Global Lighting Not Working
Jeff B
Betatester 🖼️ 39 images Surveyor
I have tried to use the global lighting but it does not do anything in any map that I have created. I have followed Ralf's video on dungeon lighting and have turned it on but no matter what settings I select nothing changes. I'm I missing something or is my installation messed up and just doesn't work?
Comments
Can we see a screen shot of what you have so far?
So the effects are turned on and I have changed the sun location and as you can see the shadows do not change and I cannot get the overall image to darken.
I changed the setting and as you can see no effect.
The light direction controls the direction of the shadows cast by the Wall Shadow, Directional sheet effect. Some of the other shadow effects do not respond to the global sun direction.
The lighting setup is separate, and involves generating a lighting setup.
The only thing on that dialog that effects a lighting setup is the Shadow transparency, which is currently set to 100%. That means that even if you had lights and a lighting setup in the map it would be barely noticeable because there wouldn't be any shadow.
Which of the two videos did you watch?
I Ralf's video form Dungeon lighting he turned the Global lighting on set it a 100% and the screen went black he then set it to 40% and 50% to darken the overall image. None of that happens when I change and activate the global lighting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQKEswmn10A
Thanks
I had to watch the first part a couple of times to revise what was said in that session, and I just caught it at 2x speed (trying to work this out fast for you). Ralf mentions that he already has some lighting effects set up in the sheets just before he switches on the Activate Lighting. That is why he gets a reaction from the map, and you don't.
There are two lighting sheet effects used to make a lighting setup. The first is Wall Shadow, Point Light Setup, and is used on any sheet where there are objects or shapes that you want to cast a shadow. You can adjust the Shadow length on this effect so that tables and chairs cast shorter shadows and walls cast infinite shadows.
The Wall Shadow, Point Light Finalize finishes the setup. Any sheet above the sheet with this final effect on it won't be affected by the lighting setup, and will appear as if light by ordinary daylight. That can be useful for the frame of the map and titles and labels, etc.
You will need to add these sheet effects (as many of the setup effects as you need on different sheets, but just one of the finalize effects) before you see a response to the activation of the lighting.
yep that worked, Missed that part in the video. Just created a lighting sheet added the two lighting effects and screen goes black.
Thank you Sue
The azimuth setting in the global dialog is that the azimuth of the shadow or the light as that appears to be 180 degrees out from where I would expect the shadow to be if it really is the sun direction. Some azimuths don't seem to change the shadow direction.
You're welcome :)
The Azimuth in this case is the direction from which the sun is shining (Zero is East), and the inclination is how high in the sky it is (90 degrees is overhead), but bear in mind that if you are doing a lit map with a lighting setup the global sun won't matter. All your shadows will be cast by the lights you add, and not the global sun.
Ok that explains a lot about what I see when I put in azimuth numbers, everything is 90 degrees off from what I expected to see as I assumed zero is North not East. Guess I have to reprogram my brain when using CC3+ and global lighting.
The azimuth is indeed counter-intuitive if you're used to the real-world standard usage (and note that it also runs counter-clockwise from east, NOT clockwise!). I ran up against the same problem some time ago. Apparently, mathematicians (and thus computer programmers/programs) work in this alternative fashion. Which as I said at the time confirmed my long-standing prejudice that mathematics has nothing to do with reality after all 😉
@Wyvern My calculus professor tried to explain to us why mathameticians used a spherical object they called 'cow' instead of an actual cow. Too many appendages. Even the 4.0/4.0 student in the class didn't get it so he said never mind and changed the subject. By that I mean the legs, head, ears, and tail.
It's the same in physics, Jim; "Big Bang Theory" TV show reused the spherical cow as a spherical chicken instead as a joke. All most amusing, even if sadly all-too true as well!
If you're using clockwise from north, you're doing navigation. If it's counterclockwise from east, you're doing mathematics, or NASCAR.
Mathematics does that because people are right-handed. When you learned the number line, you started at 1 and counted bigger things more toward your dominant hand. Later on, you learned about zero. Then somebody put another number line perpendicular to that first one. Then the triangle guys came along and started describing angles as a function of how far on the first number line and then how far on the second number line to go. Finally, somebody asked "what if I go left and/or down from zero?) and things went screwier, but didn't damage the overall angle definitions.
Navigation does that because... Look here! Math is hard! I like North because it's easy to find at night and I like clockwise because that's how the shadows move.
There's a little picture on the Global Sun dialog next to the azimuth entry to try to reinforce the idea of "counterclockwise from zero", but I it took me a long time to out the intent from that graphic.
That that would be why I have also called Algebra and Calculus DRUG Math, You have to be on drugs to understand it because it's not real.
The only people stranger than physicists are mathematicians.
Be careful, I work in a department full of them. You never know what they will do to you if they hear you speak like that :)
Yeah, they might decide someone was in a multi-verse, and no this one.
Just turn the lights off, and ask them "does the dark matter?" 😉
By and large, they don't know what they'll do, either. Which makes them doubly dangerous.
As the mathematicians like to say "A physicist is a mathematician who can't deal with abstraction." At least one physicist has said "Mathematicians would be physicists if they could deal with the real world."