| The target_lightramp
entity is another easy entity to use. What it does is makes a
light fade in or fade out. I actually don't really remember seeing
this used in quake2 but it is such a sutle effect that I just
probably didn't notice.
The first thing you need to do
is do create the light that you want to fade in or fade out.
Give it a light value. This light value will be the maximum
the brightness of the light will be when it is all the way faded
in.
The second thing you need to
do is decide if you want the light to start dark and become
bright or start bright and become dark. If you want to the light
to start dark then you need to set the spawnflag start_off
on the light entity. If you want the light to start light and
become dark then you need to have the start_off spawnflag off.
You must also give the light a targetname. Lets just
give it a targetname of light. targetname light.
Next you need to make the actual target_lightramp
entity. It doesn't matter where it goes because it will not
be visible. The first thing you need to do to the target_lightramp
is to give it a target to the light. target light. While
your at do also give the target_lightramp a targetname.
Lets give it a targetname of ramp. This is because the lightramp
doesnt start on and must be triggered by another entity, but
we will get to that in just a minute. There are two key value
pairs that you can set for the target_lightramp. They are speed
and message. Speed determines how many seconds
it will take for the light to fade in or fade out. So if you
have speed set to 20 then the light will gradually fade in or
fade out within 20 seconds. The message key value pair must
have 2 letters and only 2 letters. These 2 letters determine
the starting light level and the ending light level. The range
of these letters is a to z. So if you want the
light to fade in from dark to light then the message would be
az. message az. if you want it to fade out from light to dark
them the message would be za. message za. Just think of it as
A getting brighter and brighter as it goes towards z, with z
being the brightest.
There is also
one spawnflag called toggle for the target_lightramp.
If this is on and you have the target_lightramp triggered with
a func_button or a trigger_multiple then if you trigger it again
with the button or trigger_multiple it will turn on and turn
off as many times as you trigger it. So in other words you can
use it more then once.(turn the light on then turn it off)
The last thing you need to do
is create the entity that will turn on the target_lightramp.
This can be any kind of trigger you want. It all depends on
the effect that you are looking for. You could use a func_button
if you wanted it to be like a light switch that you could turn
off and on. You could use a trigger_once, trigger_multiple,
trigger_always, etc. You could even use a func_timer
which would make the light fade in and fade out multiple times
in row. So make the trigger entity that you wish to use and
set the target to the target_lightramp. For this example
it would be target = ramp.
That's all there is to a target_lightramp.
Pretty cool little entity which can provide you with some very
interesting effects. In the [example
.map] I included a target_lightramp that is triggered with
a func_button. So the lightramp can be turned on or off. Any
other questions please post them in the discussion board.
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