Tutorial #8: Basic Lights (click to download .UNR) | Author: Dr. SiN | Last Updated: May 26th

Unreal Tutorial #8 Basic Lights (and how to use the Translator) Introduction: This tutorial will introduce you to lighting in Unreal. At this level, I will not go in to details on how to properly light a level. This tutorial is simply to lay out what the different light effects are and what the different fields do. Of course I'll also explain how to do a lighting flare and corona and I'll also briefly cover how make the Translator display a message (it's so simple).

The Light Properties

All lights in Unreal have a similar set of properties. To view the properties, highlight a light, right click on it and select Light Properties. You will see a menu like this (only not expanded).

| With lights, there are really only 4 fields you need to be concerned with. They are Advance, Light Color, Lighting (all show open here) and Display (which is only used for Lens Flare/corona). Your basic light is most concerned with the all of LightColor and the LightRadius field under Lighting. Let's look at them in a bit more detail.

LightBrightness: This is how physically bright the original light source.

LightHue: This is the color the light will take on.

LightSaturation: This is how much hue will be used. Lights default to 255 which is all white. To get colored lights, reduce the LightSaturation.

LightRadius: This is how far out the sphere of light extends.

These are the only values you need to be concerned with when placing a lightsource in your map. While editing, you can press P in your 3D view and lights will update in real time as you adjust them (of course you may still have to rebuild).

The next two fields of importance are LightEffect and LightType. These modify how the light looks in the game. Effects like blinking.. water shimmer, etc are all handled by these fields. There are 18 Light Effects (and I under stand all but 2 of them). There are 8 lighting types.

ok.. let's dive in and see what different types of lighting effects we can make...

The Effects:

As I stated above, there are 18 different lighting effects. Most of them are preaty straight forward. Let's talk about them and what settings they use.

GROUP 1: All of the effects in group one only use the LightRadius setting. This setting is used to define the sphere where the light will take effect. The larger the radius, the father the light travels.

| Effect |  | Description |
| Disco |  | This causes a disc dance floor type of lighting. It's very cool. |
| Cylinder |  | At this time, this is unkown |
| Warp |  | This is a weird effect who's use isn't clear yet. It seems to distort light on a given wall. |
| Incadecent |  | Looks like an Incadecent light bulb is lighting the area. |
| Interference |  | Looks like something is interfering with the light. |
| Torch Wave |  | A very faint flicker. I guess it's meant to be used with torches. |
| Fire Wave |  | A More more defined flicker. Very nice with large fires. |
| Water Shimmer |  | Looks like you are in a room that is lit by light refelecting off of water. |
| Slow Wave |  | Just a pulsing light that comes in waves. |
| Fast Wave |  | Just a pulsing light the comes in waves, only faster |
| Cloud Cast |  | Adjusts light to look like a cloudy day?? |

The purpose of 2 of the remaining lights dumbfounds me. These are Shell and Roter. In both of these lights, the LightRadius seems to effect the way the light is displayed.. but I have no idea where you would use them.

The Spotlights (normal and static) are great for making sure light gets on a given object. Both of the spotlights need the bDirectional field (under advance) set. This allows you to point the light in a given direction by rotating it.

The Search Light effect is a great effect. Someone really needs to do a prison level. This light works alot like the spotlights (only without the cone control and direction). The LightPeriod field adjusts how fast the light makes a 360 degree sweep.

Types of Lights:

There are 8 different types of lights. The last two (Texture Palette xxx) are unkowns to me. Most of the effects are staight forward (hey.. what does flicker mean) and require no settings. The only two light types that require manual settings are Pluse and Subtle Pulse. Both of these types use the LightPeriod field to determine how fast they go from being bright to being dim.

Adding a Corona to a Light:

Simple.. switch on the bCorona field under Lighting. You can use the Scale setting under Display to adjust how big the corona is.

Adding Lens Flare:

Adding Lens Flare to a light is also simple. Unfortunately the obivious method does not work (setting bLensFlare to true), but it is simple all the same. The first thing you need to do is add a corona. Then, go to the browser and load in the GENFX graphics. Find the FLARExx tiles. Now, in the properties under display find the skin field. Click on the set button and you now have a lens flare.

Making the Translator Sing:

This part is so simple. First off.. remember to actually GIVE the player a translator in the game. If they don't have one.. they can't see your messages. Next, Add a translator trigger to your map. Go to the browser, select classes, find triggers, select TranslatorTrigger. Once it's in your map, edit the properties and set the message to what you want it to say. It's that simple. I'll deal with the other functions of the translator.

The Sample Map:

I've created a cool sample map to go with this tutorial. It's basically a bunch of rooms with all the different lights. Enough said!

CONTACTING ME:

If you need more help or have some ideas, information, etc, you can reach me at mrsin@creativecarnage.com. I can also be found on #UnrealED on EFNET irc.

CREDITS:

There are a bunch of us working on figuring everything out. Some of this information was discovered by the many people on #unrealED including MegaHertz, Freakscne and Orion.