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FPSC Classic Product Chat / Light mapping on characters/entities

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Belseth
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2006 14:55
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I have read every post I can find but no one specifically addresses this issue. I've tried every variation of light mapping in FPSC and as near as I can tell it only light maps static objects like the sets themselves. Is there some way to apply light mapping to the characters? How about second party apps like giles? All my characters have a dead even global lighting which kills the look. Frustriating. Having the undersides the same lighting as the top sides makes the characters look pasted in.
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DJ Professor K
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2006 15:00
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In FPSC the lightmapping only works on static objects.

And you're lucky you're lightmapping works, on mine, is always crashing, dunno why.

My love is seperated in 2 parts, 1 of them is 3ds Max 7, the other; FPSC.
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Belseth
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2006 15:23
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Depressing. Thanks I've been wasting a lot of hours trying to figure this one out. I can paint in shadows but the even illumination kills the look. For my two cents I'd make that number one on the new features list. Kind of depressing wasting time painting nice texture maps when they'll never look right in the game. I'm not asking for self shadowing just not having the undersides glow in dim lighting. The characters only look right in two types of lighting, bright and pitch black. By pitch black I mean the characters look interesting in gun flashes in total darkness but in dim lighting they look like mud.
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DJ Professor K
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2006 15:37
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Well, there are more important issues, but i'd also put this one in a "must" list.

Anyway, you can try editing the chars textures in order to fake it, but, like i said, it will only fake it :/ it will never look that good :/

Anyway, good luck

My love is seperated in 2 parts, 1 of them is 3ds Max 7, the other; FPSC.
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Belseth
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2006 18:28
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There are a laundry list of of important issues for sure. This is a big one for me because if I can't get a decent look for the characters the rest is pointless. I'm not asking a lot just for something more than flat global illumination. The Vista version may address this but from the posts I'm guessing it's atleast summer or fall away. Unfortunately that version will also be limited Vista and Direct X10.
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DJ Professor K
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2006 19:22
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This isn't HL2 engine or D3 engine, DBp has limitations.

Also, if FPSC already has speed issues, this wont really help, thats why i said this is important, but that not that important

Peace.

My love is seperated in 2 parts, 1 of them is 3ds Max 7, the other; FPSC.
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bond1
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2006 19:24 Edited at: 22nd Nov 2006 22:31
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Are you talking about your own characters or the ones included? Really, you wouldn't WANT to have any directional lightmapping on the characters themselves, unless you don't plan on having them move.

Now, it's common practice to bake in some low-key ambient occlusion lightmapping into the diffuse texture, but that's the job of the modeller, not the game engine. For example, look at my nurse character from Model Pack 4, with and without ambient occlusion. The one on the right looks better, more grounded to the scene, correct? Notice the shading on the legs and under the chin. Is this the kind of effect you're talking about?



FPSC X10 will have better shaders, so a normal map can provide much better and dynamic shading.

----------------------------------------
"Your mom went to college."
My FPSC stuff at http://www.hyrumark.com
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Belseth
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2006 03:32
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The nurse looks much better. I'm more of a CG person and only recently started playing with gaming. Light mapping is new to me. I'm a bit confused since other posts said light mapping wasn't possible. Guess I'll have to see what's possible with the animation software I have. I just want to get back some of the contrast and not have the models so washed out looking. Would you happen to know what software was used for the model packs? Ambient Occlusion would be helpful. I really do understand the shadowing limitations of the engine just seeing all the color maps get washed out was depressing. If I can get the ambient occlusion light mapping to work it's make a huge difference.

Thanks for the suggestion. Like I say I'm pretty new to gaming and a lot of things are done very different from traditional CG animation.
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bond1
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2006 06:02
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Hey no problem, glad to help. Yeah modelling for games is a lot different than modelling for production. I made 2 of the model packs for FPS Creator, and I use 3ds max. For ambient occlusion, all I did was assign the mental ray material called "ambient-reflective occlusion" to my model then use the "render-to-texture" function using the existing UV's of my character to bake out a lightimg map. I'll then blend this with the diffuse map in photoshop.

You can also simply put a skylight in your scene and use render-to-texture with the scanline renderer, although it takes a lot longer this way.

In addition, I also put up two directional lights shining down at an angle of about 45 degrees at my characters from the front and back, and bake yet another lightmap. This gives even more contrast and "pop" to the character, although I blend this one at a low opacity or it starts to look funny.

If you plan on using normal maps then you'll probably just want to use a very subtle ambient occlusion map with very little shading in the diffuse texture.

----------------------------------------
"Your mom went to college."
My FPSC stuff at http://www.hyrumark.com
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filya
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2006 11:34 Edited at: 23rd Nov 2006 11:35
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was that English Bond??
now I know how pros talk, but I guess it will take me time to understand what they mean

edit : or maybe I need to get out of the Milkshape world

-- game dev is fun...but taking up too much time --
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Van B
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2006 11:50
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Hehe, yeah there are some amazing texture baking plugins for 3DSMax, some great free ones even - but if you don't have MAX then there's not a great deal of options.

Anyone know of a stand alone texture baker, like maybe just something that can load in a .3DS or .X model then bake it's texture?

That would be ideal I think, it's bout time someone made one if there's none already.


One thing though, your saying all your models are washed out - like they don't even have DX lighting affecting them? - perhaps the ambient light level is too high. In DBPro you might set that down to 30, which let's DX lighting affect the model more. You should have some shading on your models, might not be baking or mapping, but it should be better than it is.

''Stick that in your text and scroll it!.''
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bond1
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2006 13:56 Edited at: 23rd Nov 2006 13:56
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Quote: "Anyone know of a stand alone texture baker, like maybe just something that can load in a .3DS or .X model then bake it's texture?"


There is this one, http://www.santyesprogramadorynografista.net/projects.aspx, it can render normal and ambient occlusion maps. It's supposed to be really good (and free) but I've never tried it.

Sorry my previous post was heavy in "max-speak".

----------------------------------------
"Your mom went to college."
My FPSC stuff at http://www.hyrumark.com
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fik
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2006 14:27
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Blender can do this to apparently.
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Render_Baking.827.0.html
Haven't tried myself, never got to grips with its interface maybe i should try harder
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Van B
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2006 17:19
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Thanks for that Bond, downloading now, will post any results worth showing .

''Stick that in your text and scroll it!.''
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FredP
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2006 17:49
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Thanks,Bond.
I'll have to check this out.

http://www.wembley1967.com
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bond1
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Posted: 24th Nov 2006 01:29
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There's a HUGE fourteen page thread on that program over at the polycount forums here: http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=105812&an=0&page=0#Post105812. There's probably a lot of good info in there. I'd be interested to see what you guys can do with it. Supposedly its easier to use than max's texture baker.

----------------------------------------
"Your mom went to college."
My FPSC stuff at http://www.hyrumark.com
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transient
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Posted: 24th Nov 2006 10:49
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This program doesn't bake illumination, but it can bake normals and textures from a high poly model onto a low-poly one.

It's a cool program.

I think Blender currently has the best potential for free/shareware illumination and shader baking.

Carrara also has a plug-in that can do this, and Lightwave has this feature as well. I don't know if there are any other sub $1000 apps that can do this.
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Ianhfar
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Posted: 24th Nov 2006 12:00
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transient,

have you used the Baker program for Carrara ?
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transient
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Posted: 24th Nov 2006 14:10 Edited at: 24th Nov 2006 14:11
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No, I investigated Carrara a while ago but decided to get Shade.

Here's the plug-in. It's pretty self explanatory. I should probably point out that it makes the wrong kind of normal maps for FPSC, so don't get it for that feature.

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