Lifts And Lighting And Buttons

taleden

<div class="IPBDescription">oh my</div> Several questions relating to a lift I'm building:

1) I would like the button controlling the lift to be on a little pole which is on the lift itself - saves an entity, and there aren't convenient places at the top and bottom of this lift to put two buttons. However, when the lift moves, the button does not, and this is obviously ugly - is there any way to fix this? Obviously the button can't be made part of the lift entity because it has to be a func_button, but I can't figure out how to make the lift take the button with it. Is this possible with the lift being a func_door? Do I have to make it a func_train instead? Is there some other solution?

2) The lighting around the lift is giving me headache. Basically, the problem is this: if the lift entity doesn't have the blocks-light flag (Cagey's ZHLT compilers), then the floor under the lift is lit as if the lift wasn't there, which looks really bad since the light source is above the lift. However, when I make the lift block light, I end up with a new problem: if the lift starts in the up position, then the area under the lift is lit correctly (darker than the surrounding area, but not pitch black), however the lift is lit differently (being closer to the light source), so when the lift is lowered, it looks ugly next to the surrounding floor. On the other hand, if the lift starts down, the lift will look fine in either position, but the floor under it will be pitch black since the lift was completely covering it, and this is obviously very ugly too. I thought about trying to have the lift start in the middle for lighting purposes, but then I don't know how to make it still move between the two proper points instead of between the middle and the top/bottom.

Thanks for whatever suggestions you can give.. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->

-tal

Confused

AS you a re no doubt aware a button can move in any direction.
thus make you button so it moves in teh same dierction and speed as your lift.
i use the lip field if it has one to adjust the distance.
if it has no lip file make it out of 2 boxes which are teh right number of units apart an again with the apropriate speed and diection fields.

for lighting you are gonna have to cheat. hl lighting is not dynamic in the way you are lloking for. i sugest a switchable light. (proly gonna need a multi manager to)

Ollj

when the lift blocks light just place the initial position of the lift on the bottom.
the drawn lights and shadows of the lift depends on the position were it is in the map file and not were it is in the ingame map first.

elevator with moving button needs +6 entities:
<a href='http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?doc=1047958901-74747200' target='_blank'>http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?...958901-74747200</a>

A simpler solution could be making the whole elevator a moving button (with the toggle flag)

Plaguebearer

What I do is build what appears to be the button that controls the lift onto the frame of the elevator, and make it part of the func_plat (or train or whatever), then I make a passable-flagged invisible func_door just large enough to envelop where the controls are located in both the raised and lowered positions of the lift, and set the doors to use-only.

So, you get on the lift, and +use the controls, though in fact you are triggering an invisible door in the same place the controls are, which then triggers the lift.