Smoother Shadows? (TXQBSP)

[Ghost_Fang]

I know there is a command for some BSP compilers that use a bit more memory to make the shadows smoother and look less like stairs. Does anyone know this command off hand? Or can point me to the TXQBSP commands? Or does it depend on light.exe? Either way. I'll keep looking though. Or

[andrewj]

The -extra option for the 'light' tool is probably what you want. It will do four times the amount of light tests and average the result for each luxel, so it is four times slower but doesn't require any more memory than normal.

Having more detailed lightmaps (normally there is 1 luxel for each 16x16 block of texture pixels) is not possible in standard Quake or Quake 2 maps. Quake 3 BSP can do it though, but using 8x8 precision means four times the amount of lighting data.

[Ghost_Fang]

well Im pretty sure ive done it before with Q1 light, but i could be mistaken. Am I thinking of a darkplaces command that smooths the light in maps? Does it have/do that?

[negke]

The lightmaps are stored in the .bsp. No engine can smoothen them or make them look better.

The light tool, at least a modern version like Bengt Jardrup's, has several additional options for better shadowcasting. Generally, for a final compile you should use -extra4, and there's also a -soft parameter for even smoother rendering.

[Ghost_Fang]

Ok got it, thanks guys