Point lighting effects

Loopysue

How do the point light effects work in DD3?

I don't have the Tome, and I can't show you the problem I'm having because its something I'm playing around with as a possible (and currently rather doubtful) entry for Shessar's competition, but I just can't seem to get the point light setup to work at all.

I've just scoured the DD3 manual but they don't seem to be mentioned in there (unless I'm just being totally blind).

Are there any useful videos I missed somewhere?

Monsen

Basics are fairly simple.
1. Add the Wall Shadow, Point Light setup on the first sheet that contains entities that should block light/cast shadows
2. Add additional Wall Shadow, Point Light Setup on later sheets if they contains objects that should cast shadows differently (Like shorter shadows)
3. Add the Wall shadow, Point Light Finalize effect to the last sheet that contains entities that cast shadow.
4. Use Dungeon -> Lights -> Add light to set up lights in your dungeon. Notice that any area which does not have any light would be completely black.

Loopysue

Thank you Remy

I will now go away and have another go, while referring back to your list of instructions

Loopysue

Ok. Its kind of working

I just need a bit of time to get used to the finer points of how it behaves.

Thanks again Remy

Monsen

You're welcome. Enjoy playing with them.

Loopysue

Oh wow! I've just discovered they can be different colours!!!

Oh... pretty lights...

LadieStorm

uh oh! lol I see a monster of a map in the making!

Dogtag

For some beautiful examples of DD3's dungeon lighting, and some real noodle-baking, check out Lightcaster's inaugural maps (scroll down, you'll know them when you get to them). They're stunning, beautiful, and haunting. There were a lot more but, unfortunately, the image links in his (or her) original post are broken.

Loopysue

I've just looked at them. Thanks Dogtag. I think at least some of the details like flares and so on might have been added during post processing with Corel Photopaint (which is exactly what I have), but the basics are all as I've just discovered for myself.

[EDIT: with Remy's help, of course!!!]

DD3 lighting effects are HOT (and they're cool, but you know what I mean!!!) LOL

And Storm? I really wouldn't worry about any kind of a map in the near future. I'm going to be too busy just playing with the pretty lights - like a child at Christmas

LadieStorm

one or two... before you joined us. But very rarely...

Loopysue

I was just trying to render a larger image of my Competition map to upload to the CG page instead of using the small one, and I came across a really unusual moire pattern, presumably caused by the lights.

I can't seem to render this map at any higher resolution than the one it was rendered for the competition without it happening.

Does anyone know how to cure this?

Monsen

Can't say I have noticed anything like that before, maybe Joe knows something about this?

Loopysue

It gets worse the higher the resolution is set. I think it may be an interference pattern between the orange and blue lights - a moire pattern, but I've no idea how to cure it.

Dogtag

Psychedelic!

jslayton

There are practical limits to the angular resolution of the line of sight calculations (specifically, the limit is [lightAngularWidth / (10 * max(imageWidth, imageHeight))]). There are no hidden parameters to tweak. About all that you can do is to place another light at the same spot and adjust the angular width of each to roughly 181 degrees and have them face in opposite directions. That non-obvious activity will give you about twice the angular resolution. Three lights will give you three times the resolution, and so on. If you only have a couple of lights, it's probably a tractable solution. For more than just a few, you're probably not going to want to do that.

Loopysue

Surprisingly... and I say that because I'm dog tired and should have been in bed at least 3 hours ago... That makes perfect sense.

Thank you so much for dropping in to explain it to me.

Fortunately the two lights that seem to be causing this are only the two lights, so I can do as you suggest