Multiple light problems

#1 Update. Yeah it's impossible to control intensity. Even setting the fall off can cause stability problems. Curious if others are having the same problems because the lighting is impossible to control with my install? It's possible it's corrupted but I have to believe they are bugs because it's so pervassive and the rest of Constructor seems to work very well.

#2 You're seeing the dynamic lighting kick in - it turns on when you change a light to help you see where it's being placed and get an idea of the color. Once the scene is relit the light reverts back to static.

I can't comment on the placement, which is done outside of the lighting system, but it should be the same as brushes and other objects.

#3 I had some issues with crazy intensity, but relighting the scene after I altered a light sorted it out. It looks like it was leaving a "ghost light". As in if I move the position, there is now 2 lights, one in the new position and one left behind, making it heckova bright. The effects of some form of dynamic lighting being applied on top of older lightmaps maybe? I don't know. But relight fixed it.

#4 Yes, the dynamic lighting from a changed light is applied over the light maps, so you can see your changes without affecting all of the lights (disabling the light maps would affect all of the lights).

#5 Ah cool, I understand. :)

#6 Do you guys not like the feature, or just thought it was broken?

I might be able to add a pref that disables the feature (if it's causing problems).

#7 I'm seeing something different than everyone else is describing. I literally can't change the value on the lights. The only way to brighten the objects is to move the light so close they are nearly touching the object. Adjusting the values does nothing. I've tried everything including relight and all relight ever does is reduce the amount of light. I've tried dynamic and mapped but nothing helps. I've set values on light from 1 to 5000 with no effect.

Moving the light is extremely erratic. If I move it slightly say it moves say ten units where as you might expect it to move .1 units, that slight. If I move it slightly more it lurches out say 100 units distance leaving the model in the distance. That definately isn't normal.

Others seem to be having a different experience but for me the lighting is nonfunctional. I love the rest of so far and I have modelling and mapping down but the lighting doesn't work.

Also I take it the lights are supposed to generate shadows. I have never seen a shadow and I have tried different types point and spot lights. Just really having zero luck with lighting.

#8 Cary,
Are you working in Mapped mode or in Dynamic mode?

Dynamic mode can get pretty intensive rendering-wise and if you computer/video card isn't up to it then you would most likely get the trouble with moving the lights around like you described. You would also never see shadows.

One "trick" I found when I just couldn't get a light as bright as I wanted (through modifying its intensity or falloffs) was to clone the light so that you have 2 in the same place.

#9 I've tried every mode and the lurching is there in every mode including "none".

The only way I've found to adjust intensity is to move the light or add more. The "intensity" setting itself is nonfunctional. It's not the best video card but it's contemporary. I'll try it later on the Mac and on my better machine.

I really love Constructor but so far the lighting is extremely buggy. Parts of it don't work and setting the light's position is extremely tricky. If I move the light too fast it literally shoots off the screen and leaves the model as a tiny spot in the distance. That isn't normal. Even a slight twitch of the mouse moves it a long distance.

#10 @Cary - what is the scale of your scene? I.e., if you put in the torque orc from the test shapes, is he in line with the scale of your creation? The only reason I ask is that I had run into an issue where I was puzzled why the lights weren't lighting up my scene well even with large increases in the brightness settings, until I realized that the brushes I had made were HUGE in a relative way. (silly, I know, but I was just learning c'tor ;) ..just a thought

#11 Are all of the entities lurching or just the lights?

I don't think there's an intensity field on the light. Make sure you're using the light_omni entity. The color field defines both the color and intensity - try increasing the color value to boost the intensity.

Also make sure to adjust both falloff1 and falloff2, which represent where the lighting starts falling off and ends respectively.

Does adding two lights in the same place increase the lighting, if not then the interior textures may be too dark.

#12 Okay part of it may be a video card issue because now I'm finding everything lurches in a scene when I add a light. I would assume turning off the dynamic rendering would help but it doesn't. Even when I turn off rendering entirely, "None", it's still unstable. I'm using a 5500FX card on that machine. Both of my other machines have better cards so I'll try them later when I have more time.

I posted a capture.

http://newrealmpictures.com/constructor

As you can see I have to nearly put a light on the Orc's head to light him. There is an "Intensity" setting but it does nothing. I have tried increasing the fall offs but they are tricky to set, once again apparently a video card issue. The machine is a 3200 Athlon with 2 gig of ram and a 5500FX video card. It's not the greatest video card but I work Maya, Lightwave and Modo without any real problems, not to mention a few dozen others like Vue 5 and Zbrush. It's basically trying to light one block with a small ground plane so it must need a serious video card. Before the Orc got added that was 12 polys and textures. Not exactly challenging normally.

I'm guessing there's at least a bug in the fact that changing the render types doesn't help. "None" should disable the rendering but the slow down is still there. Also "Intensity" is nonfunctional. Apparently position and light cones are the only way to adjust intensity.

It'd be good to know a requirement for the video card since it seems to be pretty beefy. Far more than I'm used to for a modeller even one with lighting capibilities. I can play Doom3 with this machine but I can't light a cube with Constructor so it seems like that can be improved upon.

#13 Can you post a screen shot with the light selected so it's data shows up in the object properties.

Also can you send over the scene and I'll take a look at it.

#14 Okay I just deleted my post before I posted it. I got to playing around and made some progress but it's bizarre. Shadows show on mapped but not Dynamic. Ignore "Intensity" it's non functional. Fall off and position is the only way to adjust intensity. An odd thing I found is fall off is a world setting and once you set it for one it affects them all. Without an Intensity adjustment it would make it tricky to light anything. The lurching is driving me nuts. I will try it later tonight on other machines but I'd say if it's a video card issue my card isn't even close. I really don't think it should affect it this way. It doesn't move slowly like it's struggling it's erradic.

The Orc also doesn't seem affected so I'm guessing it's because it already has light maps that are locked but it looks really dark.

Lighting is the first part of Constructor I'd say I don't like. Seems like there are some bugs and a few things like Intensity appear to be nonfunctional. I'm sure the issues will get addressed but I'd hesitate to try lightmapping myself as it stands now. The documentation is a bit lean as well. I had to figure out that you had to hit "Make" myself. It doesn't mention it in the docs. Here's the entry.

"Light Entities can be found in the Create Tab of the Tools Panel. Like other creation objects, just select the tool and click within one of the viewports to place the light. Unlike other creation tools, light entities cannot be scaled as they are single points."

No mention of "Make". After that it just says to play with adjustments. It'd also be good to mention in what render types shadows work. It never mentions shadows. I realize it's a work in progress I'm just pointing out issues. The other sections gave a lot of good info. Lighting docs kind of glaze over the subject and don't give much hard info. I did try changing things like Speed Over Quality in the defaults for light maps but it didn't affect the lurching so I still think that's a bug and not related to video card. Nothing affects it once you place a light. Even if it's a video card issue I say it can be better than this. Lightwave and Maya have interacive lighting that isn't slowed down on this machine and with Fprime for Lightwave I can interactive lighting fully rendered scenes near realtime on this machine. Two cubes shouldn't be able to bring the video card to it's knees. Also there has to be a bug because "none" and "Shaded" don't update lighting so the video card can't be slowing it down. I get the exact same erractic movement even with those selected. Just placing one light is enough to make the scene unworkable no matter the settings or number and type of objects.

Okay one last thing. I restarted the scene and apparently if you don't have any objects yet you don't have to hit "make" but after you have a light or object you do need to hit Make. Also the light moves erratically even without anything to light. Thought I should try everything. The odd movement even affects it when it's in Ortho mode, top, front, side.

#15 I'm still not sure where you're getting the intensity field - it doesn't exist in the light entities I've worked with, it certainly isn't supported by the lighting system.

Dynamic lighting is for easy object and light placement without worrying about relights - it doesn't support shadows.

I'll check out the issue with falloff affecting all entities - update: falloff isn't changing globally here, it only affects the selected light.

#16 Nevermind I see the intensity now - odd that it's not in existing scene, but in new entities...

I'm not sure why it's there I'll need to look into that.

#17 That field is new to me - but seeing as it's already in there maybe we can connect it up to the lighting system for the next release. :)

#18 Are you getting a lot of spam in your console after you add a light?

#19 It was definately throwing me having an "Intensity" setting that did nothing. Normally that would be how I would adjust light levels. In CG Fall Off is a different thing. It can relate to intensity but it's not used to adjust it.

Well I decided to break down and load Constructor onto a better machine. Big performance improvement. It's a 4800 dual core Athlon with 2 gig of ram and a 7600GS video card so it's not surpriseing. Still a so so video card, I ordered a workstation card that arrived smashed. Long sad story there so the card was a punt but adequate. A FX 5500 definately isn't adequate.

Not sure what you mean by

"Are you getting a lot of spam in your console after you add a light?"

It just drags the system down. None or Shaded should cure the problem if it's a render issue.

I'm just going to use it on the 4800 and not even bother with the 3200. It still drags a little bit on the 4800. Even with one light and a simple model it really seems to want a pretty beefy video card. I need to get another workstation card just been tight on money.

I am a fan of Constructor, Lighting was just throwing me. I did post another image. Definately working better. I like the idea there's just a few things to iron out.

http://newrealmpictures.com/constructor

#20 Matt was asking about the console spam because it could slow down the processing.

Btw: I comfortably use an ATI 9600 here, so a fast video card is not required - it could be something unrelated (like the console spam).


You can use the falloff to help boost the intensity (or more specifically avoid losing intensity over distance), but it's not the main control - the current release uses the light color to affect intensity.