Y angle for a spot light is inverted, which causes the light to point upward when pointed downwards. This option allows you to fix this problem.
- 0: No
- 1: Yes
- Important:This additionally impacts performance, use it in rare cases (for moving with NPC flashlight, etc), It is much better to invert required Y angle value (make it from 90 to -90 for example).
Examples
Use old Falloff ? (bUseOldFallOff) <choices>!FGD- Deprecated.
Sets old falloff state, disabled or enabled. This feature is disabled in the code, so you can't use old falloff (although it is still used for the flashlight).- 0: Disabled
- 1: Enabled
- Light Color (LightColor) <color255>
- The RGB color of the light. Colors must be between 0 and 255.
- Light Intensity (Intensity) <float>
- Intensity/brightness of the light. It's RGB * intensity.
- Note:With 0 it will make the light disabled, including the effects. Doesn't affect shadows.
- Range (Range) <float>
- Range of the light, or how far the light source can illuminate. Measured in Hammer Units.
- Warning:This is one of the parameters that affects performance in the game. Smaller values allow you to process less geometry and save performance.
- Note:Shadows from objects that are at a great distance look noticeably worse than shadows from objects that are near to the light source.
- Important:Range is limited, the limit depends on intensity value. Do not use values bigger than the intensity value allows.
Examples
- Enabled (Enabled) <choices>
- Sets light state on spawn, enabled or disabled.
- 0: Enabled
- 1: Disabled
- Appearance (FlareStyle) <integer choices>
- Appearance presets.
Lightstyle presets (epilepsy warning) Literal Value Description Sequence Preview 0 Normal m 10 Fluorescent flicker mmamammmmammamamaaamammma 2 Slow, strong pulse abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba 11 Slow pulse, noblack abcdefghijklmnopqrrqponmlkjihgfedcba 5 Gentle pulse jklmnopqrstuvwxyzyxwvutsrqponmlkj 1 Flicker A mmnmmommommnonmmonqnmmo 6 Flicker B nmonqnmomnmomomno 3 Candle A mmmmmaaaaammmmmaaaaaabcdefgabcdefg 7 Candle B mmmaaaabcdefgmmmmaaaammmaamm 8 Candle C mmmaaammmaaammmabcdefaaaammmmabcdefmmmaaaa 4 Fast strobe mamamamamama 9 Slow strobe aaaaaaaazzzzzzzz 12 Underwater light mutation mmnnmmnnnmmnn
- Tip:Use new lights instead for lights with custom appearance, because static lightmapped lights reduces performance with this feature (especially near displacements).
- Confirm:Is it possible to have your own light styles (the property are using integer values) ?
- Light Ambient Color (LightColorAmbient) <color255>
- The RGB color of the shadows. Colors must be between 0 and 255.
Examples
- SpecularMultiplier (SpecMultiplier) <float>
- Specular multiplier. Sets intensity of new specular shader from this light source. It's RGB * Intensity * SpecularMultiplier. 0 means disabled.
Examples
falloffConstant (falloffConstant) <integer>!FGD- Deprecated.
Constant value (can work only if old falloff is enabled). falloffLinear (falloffLinear) <integer>!FGD- Deprecated.
Linear value (can work only if old falloff is enabled). falloffQuadratic (falloffQuadratic) <integer>!FGD- Deprecated.
Quadratic value (can work only if old falloff is enabled). - OuterAngle (phi) <float>
- Outer angle for spot light.
- Warning:This affect shadow quality, less is better.
- Important:Don't use values 180 and higher, this will make shadows and lighting broken.
- InnerAngle (theta) <float>
- Inner angle value for spot light.
- Warning:Using values higher than in OuterAngle will not make ShadowFOV value higher. This will result in broken shadows.
- AngularFallOff (angularFallOff) <float>
- Angular falloff value.
Examples
- Light Type (LightType) <choices>
- Type of the light. This affects the behavior of the light source with parent, enable/disable dynamic models in shadowmaps, enable/disable static shadowmaps.
- 0: Static - used only static shadowmaps, this means that shadows are cast only by static objects (prop_static, geometry, etc). Cannot move with parent.
- Important:Brush entities and bmodels are also included in static shadowmaps and they never update (including func_physbox).
- Note:Static shadowmaps will update after save reload (only once).
- 1: Stationary - the same as Static, but with dynamic shadows for dynamic models.
- 2: Dynamic - lighting don't use static shadowmaps at all. It uses dynamic shadows for static objects and dynamic models. This type also can move with parent. This type is expensive, usually used for moving lights, but also can be used if you're getting issues due to static shadowmaps.
Examples Note:Note that shadow from metal box and grate box are flying on first and second pictures, that's because both was placed in air on map spawn. Doesn't happen on third picture, because the light updated shadow for both.
- HasShadow (HasShadow) <choices>
- Sets shadows state for the light, enabled or disabled. Remember that the default choices is No.
- 0: No
- 1: Yes
Examples
- ShadowMapLOD (ShadowLod) <choices>
- Resolution of shadowmap used by this light. This affects the quality of the shadows.
- 0: 256
- 1: 512
- 2: 1024
Examples
- Important:You cannot use any value from here an unlimited number of times. More information below.
- ShadowRadius (ShadowRadius) <float>
- Radius of shadow edges for soft shadows. If its value is negative, code will auto assign a value depending on ShadowLod. These code based values can be adjusted via convars
nr_shadow_rad_High
,nr_shadow_rad_Med
andnr_shadow_rad_Low
.
Examples
- Tip:Don't use very low values, because the shadows will look like stairs. Also don't use very high values, because the noise will spoil them a lot, or you'll see only noise.
- NearZ (NearZ) <float>
- NearZ used by shadowmap camera for this light. This is the distance at which the light source will start cast shadows.
- DepthBias (DepthBias) <float>
- DepthBias is offset added to depth values in shadowmaps.
Examples
- SlopeDepthBias (SlopeDepthBias) <float>
- Slope Depth Bias used for surfaces having aliasing due to steep angles with light.
Examples
- NormalBias (NormalBias) <float>
- While rendering objects into shadowmaps, each vertex will be moved along -ve Normal direction, giving it an appearance of shrinking while rendering to shadowmaps. This property determines the amount of Units to be moved. Helps with shadow aliasing.
Examples Note:You will not see any changes if your material doesn't not provide bumpmap.
- Important:Increasing this value will make shadows between different surfaces less accurate, greate example is third picture in examples, there you can see "two" shadows from railing.
- Bug:Numbers lower than 0.8 can cause huge graphics issues. Example.
- Tip:Increase this value if you are getting aliasing issues like this.
- ShadowFOV (ShadowFOV) <float>
- Fov used by shadowmap camera for this light. Keep it 0 to use Outer angle as the fov.
- Enable Texture Light (bTexLight) <choices>
- Sets lightcookie (texture lights) state, enabled or disabled. For NewLight_Point, you need static cubemap texture. For NewLight_Spot, you can use any texture with No Mipmap and No Level Of Detail flags.
- 0: Disabled
- 1: Enabled
Examples
- Tip:Follow these steps to create your own lightcookie texture for point light.
- Warning:This is one of the most expensive features, use wisely.
- Texture name for TexLight (texName) <string>
- Determines which texture will use the light source. Lightcookies are using .vtf (not .vmt) texture from files (just like env_projectedtexture).
- .Enable Prop Only Mode (bNegLight) <choices>
- Enable Prop Only Mode.
- 0: Disabled
- 1: Enabled
- Confirm:Deprecated.
- TexCookieFramesX (TexCookieFramesX) <integer>
- Number of frames in 1 row of atlas.
TexCookieFramesX for LightSpot - class C_NewLightSpot CookieName - TEXTURENAME.vtf is 0. Are you sure this light is using texcookie? If yes then set this property to at least 1.
- TexCookieFramesY (TexCookieFramesY) <integer>
- Number of frames in 1 column of atlas. Also sets scale for texture, with 2 and higher it allows TexCookieFps to animate texture.
TexCookieFramesY for LightSpot - class C_NewLightSpot CookieName - TEXTURENAME.vtf is 0. Are you sure this light is using texcookie? If yes then set this property to at least 1.
|
- TexCookieFps (TexCookieFps) <float>
- Frame rate for animation. This entity divides texture into several parts (their count is indicated in TexCookieFramesY) and changes them in a specific sequence.
- Tex Cookie Scroll Mode (bTexCookieScrollMode) <choices>
- Sets texture scrolling function state, enabled or disabled. ScrollSpeedU and ScrollSpeedV sets scrolling speed and direction.
- 0: Disabled
- 1: Enabled
- ScrollSpeedU (fScrollSpeedU) <float>
- Scrolling speed along Y axis.
|
- ScrollSpeedV (fScrollSpeedV) <float>
- Scrolling speed along X axis.
|
- ShadowPass_Brush (m_bSRO_Brush) <choices>
- Do we want to render world geometry in shadow passes for this light ? Doesn't affect bmodels.
- 0: YES
- 1: NO
- ShadowPass_StaticProp (m_bSRO_StaticProp) <choices>
- Do we want to render prop_static in shadow passes for this light ? This also affect bmodels.
- 0: YES
- 1: NO
- ShadowPass_DynProp (m_bSRO_DynProp) <choices>
- Do we want to render dynamic models in shadow passes for this light ?
- 0: YES
- 1: NO
- ShadowPass_AlphaTest (m_bSRO__Trans) <choices>
- Do we want to render models with transparency materials in shadow passes for this light ? Objects with transparency can cast shadows if your model includes a material without transparency.
- 0: YES
- 1: NO
Inputs
- SetColorLight <color255>
- Change Light's Color value. Doesnt effect the godrays
- SetIntensityForLight <float>
- Change Light's intensity value. Doesnt effect the godrays
- TurnOn <void>
- Turn the light on.
- TurnOff <void>
- Turn the light off.
- Toggle <void>
- Toggle the light's current state.
- InputFixRotBugDueToTram <void>
- InputFixRotBugDueToTram
Lighting behavior with VIS and areaportals
Static type
Static type is the most stable, since its shadows are baked in and updates only with save loads or while lighting turning on. It shows all shadows even with closed areaportal.
Stationary type
Shadows for static props and brushes are baked, but not for physics props and other dynamic models. This means that shadows from dynamic models will disappear if they are hidden by a closed areaportal or if VIS is hiding such objects. Shadows for static props and brushes will not disappear.
In some cases, this can be noticeable if dynamic model creates a large shadow.
Dynamic type
Shadows for static props and world geometry are baked, but not for dynamic models and brushes. This means that shadows from dynamic models and brushes will disappear if they are hidden by a closed areaportal or if VIS is hiding such objects. Shadows for static props and world geometry will not disappear. Moving lighting will update shadows for static props and world geometry, even with closed areaportal.
Bugs/Limitations
Deferred lighting incorrect work with $translucent
Deferred lighting all time rendering through walls with material shader parameter $translucent. This happen because of game can't tell the depth of scene because of the transparency, what you are see in the picture is just the lighting layer applied to the color of transparency texture.
No $translucent. Behind the wall placed lighting and some models with small room.
With $translucent. Now player see everything, but only what lighted.
This problem also applies to brushes which not have $translucent, but which parented to brushes that have this parameter. Similar will happen if brush with $translucent is part of your brush entity.
Same will happen if you use overlays/decals on brushes with $translucent.
Metal speaker is overlay that use $alphatest, but lighting of the health charger visible anyway, because overlay pasted on the transparency window.
This issues does not happen if replace LightmappedGeneric to ShatteredGlass or UnlitGeneric, so, you can use one of them for glass or transparency surfaces when it's needed.
In some cases use $alphatest if it'll give similar to $translucent resualts, with this your surface also will cast dynamic shadows.
Deferred lighting incorrect work with $alphatestreference and $allowalphatocoverage
$alphatestreference is a material shader parameter that specifies the threshold alpha channel value at which the surface should be transparent instead of opaque, default "0.5". $allowalphatocoverage creates translucent steps based on alpha values. Both have one and same problems with deferred lighting.
For examples used this texture with this alpha channel.
Here deferred lighting placed behind wall with the texture, lighting is red and shadows is blue. We can see the circle part of that have alpha channel part which is invisible due to $alphatest, with enabled deferred lighting we see that the invisible part doesn't show through itself deferred lighting with shadows.
From the opposite side the invisible part illuminates everything in itself equally, without taking into account decay of light, it's also don't show shadows and other dynamic lights in itself.
If use very low numbers you will see resualts like in the pictures.
You can't escape this problem, only minimize effect with $alphatestreference 0.1
or if paint alpha correct channel.
Weird clipping
Often meeting strange clipping/flickering, strange bug that was in early stages of the game (this can be seen even in videos before new lights release in public), this does not depend on OS or drivers. Somehow related to Range
value, since changing its value halfway fixes this bug, because it move away the bugged area.
Brush polygons may clip deferred lighting
Rare phenomenon, sometimes brush polygons clip deferred lighting, the reason that cause this is unknown. Can be easy fixed if divide invalid brush into two parts.
Spot lights have sharpness bug if shadows enabled
It is most noticeable if spot light is at not a right angle. It greatly degrades quality of shadows. Issue can be partially fixed if make NormalBias
value bigger. Also can be minimized with shadow quality, range, outer and inner angles.
Deferred lighting shine through nodraw texture
Not a bug, but a pattern. Unfortunately, this cannot be controlled in any way, you should keep in mind this before paint nodraw to escape situations like in the gifs. If your dynamic light source illuminates face that player never see - use cheap textures with low resolution and which don't use material shader parameters, a good solution would be tools/toolsblack or any
UnlitGeneric
texture.
Shadows don't appear immediately after reload
After game save and load shadows don't appear for short time, maybe it has something to do with caching. This appearance duration may vary depending on power of user PC and how much of lights with enabled shadows are turned on at level, but in any case user will get this issue even with most powerful PC. Enable in worldspawn settings Level Fade In
to hide this problem, this setting also will hide some other problems with loads that avaible in Black Mesa.
Shadows don't appear immediately with a lot of lights with shadows
If your level use a lot of lights with shadows - shadows from enabling lights will not appear immediately, this happens if light source was disabled and if player's camera did not see this light source enabled initially.This happen because shadows use passes per frame for memory, if level use a lot of new lights - game change integer value of cvar nr_shadow_max_passes_per_frame
to lower numbers. Can be fixed if change cvar value with point_servercommand to 25
or if enable light source at level start and keep it enabled before drawing of level allows player's camera to see this light source, disable this light source and than enable when we need this.
Dynamic lights with shadows may buggy
In some cases your attached lights may have buggy shadows if parent is moving, work smart when use this feature. If your moving light is decoration - highly recommended to leave shadows disabled to save limits and performance.
Moving newLight_Spot clipping if shadows enabled
Even with low speed, newLight_Spot clipping when rotating, but only if shadows enabled. With pause this bug get fix.
Viewmodel illuminated by deferred render draw in refract shader
Refract shader and Water shader take and refract player screen space without taking into account viewmodel. However - viewmodel illuminated by deferred render draw in refract shader because of game can't tell the depth of viewmodel because of the transparency, what you are see in the pictures is just the lighting layer applied to the color of transparency texture.
Objects with refract shader self refract if illuminated by deferred render
Objects with refract shader in their own refraction disable self, to escape some problems. However - objects with refract shader illuminated by deferred render refract self because of game can't tell the depth of objects because of the transparency, what you are see in the pictures is just the lighting layer applied to the color of transparency texture.
Similar issue happen if model with refraction behind wall with refraction.
Viewmodel doesn't support self-shadowing with deferred ligths
Unlike cascade shadows - viewmodel doesn't support self-shadowing with deferred ligths. Not a bug, but this is not what you expect from real life, it also isn't so with env_projectedtexture.
Godrays and deferred lighting incorrect work with cloak
Cloak is a material shader parameter for VertexLitGeneric
shader, female assassins use it to make them transparent when they need it. Godrays all time fully render through them, same for deferred lighting.
Strange "holes" when player's camera is at a great distance
In some cases may will appear strange "holes" when player's camera is at a great distance. Strange bug that occurs quite rarely. It is affected by game resolution, for example in bm_c4a1b1
this bug shows up well with a resolution wtih 1920x1080
, but with 3840x2160
the light source from the teleporter flickers, but does not form a hole. Can be fixed if increase NormalBias
number.
Weapons dynamic light incorrect work with damaged func_breakable_surf
For some reason weapons dynamic light can illuminate damaged func_breakable_surf even if position of it very far from position of damaged func_breakable_surf.
New lights don't work with 3D Skybox
Don't use new lights in your 3D skyboxes, none of them will work at all.
Motion blur blurring viewmodel lighting layer
For some reason Motion blur
blurring viewmodel lighting layer, you can notice this when you just rotate camera.
Deferred lighting incorrect work with Customize Character window
For some reason Customize Character take player's screen, inserts it into character preview window and show one of deferred lighting layers.
Deferred lighting does not draw with -tools
If you don't use Full Screen
- deferred lighting will not draw.
Deferred lighting that use shadows disappear after materials reload
This issue happen when you open Hammer while game is opened, when you disable speculars with mat_specular 0
, when you reload all matelias with mat_reloadallmaterials
, e. t. c. Can be fixed with save reload.
See also
- newLight_Point - point deferred light entity.
- NewLights_Spawner - spawner of deferred point lights.
- env_lensflare - cinematic dynamic lens flare.
- newLight_Dir - directional sun light with godrays only.
- newLights_settings - entity that changes deferred light settings.
- godrays_settings - entity that changes godrays settings.
- env_cascade_light - deferred cascade sun light entity.
- New Lights Editor - in game deferred lights editor.
- Effect flags - effects flags, some of them are dynamic light effects.
- BlackMesa XenEngine: Part 4 – Lighting & Shadows - page from Chetan (lead programmer for Black Mesa) about new lights.
- BlackMesa XenEngine: Part2 – How a Frame is Rendered - page from Chetan (lead programmer for Black Mesa) about how a frame is rendered.
- BlackMesa XenEngine: Part1 – Heavily Modified Source Engine page from Chetan (lead programmer for Black Mesa) about Xengine.