LIGHT: RADIOSITY VS. GOOD SHADOWS
See Also: Light - ZHLT -
Updated January 10, 2004

Radiosity versus Good Shadows by Chris Bell
Summary: Turn off Radiosity for improved shadows

As a new user to Hammer one of my first problems came from getting the right lighting for an outdoor scene. Walls that should be in full shade were strangely light, even though I was using a single Light_Environment with reasonable settings --

Whilst reading more I noticed references to radiosity effects in the lighting and so thought this might be the cause. And sure enough when I turned it off (in the call to HLRAD.EXE) I got a MUCH better result. With the addition of the -sky 0.5, to lighten up the shadows I got a much more pleasing result --

Backwalls are shaded, the chimney stack gets the shadow from the roof and it all just looks much nicer. It may only suit the "cartoon" style of world I wanted but I'm very happy with the results (and it took ages to find this solution).

- Chris Bell

Thanks Chris: very informative. - HV