Lightbulbs

[gabriel]

ok, i'm not complaining about this because i could really care less, but i was wondering why it is that almost everything in hl2 can be moved, destroyed, or manipulated, and yet you can't shoot out a measly lightbulb? again, i'm not complaining, just curious.

 

[AntiAnto]

Do you want a constructive answer or only something that would just make you ask yourself other questions?

(I'm only able to offer you the second choice)

 

[Asus]

It probably has something to do with how HL2 handles light.

 

[Narcolepsy]

ok, i'm not complaining about this because i could really care less, but i was wondering why it is that almost everything in hl2 can be moved, destroyed, or manipulated, and yet you can't shoot out a measly lightbulb? again, i'm not complaining, just curious.

My guess is that it's a design issue. If you allowed the player to shoot of lights, that could screw up our ability to see scripted events or alter the ambiance of the scene painstakenly crafted by Valve.

It probably has something to do with how HL2 handles light.

Well, that too.

 

[Laivasse]

Yeah there have been murmurs about Source and some kind of awkwardness with lighting. I think it's a shame, but no big deal. It could be cool to have a tactical element of shooting out the lights in the room to create confusion, but since the Combine probably have infra-red/night vision/x-ray specs under that gas mask then, meh...

 

[diluted]

Because some people would go around shooting out every light in the map and then come onto these forums and complain that HL2 sucks because it's too dark.

 

[gabriel]

haha. well you always have the flashlight if it gets too dark

 

[hungryduck]

i think it has something to do with the BSP being lighted as it is compililed.....so what would happen is you shoot out a light source, but the actual light is still there, unless you made the entire level with all dynamic lights, which would require an enourmous amount of computer power.....Even in the new splinter cell only some lights are dynamic.

 

[CyberPitz]

I remember when CSS was first released....everybody flooded about "OMFG YOU CANT SHOOT OUT LIGHTS!?!@$#(IU%*(#Y".....

Thank god this guy isn't complaining.. *praise*

 

[czrsink]

If the game had stealth elements where shooting out the lights was a valid tactic, then I'd say Valve have screwed up by not including them.

However, seeing as there's nothing slightly stealthy about HL2 whatsoever, having lights that you can't shoot out is definitely not a crime or a cop out by Valve.

 

[Ultimape]

Some of the new HL2DM maps have "shootable" lights, but they don't seem to light up the world much.

I played a DM match with a shootable light that actually lit things up, but it looked like the flashlight beam...

I can't wait till those onboard raytracing chips make it viable to create a realtime raytracing engine (complete with indirect ilumination and some of the fancier tidbits).

For the time being, the best lighitng in hl2 is a world light that has precalculated ilumination maps, and the flashlight. No fully dynamic lights with moving shadowes and such.

Can't have your caek and eat it too.

 

[KoreBolteR]

if they did all the lights, the game would have been released 3 months later

 

[Foebane]

*COUGH*Doom 3*COUGH*

Now THAT'S dynamic lighting! :E

 

[Jintor]

-cough-doom3-cough

Now THAT'S a horror game, relying on dynamic lighting. Makes sense they'd shove a really good lighting engine in, don'tcha think?

Where's the physics in Doom, though? Can you kill with a toilet? I think not!

 

[Cypher19]

Personally, I think it's hilarious that Doom3 has dynamic lighting, but a fairly static world, whereas Half Life 2 has static lighting but a very dynamic world.

 

[Crash Happy]

I thought Duke3d had shootable lights, but there was no way it was 'dynamic'.
I can understand how you'd have to make a design choice and that for HL2 physics came ahead of lighting, as already mentioned for Doom3 lighting seems to have been given a very high priority.
I always was stunned though that CS:S didn't have a selection of dark maps, or maps with dark sections for infiltration.

 

[IonizeMyAtoms]

I thought Duke3d had shootable lights, but there was no way it was 'dynamic'.
I can understand how you'd have to make a design choice and that for HL2 physics came ahead of lighting, as already mentioned for Doom3 lighting seems to have been given a very high priority.
I always was stunned though that CS:S didn't have a selection of dark maps, or maps with dark sections for infiltration.

I know I'd like to see a map where ther night vision goggles were a necessity

 

[Flyingdebris]

chronicles of Riddick had shootable lights. In fact, destroyable lights were a whole lot more common than the non destroyable ones.

you could go around dropping entire areas of the game into total darkness. It was cool because the soldiers would all start to turn on their flashlights and if they saw lights going out, they'd scream out. "SOMEBODY IS TAKING OUT THE LIGHTS!"

 

[Crash Happy]

Yeah. I could understand not wanting an entirely dark level, for one thing you can't grab goggles straight away. But dark basements or sewer systems or even attics being potential pitch black entry ways would add a bit more variety.
I'd have a go myself if I had the time.

 

[Bronto]

It would add an extra 2min to the time it took to compete the game for every light and valve was behind schedual. It isn't needed, this is a FPS.

The lights are either entities or texture lighting. Texture lighting to go off would need some sort of trigger on the light surface, would be annoying to make and the entitiy lighting you would need to set up the targets and crap. It is a waste of time. I would rather have them put more work in the overall lighting effect than to make them breakable. (Plus all the light models would need the off skin and the breaking animation)

If Valve wasn't a year off schedual I would complain about it not having this, but they were behind...

 

[PvtRyan]

Making shootable lights in Hammer is very easy, dynamic ones that can also be moved around cannot be done (not well).

 

[ríomhaire]

Making shootable lights in Hammer is very easy, dynamic ones that can also be moved around cannot be done (not well).

Why are garry's mod dynamic lambs so good?

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Why are garry's mod dynamic lambs so good?

Cos he cooks them to perfection, with a dash of mint sauce its brilliant. Garry is quite a chef.

 

[StardogChampion]

EDIT: nevermind

 

[Cypher19]

I thought Garry's mod basically positioned the flashlight in some arbitrary location (as opposed to the camera's loc)...

Anyways, the Source SDK lets you add shaders, right? I'm sure a mod team with an experienced graphics/shader programmer could mod in dynamic lighting fairly easily.