[SOLVED] Too Many Light Styles...

shiftey · Post by **shiftey** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 1:14 am

I have a warehouse type room (very big) that has about 20 light_spots in it, and I keep getting a "too many light styles on a face at ..."

All of the surrounding textures are really messed up. The lighting looks very square and blocky and doesn't fade smoothly except for a few areas. FYI the textures are all confirmed "LightMappedGeneric"s.

Any solution to this mess?

EDIT: It also never seems to calculate vis data.

Hyperjag3 · Post by **Hyperjag3** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 1:22 am

The lights aren't named (making them dynamic) are they? Could also be from setting custom lightstyles on them (flicker effects).

fug's Obsidian clips · Post by **fug4life** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 1:35 am

What Hyper said.

Too many named ones or if rendermodes changed. I wondered because I had a lot of complicated func_detail near the lights I added when I got the problem. But certainly deleting lights or making sure they are non-dynamic i.e not named or changed render mode should help.

shiftey · Post by **shiftey** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:03 am

They're all named and all made up of a dynamic, spot, and point_spots. Do I have to delete them all? I really would like to keep them. They're all physics lights hanging from wires that break when shot. I played with the settings and got up to 20 of them in the same room without dropping my fps anymore than 10 fps. It would be a shame to have to get rid of them all.

fug's Obsidian clips · Post by **fug4life** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:06 am

Then I can only suggest take away the names, if your not switching them on/off with I/O.

Also your using I'm not 100% if this is right name but a light_dynamic? you have want it shootable/moveable?

shiftey · Post by **shiftey** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:09 am

Correction: !!The lights aren't named. I just checked and only the objects involved in physics interactions are named. Everything else is parented to the prop_lightmodel. I will try getting rid of the dynamic lights although I don't think they are the problem because they don't even reach the floor.

Each light prefab is made of the following:
1 Keyframe_rope
1 move_rope
1 phys_ballconstraint
1 prop_physics lamp model
1 light
1 light_dynamic
1 point_spotlight

Only the keyframe_rope and prop_physic are named.

fug's Obsidian clips · Post by **fug4life** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:13 am

Prop light model? If its parented then your props are prop_dynamic's surely? I only ever use prop_statics. unless the model insists otherwise.

shiftey · Post by **shiftey** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:19 am

I have a prop_physics_multiplayer as the "fake" light and a light_dynamic parented to it. Then I have a regular light sitting static below the whole setup.

EDIT: Ok well I found that half of the lights on one side of the room were named and unnamed them. Now my lights look good but I still get that error while compiling and it doesn't run vis.

fug's Obsidian clips · Post by **fug4life** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:20 am

so what your saying is you have 20 now un named lights parented via a prop to 20 + phys entities (i.e ball socket and the rope).

These lights would look like something in de_prodigy that map has lights like that setup. if you grab them with the grav gun it like grabbing a tyre on a rope in the source engine it goes all over the place.

Thats quite render intensive.

Sorry dont want to sound harsh, want to help

Edit: whatever way you name it etc, all those ent's combined just to = one light makes it as about as dynamic as you can get.

fug's Obsidian clips · Post by **fug4life** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:32 am

I dont really know what to say apart from can you not half the number of these you have and try get what you've got to cover the same surface area?

shiftey · Post by **shiftey** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:36 am

I did now but I still get the error messages. The lights look great in game though.

fug's Obsidian clips · Post by **fug4life** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:44 am

If in doubt, decompile de_prodigy and take a look at those, I don't know but it some times good to go compare see if there's any tip or ticks the pro's may have used that you might of overlooked.

I don't know maybe they have their's optimised like a bitch to get what they have and I know that in de_prodigy theres about 6-7 of these lights in one vis leave and if anything I think thats about the total they have in the map.

but look to see if they are turning shadows of for the prop etc stuff like that.

Blues · Post by **Blues** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 12:53 am

Can't you just remove all or almost all of the lights and replace them with point_spotlights or light_dynamics or something?

You just gotta test different settings i think to get rid of the error.
Like, normally, it's different light styles that cause that error. or if you have your lights turned off or killed by some input. You can't shoot em out, right?

shiftey · Post by **shiftey** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 12:54 am

Nope. They're not named so they can't be shot out.

skidz · Post by **skidz** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 1:04 am

Just a little explanation for light styles errors.
For say 20 lights on the same surface with names, rad has to do a calculation for every lights (on/off) state and assign the lightmap generated to the surface. A surface can only hold about 4 lightmaps so when you have 20 (on/off) states its a problem. If every light is unnamed it assigns them all to one lightmap calculation.

Valve should really allow you to parent a number of lights that turn off and on together so it will only generate two light styles for 20 or more lights, but there is no feature like this I don't think.