VisLight for win32 standard disclaimer ------------------- If this program causes your computer to have problems in any way, whether it explodes or loses its cmos or whatever, its not my fault. By reading this and using my vis you understand and acknowledge this disclaimer. All issues with the software not working properly and all responsibility for damages lie solely with the user. Care and feeding ---------------- VisLight is a redo of the vis program for generating the potentially visible set of quake maps and of the light program for generating quake lightmaps. Several modifications have been made to allow for better performance and ease of use. This particular version has been compiled for a win32 environment such as Windows NT or Windows 95. Vislight incorporates both vis and light into the same program but it goes farther than that. Light actually uses the vis data to do assist in its calculations. However this has proven to be slower not faster. The next version should work a little better I hope. VisLight has the ability to estimate the time of your vis job. This is a very rough estimate and becomes wildly inaccurate for conditions involving a large number of leafs visable to other leafs. However it is the most accurate time estimation out because its the only one. Had to rip a feature off of the hipnotic guy. VisLight shows percent done now for both vis and light. Much more useful than looking at a blank screen for hours at a time. The next featureset of VisLight is that it now has the ability to use a response file just like doom did. Instead of typing tons of different command line parameters one can just put them in the response file and it will be processed as if it was on the command line. An example response file is included with the program. This was done because the next version may be a WorldCraft plugin. Ambient sounds for textures are calculated by the vis program. The textures associated with sounds can be changed via the response file. The following commands do this and are show with their default values: -watertex *water -skytex sky -slimetex *slime -lavatex *lava -extrawatertex *04water Custom texture names for water brush sounds,lava sounds, and sky sounds, should make for some interesting levels in the future :) For those of you who may be still experiencing strange problems with grey areas try the -threshold parameter. It is a floating point number that controls how close of a fit the vis does. The default is 0.1 but you can try 0.01 or 0.001 if you want to get it more precise. VisLight takes only one command line parameter and that is the name of the bsp file to operate upon. The actual commands are contained in the default.rsp file in the same directory as the VisLight program. In addition to the texture commands the following are available for use in the response file: -extra turns on extra sampling for light -dist value for light distance -scale value for lightscale -threads not really used. kept for possible future client/server package. -level vis level. level 2 is default -v verbose mode Right now I am looking at ways to algorithmically improve vis. So far things are going slowly but in time it will happen. Also I would like to see the next version of VisLight have the capability to show sunlight through the sky as qrad does now. And of course I am retrofitting this bad boy for radiosity now. Thanks and greetz ----------------- Thanks to GOD or else we wouldnt be here. Also thanks go out to iD software because they love us almost as much as He does ;-) Also I would like to thank Billy Zelsnack for his putting up with me and being such a great help in my other projects. Special greets to Dave Taylor at crack.com, Ryan Geithman at bossgames, and all my wonderful friends on irc. Starving Coder Standard Beg for dollars section ----------------------------------------------- VisLight is FREEWARE. Use it and give it to your friends. If you like the program please give to a worthy charity such as Feed the Children, the Red Cross, or your local Church. Complaints, Concerns, Comments, etc... -------------------------------------- They all go to vile@dazed.nol.net or /dev/null depending on how angry you are at me ;) Seriously though, PLEASE send me any comments or suggestions. I would like to bring you the absolute best vising tool ever. Thank you. -------------------------------- .prts is .prts and pieces .prts. Ack! I forgot to mention the following: 1. VisLight contains the disastry mods for light. Thanks to disastry for the mod! This allows you to use additional lighting parameters mangle and wait to specify lighting picth and yaw as well as lighting distance for individual lights. For more info or if you dont need vislights lighting abilities get lightdis brought to you by disastry. 2. VisLight makes some really dark maps. You may need to put in a lot of lights to make it look right. This is not a direct replacement for the regular light you are used to it is a totally different approach in many ways. So use more lights to make sure the surface is brighted from the proper areas and be aware that it will probably take longer. The results are in many areas much more realistic though. Enjoy! ArchVile