i got it to work now! :)
I copied a skybox from my Arcane dimensions folder and placed in my id1/gf/env folder and it doesnt matter what sky texture i use! im happy with the result now :)))) 

I created a square room, I placed a pillar directly in the center, I set sunlight mangle to 270 -45 0

This way the sun in relation to my Top view in JACK is at the top(centered). I placed the player start in relation to the Top view at the bottom(centered).

Now when I load the map the pillar casts a shadow directly towards me, correct. Looking right, the wall has a shadow at a 45 degree angle down, correct.

But looking left the wall is completely dark. It doesn't match the right side wall which I thought it would.

What is going on?

If there is a sunlight basics link(besides ericw's descriptions) please post it, thanks. 

https://shoresofnis.wordpress.com/guides/lighting-basics/

It states "�_sun_mangle� - This has the same format as �mangle� on spot lights, �Direction, Pitch, x�, which way the sun is shining. (Not the position the sun is in)"

So my question is, how do I know where the position of the sun is? 

The sun doesn't have a position like a regular light entity, it's a "distant light source" so wherever you are in the map, the direction vector to the sun is the same.

So what happens is from each lightmap sample in the map, the tool traces a line in the direction to the sun, and checks if it hits a sky face.

With the "yaw" component of mangle at 270 I would expect 3 walls to be lit up.. but with light coming in perpendicular to two of the walls, the value of "anglescale" will determine whether they receive any light, if "anglescale" is 1, those walls perpendicular to the sunlight direction will be dark.

There's also the possiblity of a bug of course. mind posting a screenshot? 

http://imgur.com/wwMXanr

And yes, the "back" wall I clipped thru is fully lit as well.

Oddly, the pillar gets lit the same way. Sorry it's not in the image.

Thanks for the reply 

http://imgur.com/fahI6aa 

Argh, that does look like a bug.. I'll look into it 

I forgot to mention that. 

I have tried to google and read guides, but couldn't figure out or make work some lighting techniques:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwxYkKdSD855eGpsUFJCaDNPSUE/view?usp=sharing 

1. Classic light tools allowed regular light entities to shine through world sky faces, but my tool doesn't. One option: make the "Q" a func_illusionary with "_shadow" "1" and texture it with the "skip" texture. Omit the sky brush in the middle of your diagram.

2. yeah, this is something I just added in the latest version of my light tool 0.15.9. Just set "_shadow" "1" and "alpha" "0.5" on the func_illusionary window entity, for example.. tweak the alpha as needed.

3. spotlight or normal light will both work. A spotlight will only shine in the direction of the bars, whereas a regular light will iluminate behind / to the sides of the light entity as well. You'll want to make sure the light is bright enough, could try "delay" "2", and "light" "500" or "1000". 

 

This might be stupid question, but is it possible to make brushes receive less brightness or less light. And in case 3) still having strong shadows but the light between bars is mild. 

is it possible to make brushes receive less brightness or less light?

Yes, make the brushes a func_wall and give it the _lightignore 1 key.
Add minlight to have low light on those brushes. 

 

Depending on what you want.. you might want to just reduce the "wait" key (default=1). So 0.5 = the light reaches twice as far, 0.25 = reaches 4x as far, etc. This way you can have a light that is only medium brightness, but it still reaches far enough to cast long shadows 

Just playing around with dramatic lights:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwxYkKdSD855YjVlNDVjLWpNenM 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwxYkKdSD855N1NGN3VFcDU0YUU/view?usp=sharing 

yeah, you might be able to use project textures to get a ground effect for those stained glass windows. 

I remember using a texture tool ages ago that had a "remove fullbrights" function. It would map those colours to their closest non-fullbright colour.

Does anybody know what tool this is? 

 

You could always open the palette in your editor of choice (photoshop, gimp) and remove the fullbrights and palettize the image that way. 

I feel like an idiot, I looked through texmex last night and couldn't find it.

of course it was in the adjust brightness dialogue. 

Anyone know why that happens when I switch to the AD .fgd?

Happened with 1.42 and stayed with 1.5

If I switch back to ericw's .fgd it magically comes back. I looked thruogh both files to see if there was something I needed to add/remove but I didn't see what needs to be done. 

Thanks, I forgot how it was called.. so what I'm looking for is "project textures"? 

_project_texture texturename

I know the quoth fgd has this property. You might be able to copy the relevant lines from there into the the ad / vanilla / other fgds that you want.