Texture Lights And Multimanagers

taleden

Ok.. I have a switchable texture light which I was finally able to target with a switch, at the cost of a second light entity (thanks KFS), however it does not appear to work with a multimanager. The texture lights themselves are a func_wall called "MShd_lights_r"; there is a point light of 0 0 0 colored 0 intensity light also called "MShd_lights_r". I have a func_button targeting "MShd_lights_r" and pressing the button correctly toggles the lights; however I also have a multimanager with a key called "MShd_lights_r" (value = "1") and it does nothing. It also triggers a door after 4 seconds and that works fine, so the multimanager is being triggered, it just isn't toggling the lights.

Any ideas?

KungFuSquirrel

Don't name the lights and MM the same. Give the MM a different name, and target that with the button. Then put "MShd_lights_r" as a keyvalue at 0, which should immediately turn on the lights. Add the same key again (it should automatically display a #2 at the end) with a value of 1. Then leave the door as it is, triggered at 4.

That is, assuming the lights are supposed to go on for 1 second, then shut off, and then 3 seconds later the door is triggered. Correct?

taleden

The multimanager is called "MS_hangar" - not the same as the lights. There are two sets of lights - white ones and red ones, named "MShd_lights_w" and "MShd_lights_r", respectively, and each with its own similarly named point light entity. Initially I have the door closed, the white lights on, and the red lights off (using the 'start darkened' flag on the MShd_lights_r point light, or whatever its called). When I push the button, I want the white lights to shut off and the red lights to come on immediately, and the door to open after 4 seconds. So, the multimanagar has these key values:
"targetname" : "MS_hangar"
"MShd_lights_w" : "0"
"MShd_lights_r" : "0"
"MShd_door" : "4" (the func_door has this name)
When I push the button, the door opens after 4 seconds, but the red lights do not come on and the white lights do not shut off. To make sure the lights were togglable at all I added the second switch which targets "MShd_lights_r" directly, and this switch successfully toggles the red lights on and off.

One thing that confuses me is that supposedly switchable texture lights (as opposed to switchable point lights) must be targeted with the prefix "TL@" and then the texture light entity name; here I am targeting using the bare name, and that works after I added the point light you suggested. I was never able to get the lights to toggle using the "TL@" targeting scheme; is that scheme just plain wrong or is there some way to actually toggle texture lights using "TL@"name?

If I ever finish this map, you're going to have to get the first thank-you in the credits, KFS.. I think you've been the one to answer just about every question I've posted here so far. So, thanks for that. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->

taleden

Ok, correction.. I just realized that the supposedly non-light-emitting (0 0 0 0) point light entity I grouped with the texture lights was actually emitting light, and the textures themselves were not; the pattern of light being generated was consistend with it coming from the point light, not the textures. What confuses me is why a point light set to emit 0 0 0 0 would not only emit light, but emit the same color light that the textures should be emitting but are not; this is true for both the white and red lights and their point lights, both of which are set to 0 0 0 0. So, this means that when I thought I had successfully made a switch toggle my texture lights, it was actually just toggling the point light that should not have been emitting light in the first place.

So, I think I must be seriously misunderstanding switchable texture lights, because I still cannot make them work. Static texture lights I can do - I have a rad file with the texture and an appropriate light color and intensity; I have that texture on a few brushes; I have those brushes grouped and turned into a func_wall entity/solid/255, and presto, they shine. But when set texture light mode to "Switch with TL@name", slap a name ("MSh_red") on the entity and have a func_button target it, they refuse to toggle. I even tried putting in three separate func_buttons - one targets "MSh_red", one targets "@MSh_red" and one targest "TL@MSh_red", and none of them work. Supposedly, at least one should successfully toggle the light. What am I doing wrong?

Yamazaki

Another thing you should avoid is using different cases in your entity names. Some entities tend to shift everything down to lowercase in their target fields, making 'MShd' become 'mshd'. So when an entity tries to trigger 'MShd', it's actually targetting 'mshd' which doesn't exist.

taleden

Thanks, I'll do that. Unfortunately, even after renaming everything to lower case, I still cannot get my texture lights to toggle. I also tried grouping them as world brushes in a vis group named "msh_red" instead of an entity, but that didn't do it either. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->