Right I'm not the best person on using ents so I'm going to ask my two questions and see what happens ;)

Firstly get the easier of the two out of the way, can you have one light env for the normal lighting of the map, ie outside, and then can you have another light env inside a building (which you can also see outside froml within) to represent having no electricity for lighting. Or is there some way to alter a light ent so that it doesn't have a light point as the obvious light source.

Now secondly how the heck do you get the instand combat going? Do you set up 16 spawn point per side and have a trigger_once underneath them that will then kill that set of spawns and use the normal spawns after that or what?

light_environment is used by SKY brushes for cating light. So it is effective only in areas with SKY-textured brushes.

Indoors can be lit by
1) light entity (point based, casting light in every 3D direction from this point) You can use material invisible brushes to block light in some direction, same type that are used to clip sandbags for example
2) light spot, for creating lit spots, like ones coming from reflector.
3) light-casting textures, by configuring light.rad file. In this case you set light colors and brightness for particular texture, that emits light in game (for example brush based lightbulb). However light is much softer and weaker than entity based ones above.

Now secondly how the heck do you get the instand combat going? Do you set up 16 spawn point per side and have a trigger_once underneath them that will then kill that set of spawns and use the normal spawns after that or what? Correct, but not kill, just disable!
I posted an example rmf... http://www.dayofdefeat.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29794

Originally posted by Mythic_Kruger
Correct, but not kill, just disable!
I posted an example rmf... http://www.dayofdefeat.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29794

Thanks Mythic, i knew one of you forum trolls around here did it :p :)

Originally posted by Craftos
light_environment is used by SKY brushes for cating light. So it is effective only in areas with SKY-textured brushes.

Indoors can be lit by
1) light entity (point based, casting light in every 3D direction from this point) You can use material invisible brushes to block light in some direction, same type that are used to clip sandbags for example
2) light spot, for creating lit spots, like ones coming from reflector.
3) light-casting textures, by configuring light.rad file. In this case you set light colors and brightness for particular texture, that emits light in game (for example brush based lightbulb). However light is much softer and weaker than entity based ones above.

Ok so let me get this straight in my mind, I would be unable at all to place a second light env in a room so that it casts light with out an obvious light source? correct?
And there is no way to make say a light entity have no point of light origin (hope thats clear)?

Thanks for the help aswell Craftos

Don't call me mythic and don't call me troll you stupid idiot.

Originally posted by Mythic_Kruger
Don't call me mythic and don't call me troll you stupid idiot.

errm it wasn't an insult, I think you need to re-read what I said and see it for what it was, which was a simple THANK YOU!!!

And as for the idiot comment I'll just shut up now before my mouth gets me into trouble.

there is a compile setting for the RAD, (-ambient )
that will give every single face in the map a minimum light level (if thats what you're after)
you have to set it really low though or it looks rediculous
try adding this string to the compile parameters for the RAD:

-ambient 0.002 0.002 0.002

Originally posted by greenhorn
there is a compile setting for the RAD, (-ambient )
that will give every single face in the map a minimum light level (if thats what you're after)
you have to set it really low though or it looks rediculous
try adding this string to the compile parameters for the RAD:

-ambient 0.002 0.002 0.002

Errmm not quite what I was after but if it works and gives me what I'm after then it'll be great.

thanks for that Greenhorn I'll try it out later on when I compile the map again :)

If you want to have some ambient lighting (not point nor directional one) the only option is to use like greenhorn said. Altough I've tried several times I could never get good result with it, it was either no visible effect (dark rooms were dark as before) or map was lit bad (i.e. like no RAD).

it simply prevents any face from being absolute black, but even a low value like 0.002 is noticable.
and if you stagger the values (red,green,blue) like this:

-ambient 0.000 0.002 0.001

you would get a greeny-blue tint in the shaded areas.
It can be used along with a very weak light_env to simulate a dark night without having anywhere that is pitch black