Tutorials + Screenshots: 'After another two hours..'

I'm now compiling my first version of my map, and I'll write this while I'm doing it so I'll edit in pictures soon. I've learned a few things.

Info-box 1:

Clicking on 'view' in the tool bar, drop down to 'Light Preview...' and click Enable light preview (F8), which I think is already enabled, and the new stuff that is Preview sun light aswell, which is just awesome because I can now see how my sun direction is changing in real time. Look:

_color .8 .9 1
ambient .1
bouncefraction .7
contrastGain 0.425
diffusefraction 0.5
suncolor 1 0.92 .88
sundiffusecolor .9 .88 .75
sundirection -50 -20 0
sunlight 0.9

Using these worldspawn settings, I got this first:



Then, changing sunlight to 1.6 and sundirection to -50 -80 0, I got this!



Sweet huh?

Info-box 2:

While compiling I first got these errors 100-fold:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare\map_source\mp_carpark.map" 0 334 -46.5 -1576 58.1429 0 -1 -0 "surface 'me_fence_chainlink' is partially floating or needs to be aligned"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare\map_source\mp_carpark.map" 0 334 -64 -1576 56 0 -1 -0 "surface 'me_fence_chainlink' is partially floating or needs to be aligned",
which, on a side note, is presented in an ERRLOG file created while compiling, nifty.

I fixed this by going to 'Textures' on the toolbar, then to 'Edit Layer' and finally 'Lightmap'. Press I, selecting everything and press S, the surface inspector. Click on LMAP, then save. The error should now be removed! Cool.

Info-box 3:

This is awesome, while checking out backlot for some other cool stuff, I noticed how they did the HDR bloom, where you get a lot of blinding white light at some points, theming a hard sunlight which you see from a distance. To do this, simply make a patch on the area you want 'lightened', and give it the texture HFD. Make sure you make it face the right way or else a dark corner will suddenly breathe light!



On a lighter note (pun), here's some detailing I did.


Screenshots after compile:
Same part, different view.


Now for the HDR we were talking about, it works, but you can't really see it because there's no background, but here's something, this is the skybox, kind of greyish.


And here is when I walk back a bit:



Ooh. Aah. Ooo.

I love that lighting! Going to fill the garage with lights, so tune in next time (about in 8 hours or so, because I'm going to do something else now)

Bye!

Time spent on mapping as of now: 14 hours