A Land Far Away

The toolset comes with one single light that should NEVER be used with just its default settings!!!
The settings themselves allow for alot of variety but experimenting to get what you want can take hours.
Here is the shortcut...
The NWN2 Official Campaign (OC) uses the following realistic settings for all candlelight and firelight:

Appearance
On?: True
Range: (This will vary depending on tastes but the different light spheres should NOT overlap...see below)
Color:
AmbientColor: 255, 255, 255
Intensity: (I suggest .5 to .8)
DiffuseColor: 255,123,0
SpecularColor 255,246,77
Lero Target Color: (leave as is)
Casts Shadow: True
Shadow Intensity: (I suggest never more than 0.5)

Behavior
Flicker?: True
Flicker Type: Jumpy
Flicker Rate: 20
Flicker Variance: 0.05
Lerp?: False
Lerp Period 1

These settings look very real and convey that warm light you get from candles/fireplaces.
The Flicker Type Jumpy also gives realistic movement to the light.

Once you have the settings right give the Template Resref, the Resource Name, and the Tag any unique name. I called mine "oc_light".
With your light selected left click on it and select "create blueprint". The new "OC_light will now be available for use in the Lights blueprint list.

Now you also want to be able to use it on all the future mods you create...
so while it is selected go to File/Export choose LightsBlueprints on the drop down menu, select your oc_light and ADD, and then click OK.
The erf window will popup, name your light and save it whereever you have your other erfs. Later when you build a new mod you just need to import the light erf you made.


Here are some screenshots to compare the two settings (Default vs OC):

Default

OC

Default

OC

Default

OC


I set my range for various lights based largely on the size of the light spheres.
Avoid overlapping the light spheres or you will have very dark/sharp shadows.

Default - (Range 10 Big overlap)

OC - (Various ranges but no Overlap)


As you can see from the images, using the default settings looks horrible and is nothing but total njubery!

Oh and last thing...remember to take advantage of the prefabs that come witht he toolset.
Lit chandelier, Lit candleabras, Lit tikitorches, etc...already have the fire/flame placed effects attached and positioned perfectly.
Otherwise you will spend alot of time positioning the little individual candle flames on the chandeliers.
When you use the prefabs you only have to add your oc_ light.

Every time you post one of these tutorials I leanr something I didn't know about the toolset.

Thanks, and good advice.

Brilliant again, Aelred- for things like this, the pictures really do tell a thousand words. I've seen the weird Default lighting in a number of modules before and not even been sure how to describe it for bug reports.

Could we perhaps try to prefab some light sources to help beginning builders (like myself, for example?) :

-candles / candelabras / chandeliers with realistic flicker and range

-windows that cast light by the server clock? (not sure how specific you can get on those without scripts)

-Fireplaces with extra-flicker and warmer color to the light

Just thoughts off the top of my head- I've heard at least 3 builders move painstakingly through the process of aligning flicking lightsources with their candles, and going a bit mad along the way. Is it difficult to prefab these things? I've mostly only seen vault prefabs or heard them mentioned in passing.

[edit: ahh, I see now you mention some base toolset prefabs, I'll look for those first]

Thanks for the instruction, Aelred! It is much appreciated.

In my short time in the toolset, it seems my lights cast shadows from things everywhere, even those items that are on the opposite side of a solid structure, such as a wall. For example, I've placed a lantern in one room, but it is creating shadows from a desk in the adjacent room. Will getting away from the default settings fix this, or is there something else I should be doing?

Thanks for any help you (or anyone else) can provide.

AL - Yes the prefabs that come with the toolset already have the candle flames attached to the candles and the torch flame attached to the torchs, etc...the available list isnt complete (ie. there is only one prefab chandelier - although I think there are actually three chandeliers in the toolset) but it is a great timesaver.

Mick - Turn the light spheres on in your area. Remember that light will be cast within the entire light sphere. Does the light sphere pass thru the wall into the other room? If it does then reduce the "Range" in the properties and also try moving the light itself a little further from the wall.

If that doesn't work then the intensity and shadow intensity might be affecting things...I keep my intensity between .5 and .8 and the shadow intensity should never be more than .5 (unless you are going for some special darkness effect).

Let us know if that does the trick.

or import your light properties:

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NW ... ail&id=532

curm showed me these: http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NW ... ail&id=474

they are also pretty good