RED+ guide

Lighting

How RED+ bakes lighting, the settings that control it, the Sun and spot lights, and the tools for emissive faces, light cookies, follow lights and lightmap seams.

• How RED+ bakes lightingWhat Calculate Lighting does in RED+, which lighting command to use after each kind of change, how to follow or cancel a bake, and the messages a bake can end with.
• Lighting settings in Level PropertiesEvery control in the Lighting group of Level Properties, what it changes in the bake, its default, and how the estimated bake time is worked out.
• Lightmap detail and file sizeHow Quality and the Lightmap detail setting size each surface's lightmap, what each choice costs in file size, and what happens near Red Faction's limit of 32,767 lightmap surfaces.
• Relight Changed LightsRelight only the surfaces reached by the lights you edited while you iterate, and what such a relight leaves out.
• The SunPlace up to eight Suns, set their direction, colour, brightness and softness, and light placed meshes and players in Alpine Faction with the RF+ Sun lights.
• Spot LightsHow FOV and FOV Dropoff shape a spot light, what a spot light wider than 180 degrees lights, how RED+ draws it, and what RED+ changes in Light Properties.
• Emissive LightMake a face give off light in the bake, shape its beam in Face Properties, and see its shape in the viewports with Show Emissive Ranges.
• Full DarkBake a face completely black, whatever lights, bounce or emissive faces reach it.
• Light CookiesProject a greyscale pattern such as blinds, a grate or leaves from a light with a light cookie (gobo), baked into the lightmap.
• Follow lightsLink faces to a flickering light so they dim with it, then wire the level so the light and the faces flicker in game.
• Glowing LiquidsMake a room's liquid give off light in the bake with the Liquid Glow settings of its Room Effect.
• CausticsWhat the Caustics (RED+) group in Room Effect Properties stores for a pool, and where caustics are shown.
• Bake accuracyWhere RED's own lighting comes out wrong, what RED+ does instead, and whether each correction needs Calculate Lighting or a new lightmap layout.
• Show Lightmap DensityOutline every lightmapped face in the Free Look view in a colour that shows its lightmap texel density.
• Lightmap SeamsFind joins between neighbouring faces where the baked lighting does not match, go to them, and blend them without a bake.