BAT Help - Lighting

[fosterk 4]

Please use this thread as a help index regarding problems with lighting in the BAT.

If you require help in the subject, make a post here, with details of the problem, and prefferably an image of the problem you are having. Hopefully, someone will reply with information on how to solve your troubles.

[monolithdigital 0]

Im having problems with the exclude/include button in general parameters in my free spot light. It is set up proporly as far as i know, but refuses to only light the incuded items, or disregard the excluded items, ive tried it both ways. its lighting at night all right and everything, its just getting everything is the problem

[DuskTrooper 314]

Well..it is a sad fact that Exclude/Include does NOT work with GMAX. You should try something else, such as many small lights, etc.

[AndisArt 2,067]

I have always had the problem with the BAT that applying different nightwindow intesities doesn't work. I.E.: If I select and apply an intesity of 0,8 to some windows, and leave the global intensity on 1,0 then the ones with 0,8 don't light up at all. Same with any other value that is different from the global intesity. That's so weird. I have NO clue what it could be. I've had this issue ever since I use the BAT and in the meantime I've re-installed Windows and also Sim City and the BAT several times.

Thanks for help! :-)

BTW: Great idea with this sticky topics, fosterk, creates more clarity in the forum with preventing little threads en masse.Thanks!

[fosterk 4]

Sounds like one incredibly wierd problem.
I'm nothing special with lighting, so I'd wait for someone like DuskTrooper to reply.

One suggestion though:
Make sure you are using a decimal point, not a comma. In your post, you put 0,8, make sure it's 0.8.

I hope it helps, but I doubt it

[underworld 129]

I have a small problem with nightlightning. when i make a transparant structure with light within it, the lights don`t show up at night.In the pic below you see a glass structure with a spotlight in it.

What am i doing wrong.

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//lights.jpg align=baseline>

 

Thanks in advance Underworld

 

[nashville nelson 51]

Hi,

 

I

[fosterk 4]

@Underworld:
Make sure the light has the prefix nitelite in front of it, eg:
nitelite Omni01
But minus the quotation marks.

@Nashville Nelson:
Follow the same advice I gave to Underworld, but if you're sure it isn't that, then I'd say your problem is in the SC4 Plug-in Manager.
You need to set one of the values to true, the one called Light. I'm pretty sure if you check in plgi-in manager, you'll see it's set to false. Here's a picture:

[underworld 129]

Thanks for answering my question, fosterk. I used the prefix, but didn`t set the multiplier high enough to show thru the windows..

------------------------------------------------------------
Ah, sorry my advice didn't help, but glad you got it sorted.

[nashville nelson 51]

thanks for your help fosterk,

I finally got the night lights/textures to work.I got a little confused with night lights and night textures. I wanted to use night textures for my windows, but i was searching  for night lights and didn

[Jeem 17]

fosterk,

The picture about the plug-in manager. Mine doesn't look like the one you posted. In my advanced tab, there's only the building foundation in the list. There's nothing on lights or anything else shown in your picture. Do I have to add that in there somehow?

[underworld 129]

@Jeem: If you make a prop of your bat, you`ll get these options in the plugin manager. In the Lot editor you can place your bat as a prop instead of a building.

Hope this helps.

[lightguy 1]

Is there a form of lighting that can be done in gmax that would allow text letter objects to glow as if they had flourescent lighting inside them ?  I have a text sign on the outside of a building that I would like to have glow in night viewing , the green letters would have a green glow and the red  a red glow .  

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//textobj.bmp align=baseline>

[GaryReggae 80]

Lightguy: There are various options such as setting up spotlights that illuminate just the text in the required colour but I've found the most effective way of doing illuminated signage is to use the 'self illuminating' value in the texture editor window, set it to 100 and anything with that texture applied will be lit up in the dark.  Obviously you will need to create a red and a green texture, both with self-illumination.

[lightguy 1]

Ok I finished the building with the target spots and self illuminated text letters and they all showup perfectly in the rendering stage . When I put the lot created with the building into a city the lights don't showup at night . Any idea what would cause this ??

[GaryReggae 80]

Have you got the MAXIS Nightlight patch?  You can download it from simcity.com

Do other custom buildings work?

[lightguy 1]

I went to the simcity.com site to get the patch you suggested and couldn't find any patches at all . Did a site search and got 0 results for nightlight patch ..... is there another place to find it ???  And yes other buildings lights work fine. In looking back at Fosterk's post about the plugin manager entries I don't have an entry in the properties for lights ... true or false ... does this mean the lights aren't being recognized in the model file ??

[nashville nelson 51]

@ Lightguy,

Go to www.simcity.ea.com then go to =>Cool Stuff => Tools => Building Architect Tool(BAT).

It

[lightguy 1]

Ok .. got that patch ... installed it re exported the model files and still no light entry in the plugin manager. This is getting frustrating

[ardecila 124]

The Light Mask property only applies for props. If the model is a building, you don't get that property.

Also - in order to get light to show up on a lot, the lot has to consume over 15 units of power. If you set Power Consumed to 0, the lights will not work. Of course, this means that you will also have to power it in-game.

[lightguy 1]

OK ... The lights are working !!  Not sure what the problem was ( or is ) but when I put the same lot with this building into a different city in the same region the lights worked perfectly .I still need to play with the settings in the BAT to see if I can find just the right level to set for realistic apearance in the game ( the first attempt was too dim .. the second too bright ) . I am still not seeing a setting for lights in the PM settings but can work around that for now ... hopefully I will be satisfied enough with the  building to send it up to the exchange so others can play with it and give me feedback on what it needs or what they like about it . Thanks to all who responded to help me get things working .

[timo 15]

Could someone clarify what prefix to use for the different kind of night lights?

[GaryReggae 80]

The prefix should be nitelite (without the marks).

[ripptide 2]

Having a serious issue with nitelites that I havn't been able to figure out, even with all the good guidance in the forums. No matter what I do, I get no lighting in game even tho it renders in MaxBAT (and I do have the patch; other BATs from here work great).

 The process so far:

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//GG%20render.jpg align=baseline>

1. Created the lights, all named nitelite Spot01, nitelite Omni01 etc

2. Saved and rendered, and while it renders you see it create the alpha and blended shots

3. I checked the .sc4model file after running the batch command, and the .fsh files all appear to be there.

4. I make the model a prop in PM, setting the light variable to true.

5. Made the lot with other prop lights as well and saved

6. Used DatGen Tweaker to modify the lot info, including setting the power to 20 and checking the requires power checkbox

 and this is the result

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//GG%20In%20Game.jpg align=baseline>

 

I know the lot has power, and I've tried the save/exit/reload/render, run for a couple months and alternate between day/night several times, all to no avail. The same thing is happenning with a couple others in this set.

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//Bks%20In%20Game.jpg align=baseline>

The front alcove as well as the two rear stairwells should be lit

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//VHA%20In%20Game.jpg align=baseline>

There should be light spilling out from the 2 open vehicle bays doors (hard to see but the 3rd and 8th doors)

 

Any assistance or suggestions from the lighting guru's would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[timo 15]

Date: 5/17/2005 8:46:52 AM Author: GaryReggae The prefix should be 'nitelite' (without the ' marks).

quote>

And what about the nitewindowprefix? does it work for night windows???

[brtim2 11]

can't remember if i read this somewhere or not.

IF I make a prop that overhangs the boundary of the lot (the prop is 3 tiles by 3 tiles but the lot is only 1 tile) will the nitelites show up in game? I though I read somewhere that any prop over hanging the boundary would not lite up at night, however I am not sure if it was fully located off the lot or one that extends partway over yet still is on the lot itself.

Thanks for any help.

[meng881124 2]

can't remember if i read this somewhere or not.

IF I make a prop that overhangs the boundary of the lot (the prop is 3 tiles by 3 tiles but the lot is only 1 tile) will the nitelites show up in game? I though I read somewhere that any prop over hanging the boundary would not lite up at night, however I am not sure if it was fully located off the lot or one that extends partway over yet still is on the lot itself.

Thanks for any help.

quote>

I spent ages trying to figure this one out and I finally did.

To make any model that hangs off the lot light up, you have to make the LOD in Gmax have X/Y dimensions of multiples of 8 (4, 8, 16, 32, 64 ...)
Just create a 0 height flat mesh and attach it to the LOD so its horizontal dimentions are as guided, then render it and night lights will light up.

I think I spent a month trying to figure this one out, so many nights and days rendering...

[brtim2 11]

Date: 5/26/2005 10:09:45 PM
Author: meng881124
I spent ages trying to figure this one out and I finally did.


To make any model that hangs off the lot light up, you have to make the LOD in Gmax have X/Y dimensions of multiples of 8 (4, 8, 16, 32, 64 ...)

Just create a 0 height flat mesh and attach it to the LOD so its horizontal dimentions are as guided, then render it and night lights will light up.


I think I spent a month trying to figure this one out, so many nights and days rendering...

quote>

Ohhh, thanks. I shall try this out!

[stlassen 5]

Hello all,

 

I've been playing around with the BAT and making a couple of BATs. The first one was a success in that it worked, even the night lighting from light sources as well as making windows lightt up in SC4.

 

After starting on the second one, however, I'm having huge problems getting the lighting to work. Nothing I do seems to work. I set up the lighting in the second BAT the same way I did in the first BAT, but nothing.

 

After having tried all sorts of things, going over some tutorials and reading numerous postings, I've come up emptyhanded. As a last test, just to see if everything was working as it was supposed to, I loaded my first BAT (the one that worked), but now it's lighting doesn't work either.

 

I have the newest patches available. The lighting is defined as nite and nitelite, but I've tried other versions of those as well, such as Night and Night_, etc., but nothing.

I've done all of the things I could find in the posting on this forum, such as deleting the lightrags and lods and refitting them all again. I've even saved the house (without all the extra stuff I didn't add) and merged it. Nothing works.

 

Hmm... Did I forget anything?! No, I think thats it.

 

I'm completely at a loss here of whats wrong. Does anyone have any idea on how I might solve this problem? I'd apprciate any help I can get.

 

Thanks

 

[scififan68 23]

I use oneil light in gmax and the building gets lights.