my Light util, don't forget to add -fast -gate 1 to the cmd line to speed things up considerably. You can also tweak indoor/outdoor lighting separately using -sunlight 0 and -nolight respectively.

And of course you don't need to vis just to check lighting ... 

Does that affect the quality of the outcome?

I have been using the -sunlight (115 - was the last I tried), what will '0' do?
What does -nolight do?

Im also using -light 50 to set a minimum light value for dark areas.

BTW I LOVE your engine. I was in a panic when fitzquake wouldnt run the level (un-vised I think at the time) and I tried a few other engines, with a bit of a sweat on, finally got to yours - it worked! I was sooooooo relieved.
I have set it up now so most of the monsters spawn as player progresses through level, I think that helps too.

Vis-data size is 7-8000k on a fast vis, what might it be after a full vis. Should I use -fast -gate 1 for the final full compile?

So many questions for tech people!! 

Again, read aguirRe's documentation!

http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/

And his engines will handle almost anything you throw at em. I managed to break them once or twice but that was with a leaking Warp map. 

The map is looking very nice. 

looks fucking cool. :o 

I ended up reading the aged qmap forums, but Im gonna be reading it forever - three years worth of entries with void links (what happened to planetquake BTW?)

Seriously - I dont know what -nolight does
I can use trial and error to get sunlight right
Anyone wanna point me in the right direction with using Quoth sound function, i.e. what bit-rate and sampling rate can they be (Ive got some cool metal music stuff to put in the level!)

Sorry Im not brighter!

P.S. Im glad you like the look of it. 

Im scared to put strobe effects in the level. Is my reluctance wise? 

Ricky calibrate your monitor. Those pics are way too dark, brighten them up.. I know it's quite complicated but give it a try.

About the map, it looks a little messy. Overdetailed, badly lit, bad texture alignment. I see you're trying to push engine limits, but that's no excuse for no visblockers at all, that's just bad construction. Use your brushes wisely (e.g., the railing could easily do with a lot less vertical supports). 

I'll answer in the Mapping Help thread. 

Im scared to put strobe effects in the level. Is my reluctance wise?

Yes, yes it is, I nearly had seizures in multiple places in your last pack. flickering/blinking lights are okay as accents, but don't light an entire area with them. an entire 19" monitor flashing in your face is not pleasant. 

Use vid_vsync 1

Then at least you won't see tearing as you have your epileptic fits. 

Ah hmm maybe it was my monitor... sucky work flatscreen.. my bad 

Truly, avoid minlight. There's no excuse to use it! 

Perfect excuse to use it:

It get rids of totally black areas of your map! 

Fine if you don't use -nominlight option in your litgh tool :P

This option allow you to have complete black areas if you use antilight (i.e light with negative value), while in other places, the minlight value allow to limit shadow darkness to something less "dark"... check if aguirRe's light tool have this option ;) 

... can also be a -nominlimit option... depending of the tool... :P 

Has anybody ever done a completely antilight "lit" level? Start out with a high minlight, and use the technique he describes to refine it?

Of course, it would probably be a stupid idea to do it arse-backwards like that, but hey, you never know till you try. If nothing else, you could do it just to say you did it! :) 

pics look great ;) keep the good work! 

vis blockers, guys. It's quake, not a flight sim. :)
Looks grand, Ricky, I hope it will be playable. 

Haven't really gone into using them properly, or even local minlights. Davinci painted on a black canvas because light creates what you see, what comes first is always darkness.

Following that idea you could antilight a high minlight / sunlight map or else try local minlighting the whole map with sunlight for outdoors and occassional point lights only for highlighting.

As opposed to chucking torches everywhere.

It'd take a long time but produce a very hand crafted and lit map. 

It get rids of totally black areas of your map!

Wow, why not just set it to 255 then? You wouldn't have to light the map at all!

It's lazy. You can never use shadow to intentionally hide things or direct attention elsewhere, you reduce the contrast of all the lighting in your map, and unlit areas wind up looking worse because all the textures are rendered at the same flat value instead of just being black. If a part of your map is dark, light it yourself. It's guaranteed to be better.

Look at efdm12 - it's gloomy and there's a lot of cool things done with light and shadow, but Frib avoided blackness with his actual lighting, not with minlight. 

You can start recording a demo, play through multiple levels, and then use demtool to split it up into individual .dem files to play in your engine of choice. SDA marathons are recorded this way afaik. 

Ive been using a minlight of 35. I think its good cause the sunlight is really low to, and I have the sun mangle set so that the sun is going down and the shadows are really long. I dont know if you have ever spent a lot of time running around as dusk out in the country but I think you'd find that the contrasts start to fade, and gradually your eyes start to adjust to the darkness.

I have put a lot of lights in the map as-well as using the sunlight settings, I dont think I would be able to get the desired effect using light entities only.

'Wow, why not just set it to 255 then?'

Because it would look shit, and we wouldnt want that now, would we?!?! 

seems like you do 

35 = 255?