giles

I am considering using Giles in the pipeline to produce static meshes for CShop 5.

-I can't find any way to increase the resolution of the lightmap.

-soft lighting doesn't actually use the vertex normals. I have a mesh with some hard edges, some soft curved edges. The lightmapper treats them all like they are soft edges or hard, but does not do both. I'll add that the normals ARE adjusted properly; I am not asking the program to "guess" what I want. So that means I have to go back and touch up the lightmap by hand. :(

-Sometimes when I light a mesh, it goes through the calculation, and then no lightmap appears.

-Some meshes show up completely black, even with an infinite directional light. Some meshes show up with a really bright ambient light, even when no lights are in the scene.

-It would bew nice if there were lighting setups to choose from. I usually use two opposite directional lights, one full-bright, one at half-brightness. Or at least, there should be the option to load meshes without getting rid of the curretn scene lighting. It takes several minutes to set up the lights every time.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the results. I think this will work well for the static mesh pipeline. I'll calculate static mesh lightmaps in Giles, load the referenced meshes in CShop 5, and apply hardware lighting to make them fit into their surrounding lighting environment.

My only real complaint is the lightmapper seems to soften edges on a "minimum angle" routine, rather than using the vertex normals. This is bad, because those small pipes are 4-sided cylinders, but small enough that they look good if the edges are smoothed, Giles gives them hard edges, then gives a soft edge on smaller angles that are supposed to be hard (by the vertex normals).

You're gonna get a better response here

http://www.frecle.net/forum/

As for your problems - Lightmap size is found in the lighting methods window (windows - lighting methods window) - select the lightmap you want to adjust and then change its properties accordingly

All the problems you have with normals are to do with smoothing groups. the only problems seem to occur when the lightmap is set too small so the lumels aren't big enough to show the smoothing properly.

You're right. I cranked the lightmap size up and the smoothing appears correct.

I think the lightmapped static meshes is a great approach, because you can have all the fine details shadows where you want them, but you can use an extremely low-res lightmap for large wall and floor brushes.

Seems like you get better results if you render at 2048x2048, and the shrink the lightmap.

Gile[s] is the bomb, so to speak.

>>Seems like you get better results if you render at 2048x2048, and the shrink the lightmap. <<

Funny, I did the same with slim shady.

I'm using Gile[s], and I'm pretty happy with it. While the interface can be a bit clunky, it's very fast and powerful for such a cheap tool, and the results look very good. And it doubles for me as Maya exporter too.

I encountered the same problem when I first started using Gile[s].

Increasing the size of the lightmap tends to solve most of the problems. But, you can also create more than one lightmap and spread the light and shadows over several files.

In Gile[s] select Window\Lighting Methods.
Then you can click-on the star button next to the trashcan icon to create an additional lightmap.

I think it's more efficient too. Having two 512 x 512 maps uses less system resources than one 1040 x 1040 map.

Check out the screen shots of Neoto City on my web page.
The lighting was done with Gile[s] and I used four 512 x 512 maps.

Regards,

Rogue Vector

Really nice mapping work. What do you use for level editing?

Thanks,

The level was created in GTK Radiant.

The map was converted to VRML using this program:
http://home.snafu.de/hg/vrml/q3bsp/q3bsp.html

It was imported into 3D Studio Max as a VRML and then converted to a .b3d file using B3D Pipeline.

The final lightmapping, flares and trigger positions etc were added in Gile[s].

I checked with the GTK Radiant people before using this work flow and it is acceptable for non-commercial demos.

Here's the email correspondance I had with ID Software:

>---------------------------------------------
From: "Timothee Besset" <ttimo@...;
Subject: Re: Non Commercial Use Of GTKRadiant
Date: 05 April 2004 13:09

Yep, GtkRadiant is free for non commercial use. Your situation falls
completely in this case, so please go ahead :)

TTimo

>---------------------------------------------------
> Hi,
>
> Would it be legally acceptable to use GTK Radiant for a Non-Profit,
> Non-Commercial project that I'm currently doing with students at a
> local college.
>
> What I want to do is get the students to create a level using GTK
> Radiant and convert the exported BSP file to a VRML file using this
> program: http://home.snafu.de/hg/vrml/q3bsp/q3bsp.html
>
> Then, import the VRML into 3D Studio Max before exporting again to a
> .3DS file.
>
> My game engine can then load the .3ds file format, allowing us to
> create a playable demo that showcases the student's level. Thus,
> creating a playable demo for each student.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rogue Vector

I fixed the normals and recalculated lights. Epic called, and they want their door back. Now THAT is quality!

Thanks,

I would'nt mind collaborating on something, but I'm so busy at the moment, I'm not sure that I could give it the attention it would require.

Regards,

Rogue Vector

What does Epic want now, If you managed to steal the door it's yours ;)

Good work Halo, I'm impressed by your modeling skills dude! ;)

This kind of stuff isn't hard, you just have to know exactly what you want. Most of my objects are just a bunch of extruded lines. When it comes to organics, I can't model my way out of a paper bag.

I'll email you.

By the way, is it normal that Gile[s] crashes whenever you run your Blitz program from the IDE? And is there anything that can be done about it?

It is normal that any Blitz3D App crashes if another application starts that creates a DirectX window.