Bumrad for Portal 2

A custom light compiler for Portal 2.

I built this VRAD for internal use on PUNT. The binaires are available to anyone. It is compatible with Hammer. (Note: using this with the Portal 2 Puzzlemaker will achieve no visual effect, because to use the features Bumrad provides you have to pass arguments into the compiler - something that is not possible for Portal 2 Puzzlemaker to my knowledge.)

It includes an Ambient Occlusion baked into the lightmap, allowing for a much more accurate portrayal of the depth of the environment. This technology is transplanted from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Such techniques are also used by Desolation, Portal 2: Abyss, Slartibarty's VRAD, Keep Away from Fire's Boreal Alyph and more. It is safe to say that this is the standard. Just drop vrad_dll.dll into the BIN folder of your Portal 2 installation and you're done! Ready to go.

Download the latest release here. Report your problems here. Not in my DMs. PLEASE.

Ambient Occlusion

Provides the illusion of depth in an environment.

• Pros:
  • Increases visual fidelity in all environments.
  • Very similar to Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, but with no performance overhead.
• Cons:
  • Map compiling now takes roughly twice as long.
  • Can add strange artifacting to your geometry.

Ambient Occlusion is disabled by default, and may be enabled by passing -bumrad_ao.

Softening

Provides a softer lighting look instead of a harsher look.

• Pros:
  • Increases visual fidelity in darker environments such as overgrown Aperture or testing spheres.
• Cons:
  • Increases compile time by a small amount.
  • Looks silly on brighter environments, some maps do and don't work with it. I recommend experimenting and building your map's lighting with this enabled if you plan to use it.

Light Softening is disabled by default, and may be enabled by passing -bumrad_soften.