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COL files: candles and night

A

Alloppatalle

Landlubber
I'm trying to create .col files for an interior location, but I'm having problems with the light from candles at night.
Looking at the original models, they have brighter spots around the candles, and darker areas where there is no illumination; and this is expected at night, where the only light sources are candles.

Now, I tried every combination of the locligther sliders, but I can't get these brighter spots to appear near candles, and darkness far from them. The illumination in the room is consistent, the light is always the same across the place, with no difference between the light sources and the rest of the room.

Does anybody know how to get bright areas near light sources and dark areas far from light sources?
 
Pieter Boelen said:
As far as I'm aware, the ONLY information anyone here knows about COL files is this here:
Guide - Generating Location Lighting Files (.COL) | PiratesAhoy!

If I recall, I made COL files before for interior location and the cancles did show OK.
But it was a long time ago and I cannot properly remember.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's how I learned about making col files. There are so many useful guides in this site, I learned a lot about the Storm Engine here. Many thanks to the authors of these guides!

Jack Rackham said:
I'll give you an answer when I come home this evening.
Click to expand...

Thank you!
 
I never use that COL files tool as it was difficult to get it right I think.

Instead I use the TOOL:
open GM
scene/edit scene/Light/make .COL file/with fixed colors
type in _DAY1, _EVENING3, _MORNING1 or _NIGHT1 after the location name.
define adjusted(?) colors/(light) intensity:

POTC- AOP/COAS- LOCATION
DAY1 83 40
EVENING3 42 42
MORNING1 42 23
NIGHT1 17 17

add to adjusted colors
click on the small square to the left that showed up/ok

------------------------------------------------------------------

It sounds more like it's some locators missing though.
Open for ex. Locations\inside\Pirate_House\PirH_l.gm
view\Locators\Locators
and check candle_1 with locator group candles
but also candle_p_1 with locator group candles_p
with the same position.
If both these exists for a candle you should get the flame + the surrounding shine.
 
Thanks for the answer, but it didn't solve my problem. I tried to choose a color with TOOL, but I got the same result: the light is uniform across the room. And the locators are correct, I do get the flames.

I'll try to explain better with a screenshot. This is the default "cabin small" at night, you can clearly see that in the red circles the light is brighter (in those areas the candle flames appear in game), while in the blue circle there is more darkness, as no candles are in there.

I can't achieve this different light "distribution" in the place, my light is uniform.

CYJmS3a.jpg
 
This is the screen you're making use of, right?

upload_2016-4-5_18-22-8.png


Are you pressing any of those "Quick process" presets? You should probably click on that "1" listed below "Inside".
That's what I seem to remember doing for inside locations.

If you press the "Quick process" button itself, you get an extra menu that allows you to change all sorts of stuff.
I never looked through it in detail, but probably there is something related to scene lights hiding in there somewhere.
 
Yes, I'm using that. I tried to play with all the different settings, but the light is always uniform.
When there are candles in the scene I get an additional section, "Candles group" or something, and I thought I could get the effect I explained above tweaking the settings there, but actually "Candles group" does absolutely nothing... I can play with Ambient, Sun light and Sky light but, as I already said, the light I get is uniform.
 
I'm afraid I don't know what else you could try.

Just to be sure: What game is it you're trying to do this in?
I only ever did it in the 2003 PotC one and that worked fine for me.
 
It's COAS GOF...
Did you make the col files for interiors with light sources also? And the brighter areas aound candles, fires etc were automatic? If you remember.

One strange thought: how many chances exist that the mod somehow corrupted the location lighter tool? I don't have a vanilla version installed now, but I may try it in future, just to be sure...
 
Last edited:
Alloppatalle said:
Did you make the col files for interiors with light sources also? And the brighter areas aound candles, fires etc were automatic? If you remember.
Click to expand...
This is the inside location I remember doing:
upload_2016-4-5_20-32-51.png

Clearly it did work for me there.

One thing I do notice testing just now is that the "candle lights" do NOT display when you're in 1st person mode; only in 3rd person.
I didn't know that before; maybe that is confusing things for you?

If not, I do not know.

Alloppatalle said:
One strange thought: how many chances exist that the mod somehow corrupted the location lighter tool?
Click to expand...
Sounds extremely unlikely to me. But I know virtually nothing about CoAS, nor its mods, so you never do know.
What I can say is that PotC has been far, far more heavily modded and it still works. :shrug
 
I made a new night .COL file (intensity 17).
The shine around the candles are there but visible only if you're very close.
(The extra added furniture not fixed in the picture)

So yes it can be darker ev. more looking like night but the candle shine is very weak.
You could try to double or triple those shine locators. (with different names I guess)
 

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I have that shine around the flame, but that's a particle effect that is added once in game.

What I am referring to is the light baked in the COL files: for the night, there are brighter areas around light sources, that add up to the little shine effect these light sources produce on their own.
Look at this comparison, you too are missing the baked light around lanterns:
yvA0yeg.jpg
The picture on the right is taken from the GM Viewer, not in game, and the light around the lantern is already there; the same is true for the light on the left and for all the lights.

I can't understand from the screenshot of Pieter Boelen whether that shine effect around the candles is baked into the model, or it is just the little shine that appears only in game.

Looking at the night col files for other models, I found that the presence of dark/shady areas vs bright ones creates a much better atmosphere than simply having the same light intensity across the scene.
 
Alloppatalle said:
I can't understand from the screenshot of Pieter Boelen whether that shine effect around the candles is baked into the model, or it is just the little shine that appears only in game.
Click to expand...
Fair enough; I could hardly tell myself. So this time I'll do it properly:

upload_2016-4-5_22-40-6.png


vs:

upload_2016-4-5_22-40-23.png


Going to "Group candle" and using the "Brt" slider confirms that it does indeed work. :doff
 
Last edited:
So changing the settings in the 'group candle' increases or decreases the light intensity around candles?
Damn, it's not working in my installation of CoAS... I changed all those sliders, and got no changes whatsoever!
 
Thanks, at least now things are less misterious, I know that there is something wrong in my installation of CoAS + GoF.
It would be interesting if somebody else with GoF could test this, so I can better track down what the problem is... if I can!
 
If all the upgrades made for CoAS' Storm 2.8 engine broke it, then it may not even work in the unmodded game.
In that case, you could try doing it in "Caribbean Tales" instead. The COL files are probably directly compatible between those two games.

They may even be directly compatible between the unmodded PotC and the AoP games, though I'm not entirely sure that is the case.
It isn't compatible with the modded PotC; that I do know. But that could be due to the weather system update that was done many years ago.

Good luck with it! :onya
 
I made an interesting discovery: the location ligther tool is broken in GoF.
I reinstalled CoAS, this time didn't add any mod, tested the loclighter tool and it worked. It was a quick test, I'll probably repeat it in the next days, but I am quite sure the tool is broken in GoF.

Edit: when I say it's broken, I mean the section that controls the candles and other light sources different from the sun.
 
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