Vertex lighting

Lightmaps (on the left) in comparison with vertex-based lighting

Vertex-based lighting is technique to sample light at surface vertices and apply Gouraud shading during rendering.

Vertex lighting is most simple and fast lighting, it is used to store only low frequency data and will look bad at complex objects.

In Darkplaces engine, vertex lighting are part of map static lighting and being calculated each time map is compiled.

Usage of vertex lighting

Small objects:	OK
Foliage (grass, mushrooms etc.):	OK
Brush models:	Use with care, artifacts may occur
Whole map:	lots of artifacts
Terrain:	lack of shadows
Point entities:	not applicable

Console variables

 mod_q3bsp_nolightmaps : do not load lightmaps in Q3BSP maps, saves some memory but looks ugly

See also

• Darkplaces lighting
• Lightmap
• Lightgrid