Lighting Problems

[Jennifer Boyle]

I have a house that originally had a lot of full bright prims as part of the interior structure.  When it was dark, the view from outside showed brightly lit windows and looked very warm and attractive.  However it was constant.  I wanted more realistic lighting.  I wanted the house to be dark inside when it was dark outside except when lights were on.  I turned off full bright in every prim I could fine, and now most of the house is dark at night.

The first problem I need help with is that there are a couple of areas that are illuminated and I cannot find the source of the light.  I have gone so far as to temporarily move prims to make sure they were not hiding other prims.  Can anyone suggest anything that would help me find out where the light is coming from.

The second problem that I've encountered is that the light fixtures that I have found so far are not very bright, so that it appears to be impossible to light a room really adequately with a realistic number of lights.  Can anyone make a suggestion about how to deal with this?  Would it be possible to hacve the ceiling become full bright when a light is swithed on?

Thanks for any help.

[Charolotte Caxton]

A few quick thoughts.

Instead of a full bright ceiling, how about make it a light source that can be switched on or off like a lamp, or even tied into a lamp so that the lamp and ceiling turn on at the same time?

Also, those lights you cannot find, might they be transparent lights? I have seen sunrays like this, prims made to look like light.

Just some quick ideas, I like your new photo btw.

[Drongle McMahon]

Menu: Develop->Render Metadata->Lights.

I don't know of a way for the ceiling to detect light falling on it, but I expect you could make a light switch with a script that set stuff to full bright as well as turning lights on.

[Scooter Hollow]

It should also be fairly simply to script your own light sources, or even just try them out in edit mode, and see if setting them to maximum is still too dark for you. One thing to keep in mind is that depending on your graphics settings, not all lights may be shown at all times if you have a lot.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Unless you have light and shadows on you are limited to seeing four lights 'on' at any one time.Light radius is limited to 20meters all around, so if your rooms are large you  will need more than one light source.  If you lights are set for a standard 10m radius you'll need more.

That's probably why you see it as dark.  However if you turn on light and shadow you will no longer be limited to how many lights you can see and the lights will be probably be too bright.  I had to rescript all my lights when i got a new computer capable of running at that level all the time. 

You ceilings could be scripted to go full bringht when a light is turned on. Light beam prims could be added to increase the effect too. 

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

4 or 6?

[Scooter Hollow]

I believe it's 8 with two reserved for the sun and moon.

[Charolotte Caxton]

I believe you are correct.