Personally, I use additive brushes. To me, it looks much more realistic. I know quite a few others who prefer just popping in a point light right in front of the screen on the texture, but to mee this looks too much like the monitor is being lit instead of the monitor giving off light. I still do recommend using a point light for each screen to illuminate surrounding brushes, but only in conjuction with an additive overlay.
I had posted the method I use to do this, but I think it was on the old forums. Basically though, it requires a duplicate texture of the monitor/light/control panel with everything blacked out except the actual lights or screens. If you also texture all the rest of the faces on the additive func_illusionary overlay with the "null" texture, it will help to reduce your r-speeds a little.
All the monitor textures I made are just the screen, not the frame of the monitor itself, and then I just insert the screen brush into a large terminal. This way I can get away with setting the screen textures as texure lights, no need for light_spots or additive func_illusionaries.
<!--QuoteBegin--Yamazaki+May 01 2002,10:16--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (Yamazaki @ May 01 2002,10:16)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin-->All the monitor textures I made are just the screen, not the frame of the monitor itself, and then I just insert the screen brush into a large terminal. This way I can get away with setting the screen textures as texure lights, no need for light_spots or additive func_illusionaries.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> uhm...this seems to me that Yama method would increase polycount <!--emo&:(--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':('><!--endemo--> and don't understand very much the sense...also making a monitor with the frame...the frame won't be lightned...yes,the tex will spread more light around...but can't u fix just getting a bit down the lightning factor in the .rad?
Relic method is very intersting...never thought about something similar...i'd like to know more about...can you PLEASE indicate somewhere where to read more about thisor similar)tecniques? well...in general,can u indicate me where to find docs explaining the special HL textures?(and maybe something about the engine)
My method doesn't increase poly count at all, it's less poly count than using an extra func_illusionary. My computer terminals are made of seperate brushes anyways, with a keyboard, main case, etc. So it all works out nicely. I don't have four 'frame' brushes around the screen itself. But if you're just trying to put monitors on the wall, then this may not be for you.
Personally, I just use a point light - when done correctly it can look pretty realistic. I can't justify having additive brushes in ns_hera for every computer screen, as there's simply too many of em!
Comments
I had posted the method I use to do this, but I think it was on the old forums. Basically though, it requires a duplicate texture of the monitor/light/control panel with everything blacked out except the actual lights or screens. If you also texture all the rest of the faces on the additive func_illusionary overlay with the "null" texture, it will help to reduce your r-speeds a little.
What I've been doing is placing a faint point light in front of the monitor, and a brighter light_spot pointed away form the monitor face.
I did intend to use additive brushes, and ill experiment with using point light sources as well.
I suppose yamazaki's method would lower entity usage but could also increase r_speeds...
uhm...this seems to me that Yama method would increase polycount <!--emo&:(--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':('><!--endemo--> and don't understand very much the sense...also making a monitor with the frame...the frame won't be lightned...yes,the tex will spread more light around...but can't u fix just getting a bit down the lightning factor in the .rad?
Relic method is very intersting...never thought about something similar...i'd like to know more about...can you PLEASE indicate somewhere where to read more about thisor similar)tecniques? well...in general,can u indicate me where to find docs explaining the special HL textures?(and maybe something about the engine)