As the title states, how would I go about making a certain area of my map darker?

Example: I have a cave in my map and it's just as bright as the rest of the map. Is there a certain script I have to use? or am I just missing something that's right in front of me to do that?

Thanks!

-TodaysKiller

I was going to suggest bringing your entire level's ambient light down a bit and use light markers in areas you want lit well. But I'm assuming you want an outdoor level under the sun but have your cave tunnel/hole dark?

Do you have your shadow slider set to the max?

That is correct, I'm making somewhat of a Wasteland "end of the world" type map and i'd love for the cave to be dark (but hey, I'm picky lol).

I'm not currently at home but I'll try it out later trying to turn the shadows all the way up and what not.

Thanks for the response.

-TodaysKiller

isn't there a darkzone script somewhere....

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/210492

The script here might help a little, not dark, but day night script, you might be able to modify it to work.

There are go indoors and go outdours scripts in the scriptbank folder use these in trigger zones in the areas you want light/dark.

Thanks a lot Tarkus! I'll try it out tonight to see if that can work

-TodaysKiller

no problem, hope it does work, but I thought there was a darkzone script too.

** check your scriptbank folder is there a darkzone.lua in there ? **

goindoors.lua
gooutdoors.lua

This was in my scriptbank folder, not sure where I got it, but I never used it, it might be what you need. See Attached.

@rolfy, I think they just switch off/on the terrain and water., to help increase FPS.

Thanks everyone i'll try all the methods and see which one works best for me. It'll have to be a few hours from now (I'm stuck at work) lol.

You are right, my bad.
I used these originally with lighting and fog added. Thing is if you go indoors it is best to remove terrain water also to increase performance, I would take the darkzone script and add the terrain/water functions to this unless your using terrain for the floor of the cave

I must say I am not keen on changing the light when you enter the scene. Enter a cave and everything becomes dark, outside included if you turn around, which is obviously wrong. Also the cave would still look wrong from the outside looking in. It would only work in a enclosed space with a blocked entrance/exit.

The only option that works at all is baking, but I have my issues with that as it generally does the exact reverse of it's purpose (speed things up) The memory use is just too high as well. I've tried black lights which do nothing, which makes sense in reality of course, but not useful here.

I wonder if we will ever see proper lighting effects where shadows do not become paler on floor objects rather than terrain, and shadows cast in shadow are actually darker etc. I must admit if performance work goes well, this would be a good area to improve next.

Yes, I agree the dynamic light should cast shadows as should the flashlight, once performance is done this should be next I think.

I always reference Skyrim and Fallout but I use their editors everyday for the modding community and Steam Workshop. In Skyrim and Fallout caves are not on the same map as your outdoor world. There is basically an entrance that would load a new map with you inside it. I have made entire maps in Skyrim and caving systems. (same with fallout).

Assuming all your cave walls, ceilings, etc are static entities, you can use the lightmapper F3 to create baked shadows in your scene. As the cave is entirely obstructed from the sun light it will be darker inside. You can then adjust the ambient light that the cave would receive with the TAB TAB sliders, and you can also adjust the strength of the shadow level too. Finally using the surface intensity slider will restore lighting outside the cave, and combining these adjustments you can create any contrast between indoors and outdoors. Hope this helps.

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