The Basic FeaturesCompile optionsYou can set a number of options at the command line before your compile. Command line options allow you to control the behavior of the ArghRad. Some of the options available in the command line are also configurable in the worldspawn entity. Setting your game directoryTo keep your directories cleaner, you may decide to compile from a different directory. ArghRad can read the textures directly from the .pak file, but it needs to know where it is. By setting the game directory, you are telling ArghRad which directory to look for the textures in. For example, if Quake2 were installed in the games directory of your D drive, the syntax would be -gamedir d:\games\quake2\baseq2\Setting your mod directoryThis works the same as the gamedir option. If you are using a mod directory, and have extra textures stored in it, you can use those textures in addition to the textures set in the gamedir option. For example, if you were making a ctf level, you could specify a moddir allowing you to use the textures in the ctf directory. -moddir d:\games\quake2\ctf\Increasing/decreasing compile time/qualityThere are several options available to speed up the compile time at the cost of quality. There are also options that increase compile time for better quality results. If you want to see your level lit, but do not want to wait for a full compile, you can -chop it. Basically, what chop does is it tells ArghRad to divide the lit patches of a face into smaller or larger portions. By default, a patch is a 64 unit square, but the chop option lets you increase the size for a decrease in time and quality or reduce the size for an increase in quality and a massive increase in time. -chop 32The above would double the radiosity detail in a level, but the compile time increase would be tremendous. This would really only be effective in small levels, and might cause an overflow of number of patches allowed on medium or large maps. -chop 128This would halve the detail level, and significantly decrease compile time. There would be a definitely noticeable decrease in visual quality, however. -choplight #This option works like the chop feature, except that it works only on light emanating surfaces (except sky surfaces). This can be used to give smoother light from light flagged surfaces without the significant slowdowns of a global chop -chopsky #This chops only the sky textures. -chopwarp #This only chops textures with the "warp" flag, such as water or force fields. -extraThis tells ArghRad to use extra sampling, increasing the quality of the lighting. There is a time tradeoff when using -extra, but without it light may look blocky and unrealistic. -bounce #This tells ArghRad how many times to bounce a light from a source. The default value is 8, meaning that a light will bounce off of eight surfaces before it is dropped by the radiosity algorithms. Depending on the desired effect, bounce can be set from 0 through 40. After forty, there is no noticeable difference in quality. Minimum (ambient) lightSometimes you cannot cover the entire level with lights, but still want to maintain a minimum light level. The minlight and ambient command line options allow you to globally define a minimum light level before the compile. Ambient lighting can also be defined from the worldspawn entity. -ambient and -minlightThese both use the traditional value settings of 0-2. The field entered is multiplied by 128 to get your absolute light value. For example, if you wanted a minimum light value of 64, you would enter -ambient .5. Minlight does the exact same thing as ambient. -ambienta and -minlightaThese allow you to enter the absolute value of your minimum light. If you want a minimum light value of 64, you would enter -ambienta 64. Minlighta does the exact same thing as ambienta. Maximum lightThis allows you to globally define a maximum light value. This can be used to keep the lighting from becoming too bright. Like the ambient option, there is a relative and absolute scale. The syntax for a maximum light level of 128 would be -maxlight 1-maxlighta 128The default maximum light level in Quake2 is 196. NocolorIf you decide that your level looks better under white lights, but do not want to change all of your light entities and replace your surface light with white light entities, you can use the nocolor option. This will tell ArghRad to run radiosity as normal, then convert your color information into white light after the compile is complete. There are two ways of doing this, the first is weighted, and the second is unweighted. -nocolorThis is the weighted option. Colors are converted based on the luminosity settings of a black and white television. The same intensity light from different colors will translate to different intensities when converted to white light. For example, blue light will be much dimmer than green light of the same intensity, since green is more heavily weighted than blue. -nocoloruThis converts the colored light into the same intensity of white light. The results are not weighted as they are in nocolor option. Worldspawn optionsMost of the worldspawn keyvalue pairs that are registered by ArghRad involve the sun. However, ArghRad lets you set the ambient light in the worldspawn entity with far more control than you can from the command line. Minimum (ambient) lightYou can set the ambient light as either white light or as colored light. As white light, you simply enter a single number as the brightness value, and with colored light, you enter three numbers. For example, if you wanted the minimum light to have an absolute value of 64, you would enter "light" "64"or "_ambient" "64"If you desired a colored ambient light, you would enter the light values of each color separately. For example, if you wanted a completely cyan ambient light, you would enter "light" "0 64 64"or "_ambient" "0 64 64"This will globally apply a minimum light value of 64 for green and blue, but not red. The light and _ambient keys do exactly the same thing. Entity fieldsThe most detailed way to control lighting is through light entities. ArghRad reads the keyvalue pairs of each light entity and creates lighting based on the information provided within the entity. The most basic options are listed below. Light intensityThis is a simple and straightforward option. It defines the light intensity of the entity. "light" "[value]"Light colorThis keyvalue pair allows you to define a color for the light. Computers with 3d accelerated video cards will be able to display the colored lighting. "_color" "[redvalue] [greenvalue] [bluevalue]"The values can be entered on any scale. It is converted to a 0-1 scale by ArghRad. Also, negative values are allowed. See the section on that for more information. SpotlightThe most basic way of aiming a spotlight is to target it to an info_null. You place an info_null at the center of the point you want the spotlight to aim to, name it (example, null1), and target the light to the info_null. "target" "[targetname of info_null]"You can change the size of the spotlight’s cone option with the _cone keyvalue pair. A larger number creates a larger cone, while a smaller number creates a more narrow cone. A value of 10 is default. "_cone" "10" |