 Patches |
Surface patches
In order to perform the radiosity calculations, Qrad3 creates "patches" for
all of the map's surfaces. These patches each cover a specific area of the
surface, and are used to track the lighting absorbed, and control the light
emitted from that area.
By default, these patches are 64 units square. Multiple patches are created
for surfaces bigger than 64 units. Sometimes the light emitted from these
patches can appear very spotty. It is most often seen on normal surfaces
that are very close to light-emitting surfaces. This is because a single
light is created for every light-emitting patch, and 64 units is sometimes
too far a distance to cast smooth lighting. Qrad3 provides the -chop command
line option which can be used to create smaller-sized patches. Unfortunately
it affects ALL surfaces in the map, and can drastically slow down the
program. It may even cause errors on medium to large maps, because there is
a limit on the number of patches that can be created.
-choplight #
To help provide a better solution to the problem, ArghRad adds this option.
This tells the program to divide only light-emitting surfaces into the
specified sized patches (all other surfaces will still use the default size,
64). Decreasing this value can help eliminate the spotty lighting with
far less slowdown than by using plain -chop. There is also far less
risk of encountering the max number of patches error. Acceptable values
range from 16 to the -chop value. This option does not affect warping
(liquid, etc.), or sky surfaces.
Example:
arghrad.exe -choplight 32 mymap.bsp
-chopsky #
This option works the same as -choplight, but only for light-emitting
sky surfaces. It is provided as a separate option, as sky can
sometimes cover large areas of the map, and may not even need the same
extra chopping.
Example:
arghrad.exe -chopsky 32 mymap.bsp
-chopwarp #
This option works the same as -choplight, but only for light-emitting
warping surfaces, like liquids. It is also provided as a separate
option, as these surfaces can sometimes cover large areas of the map,
and may not need the same extra chopping. Be aware that these surfaces are
sometimes the biggest causes of spotty lighting, as they often shine dim
light onto shallow underwater floors.
Example:
arghrad.exe -chopwarp 32 mymap.bsp
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