Point of Light in a complex map help
LadieStorm
🖼️ 50 images Surveyor
Hey guys... I'm still hoping to be able to use/master the point of light effects in my maps. I have one in particular that I'm trying to work it into, but it's a little complex. I'm trying to figure out how to use point of light in a map that conveys more than one floor in a single map, with an outside, and two separate insides, and 'glowing, magical items', all within one area.
I have a long forgotten temple with a secret... a secret entrance to a cave that is a special crypt - It contains the grave of the Great High Priestess for this particular long, forgotten order, but it also contains a 'broken' magic item piece (inside her grave) that is the beginning of an epic quest line for the game I'm running, or will be running.
Now outside the cave is fairly bright, for day time hours... but inside the cave should be very dark, with the exception of the lamps that light when one enters the cave, and the glowing of the sarcophagi that contain the bodies of long dead monks in this order. These bodies are enchanted to come to life, and protect the magic item buried here, until someone can prove worthy enough to take the item piece.
Anyway, what matters, is that the cave should be dark, but there are two sources of light... the brazier flames, which are primary, and the glowing graves which are secondary.
I also need to keep the point of light set up to just inside the cave portion of the map. Help please?
I have a long forgotten temple with a secret... a secret entrance to a cave that is a special crypt - It contains the grave of the Great High Priestess for this particular long, forgotten order, but it also contains a 'broken' magic item piece (inside her grave) that is the beginning of an epic quest line for the game I'm running, or will be running.
Now outside the cave is fairly bright, for day time hours... but inside the cave should be very dark, with the exception of the lamps that light when one enters the cave, and the glowing of the sarcophagi that contain the bodies of long dead monks in this order. These bodies are enchanted to come to life, and protect the magic item buried here, until someone can prove worthy enough to take the item piece.
Anyway, what matters, is that the cave should be dark, but there are two sources of light... the brazier flames, which are primary, and the glowing graves which are secondary.
I also need to keep the point of light set up to just inside the cave portion of the map. Help please?
Comments
That's another question I have. Some of my 'walls' aren't conventional... does that matter when using point of light?
I can only repeat that everything except the cave should be on sheets above the Point light finalize effect. So your sheets should appear in this order in the sheets and effects dialog list:
- Sheets with the cave and everything in it
- The sheet with the point light finalize effect (might be the very last cave sheet)
- Everything else that isn't in the cave or part of it.
So for example whichever sheet you have your floor on in the house is still above the point light finalize in the sheet list, whereas the walls and windows are below it in that list
Also, why does it seem like my lights aren't lighting the area? those torches are supposed to light up the cave... but it's not working, either.
First of all, point light effects are designed to be either on or off for the entire map, you can't exclude regions.
They way to work around this, as Sue points out is to have sheets that are not supposed to be affected AFTER the sheets with the shadow effects on them, but unless you planned for this when making the map, doing this after the fact can be a lot of work and tweaking.
Another way to handle this is to have the outside lighted too, just use a huge bright light to emulate the sun lighting the area. If you wish, arrange the symbols/wall outside on sheets outside the range of the effect so they don't cast any shadows.
As to why your lights are not lighting the area, there are no lights at all in your map. Dungeon --> Lights --> Edit All Lights shows that you haven't added any light sources at all. Remember that a light source is a special kind of entity, you can't just add a torch symbol, you need to also define a light for CC3+ (A handful symbols come with an embedded light sources, but for most, you must add this yourself)
As Remy inferred - its best to have the lighting firmly in mind and exactly how it will be achieved before drawing the map. However, this is not an insolvable problem. It just requires that you make a few more sheets and split those things that are part in and part outside the cave.
All the light effects are on one sheet - the "SYMBOLS below (and lights)" sheet. There are two lights right on top of one another, and if I had been able to easily find a lantern symbol I would have placed it right at that point. However, maybe it is clearer without a lantern stuck right on top of it.
When you open the file you will see black crosses where the lights are supposed to be. You will have to hide the light symbols in the Dungeon menu, and then it will look like the image below.
[Image_12807]
Point lights are like fancy Wall shadow effects (in fact I think that's what they are called in the effects list). Its like doing a Wall shadow effect, but you have to add lights, and they can light the things on the sheets below. In the example this can be seen by the way the trapdoor on the sheet below the lights and the bones is also lit, but the crucial difference is that it casts no shadow, whereas the skeletons (which are on the same sheet as the lights and the point light effects) do cast shadows according to the direction of the light being cast by the point light.
Maybe my example can help someone else
EDIT: looking back over this thread I get the feeling that there may be some general confusion here when we are speaking about the difference between adding ordinary lamp symbols and adding actual lights. To start with a person wishing to add dungeon lighting to a map will need to be in Dungeon mapping mode (click the DD3 icon if you have used a non-DD3 template). Lights can then be added to the map from the Dungeon menu. Dungeon-->Lights-->Add Light. Right there in that same sub-sub menu are all the other tools you need to modify the lights and get the map to show them as little crosses or not.
If I still had Word I would feel a tutorial coming on! LOL!
I must admit that I remember it was quite frustrating till I got my thinking properly aligned with how it worked