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L4D: Creating a Skybox and Light Environment

June 09, 2009
Category: Left 4 Dead Mapping

Creating Skybox and Light_Env inside Hammer Source will give us the ability to create outside area with a sky and a sun/moon light.

Any area that has skybox texture will project light_env into our scene. It's very simple to do, just watch the video below and go over the notes.

Additional notes included below.

L4D Mapping: Creating a Skybox and Light Environment - Video Tutorial

Notes:

1. Proper placement of brushes around your map to block off the entire level. There should be no gaps, so there is no vis leaks.

Make sure your snaps are on.

2. Use skybox texture to any brushes that you want to project a sky from.

3. Any face that a player will not see apply a 'nodraw' texture to it. This is the beginning to optimizing your map.

4. Under Map --> Map Properties you will choose a sky.

On developer.valvesoftware.com wiki you can choose which sky with you want and it will give you specific numbers you need to put in for lights.

5. After you choose the name of your SkyBox Texture name and entered it into Map Properties. It is time to insert light_environment entity.

Light_Environment can be inserted anywhere in your level. It will project a light from any surface that has a skybox texture applied.

6. Double Click on the light_env and go into the properties. In here you will use the numbers from developer.valvesoftware.com wiki and input them into the following fields.

7. Here is our rendered out environment with only a light_env. Will still need to do a lot of work with our lights, but it is a base start you want to work with.

Leave a comment :)

Comments are Closed. Please Join & Discuss this post in the World of Level Design Forums Comments Eddie 09 Nov 2009, 11:08 Thanx a million for your tutorials man, they are great. I have a question though... i notice when you where painting alpha on your blend textures, you were not having to deal with the detail sprites, they are really annoying, and seem to be automatic for me on almost every blend texture.... any suggestions? thanx again, -Eddie AlexG 25 Jul 2009, 22:49 Thank clok, I'll do my best and keep up the quality. I'll plan for the lighting tutorial as well. clok1966 24 Jul 2009, 19:50 Best Hammer tutorials on net that i have found, and the videos are excellent. Love to see more on light properties and how to make them work well. Lighting is frustratiing me to no end. To many maps get strange ares where the map suddently get brighter depending on where you stand. But yes, love the tutorials you are doing! Ron Perry 09 Jun 2009, 16:51 I'm really enjoying these tutorials, Alex. I check back here often and watch my email for new ones. Thanks for all of your efforts! AlexG 09 Jun 2009, 07:09 Thank you Ian, My plan is to cover as much as I can from beginning to end, to what it takes to create a map for L4D and hammer source. I remember when I started mapping for hammer, I had the hardest time understanding the docs. Back then there wasn't much help online either. I'm happy to help you and others like you. Thanks man. Ian Brooks 09 Jun 2009, 06:51 These tutorials are really good, and are tremendous help to newcomers to Source mapping like myself. Just reading through the Valve docs has me confused about the navigation mesh stuff, so hopefully you will be covering this here also. Powered by Scriptsmill Comments Script