interesting lighting question

[The ultimate novice]

In creating a rather large indoor/outdoor DM map, I opted for unlit sufaces outside instead of adding mad lights everywhere to make the area visible. That would seriously hamper my framerate! The only problem is that the weapon in my hand has no lights on it; it looks pretty lame. I do, however, want the lighting effects on my gun (and opponents) when I go inside and I do have lights. I don't know any scripting, so maybe there's a simple answer out there for me. Can I set my gun's texture to 'unlit' while I am outside only? Thanks for the help!

[Fuzzpilz]

Don't do that.
Unlit surfaces make your map look bland and uninteresting. Use a combination of zone lighting and radius 255 lights.

[Slick_Willy]

Other players will be black too. The reason is when you add lights to the level it calculates lighting for the whole volume of the level, not just the textures. Haven't you ever been playing and someone stands in a dark corner and they are hard to see? How is this going to happen if you have nothing for the map to be able to tell what should be lighted or not. Also, Non-Dynamic lighting is calculated at build time and not when you are playing so having large lights outside isn't going to make your Frame Rate go down. If you are looking to create sunlight you can place just a few lights up in the air with a 255 radius and the brightness you need. Also change the lighting effect to LE_Cylinder or LE_NonIncidence. That will help brighten up the level pretty good without have to add a bunch of lights.

[The ultimate novice]

I tried that, but even with 255 rad lights, I am having trouble lighting the IMMENSE area tht I'm working with.
(4096 x 4096 * 8192) Using enough lights in an area this big seems to kill my frame rate. Are there any other properties I could play with to enhance the lights magnificence?

[ChrisToth.hu]

I think You can make weapons and players bright with large radii lights with Lighteffect LE_Omnibumpmap...try it...

(I'm not sure)

[The ultimate novice]

LE-NonIncedence did the job. One question though, what exactly DID it do? I can't tell exactly what changed.

[Slick_Willy]

Normally when you add a light it starts to fade immdiately as you move from the center. NonIncedence makes it shine full bright out to about half the radius and then falls off. Cylinder seems to make it shine full bright the whole radius and then drops off immediately.
I'm sure this isn't exact but close enough to explain it. For outdoor lighting this is the way to go for getting a good uniform appearance without a lot of lights. My Level I'm working on right now is 8192x8192 and about 7 lights did the trick just fine. Cylinder and NonIncedence lights are also good for accenting light sources. Like a torch for example. I usually add 1 cylinder light close to the torch and set it at 255 brightness, Cylinder, with a radius of about 4. Then I use another light at half brightness to actually light the area up. This give a more realistic glow around the light source. Also I've found that the light from a Cylinder light doesn't scatter like regular lights do so they are good for accenting shadows, Like if you have a room that is open on top to let light in and you have beams across the ceiling. A cylinder light above the beams will cause the beams to cast a shadow on the floor a lot better than a regular light will.

[Fuzzpilz]

AFAIK Cylinder means that shadows are calculated vertically. There's an all-about-lighting tutorial that I keep forgetting the URL of, but I think it's also got description of the effects. Wait for Hybrid to post it.