Sorry this took so long for me to get back to; I've been focusing mostly on level geometry and textures and behind-the-scenes stuff for a while and only recently have I come back to lighting. I have been getting complaints about it for a while but rarely in a persistent format so I've decided to go ahead and use this as a place to discuss the issues that people are having. If there's a way to satisfy everyone or nearly everyone, I'd like to find it.



Here's the cafeteria lit using lights taken directly from bm_c1a2b (the same map used in the above example)

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584268633/32CE2533FAFCB62229D1A048B8845BBCD2F84AEC/

I don't like this because I think it looks somewhat dim compared to a real building with this many overhead lights, and also both colorless and undefined because all the lights are the same color- save for corners that are very shadowy (probably more shadowy than they should be, in fact) it's all extremely homogeneous.

That's also with a texture set (the lab concretes) that "play well" with the muted blue-green of these lights. Replace those textures with a tan-and-brown like in Office Complex and it looks like the whole area is underwater

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584268741/D8544CA95755B784FED3D2449592FB6B7A11362F/

or some cinderblock textures that are just naturally not as bright, and the amount of illumination for a workspace people actually spend time in gets unreasonable extremely quickly

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584269099/1C33A000A1707FBD6B0BEB18AC09453C6B92DF43/

These issues are partially ameliorated by having the lights be less saturated, but then it looks even more homogeneous and bland.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584269363/6B58205044C71136ECA92CF5DFDC54D7ADF67FC1/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584269545/3A25E8779EED440A48D7BB9C21B80D9DE299520A/

The current lighting paradigm is based around "accent lights" near real light sources, which are colored to stand out and aren't really intended to be illumination to see by, and then an "ambient layer" which fills the whole room and is usually white or a very pale complementary color to the accents, which makes the area look actually livable.

Here's the current lighting (ambient brightness 35-30) with three different texture sets:


Here's 30-25
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584270166/E0815962D7566A54F9D87FEA2FDFD6386F371FD2/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584272689/199AFBFAB9E96195CAA870A47E6036F0DFA73687/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584273244/C60DD168364DB2AD1E5DBFD6EA4CEC3A158A3410/

25-20
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584270615/B7A5C67F4F49AC126C445FCC1C96AEBEC013DD63/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584272184/E98350239FD2FC9E9894FBAD86B8018EEFCEC75D/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584273538/A5B061AE36B5D5DBBEDB4D565D00B97DDE7F8228/

20-15
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584270890/3FA5B5C95409327C24B16A2D6DCA16429D117C92/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584271911/3438B593DAA5E77E714E42308D1E4FA958F38451/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584273798/786994F1CD4C35EEE82F1E868D70E32EA600C656/

15-10
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584271151/0640EE4F3A1D6E41610B299A0D857BF2307A7020/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584271644/9B1A881C86E5E93AC37517C80265C1319CCFBDDF/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584274064/72999C16D4E718E690EEBBE943864AB28C4C3591/

and finally 10-5
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584274620/934C0DB00CDD5F8A2073D6D7ECF161C1B6A5D997/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584271402/F960971C749870AF473096AC35314F4241C6F552/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1594792172584274338/8A1F082D04CD16BB0DB3A1AF0EC4280CF6FD1F45/


Does one of these look significantly better than the others? Or is there some other element of the lighting that you have problems with?

20-15 caught my eye, the reason I made this a while ago was because I thought it was "too bright" or something of that sort, and it just felt a little weird. It sort of looked like it had no lighting at all. Thanks for the reply though, and stay safe.