Ya Know... Stupidity Is A Powerful Force...

... i've been busting my hump writing routines to give me dot3 bumpmapping in Blitz3D... then, upon finally coming up with something half way decent looking... it dawned on me, like a diamond lazer lighting up my tiny lil brain... like some holy revelation of biblical proportion...

... it suddenly danwed upon me that i could get this all done in Gile[s] so much more simply and efficiently... export it to b3d format... and save myself a lot of grief (and a few cpu cycles at the same time)...



straight outta Gile[s] and into Blitz3D... no dot3 code at all

what an idyut i am... what a dummy... what a friggin airhead...

oh man i feel so stoooopid...


why didn't someone tell me this before!!!

i wound up figuring this outafter looking at Noel's mushroom patch and the recent posting by Jon of his lightmapped dark house...

...and then searching the threads for postings and discussions on textures and material editing... and stumbling upon the old MatEdit app by halo.


hey Noel... got any room in your scene for me... all this texture blending stuff is starting to drive me up a mushroom stalk...


--Mike

They always say the mind is the second thing to go when you get old. Teasing ya, Mike. At times, we all overlook what should be an obvious solution to our problem and then feel like a dumbass afterwards.

The clever dumbasses however don't share their every inner thought with the rest of the world, so when they do realise how obvious something was, they're the only ones that know. =]

That's not for me though. I want the whole world to know how useless I am, all the time! =]

Burn.

(He forgot to take His meds today)

There is no spoon.

I'm confused. Was there some special case in your app where light is directly overhead the the object only spins around the Y axis which allows you to avoid DOT3 and just use a lightmap, or what?

Cause in most cases a lightmap ain't no dot3. :-)

Lightmaps are also static, so that means that if the lights location changes the lightmap will still look as though the light was in its original position. You probably already know this though.

Also confused , Elaborate a bit more Mike :)

Zmatrix

Mike,

Hey don't be so harsh on yourself - btw can you spill the beans on "old MatEdit app by halo" remind us and please explain is it a tool we can buy or download or a technique????


:)

IPete2.

That's an odd looking submarine youv'e got there, Red.

That's the famous Utah Submarine. It's an experimental model that never made it to full production due to spout leakage.

Is it possible to use animated GIF lightmaps?

¬.¬ I dont think blitz loads animated GIFs.

hahahahahaaaaa... wow, what a rough crowd... hey waiter, a round of drinks for that table over there...

actually Brice... you're quite right... my mind is fading fast... so fast, that i don't even remember what the first thing was that i lost :)


ok... lets see... of course the lightmapping is static... but it's intended for use in the sub interior... for the most part, the lights in there are gonna be pretty much static... aren't they... and for different lighting conditions (rig for red, emergency lights), i just need change the lightmap... right...

for outdoor and moving objects, don't play the shadows so much... and the local lights should be good enough to darken the part not facing the lights (guessing here, gotta play with it more)... and i still have my dot3 bumpmapping routine i stole from someone elses code :) to fall back on if all that fails...

[added]
besides... it's not thelightmapping that i'm centering on here... it's the texture blending in Gile[s]... i was able to add the normal map and adjust a few settings, and walla, instant dot3... well, sorta...

sorry for yelling... but you all seem to be missing the point... Gile[s] lets you blend textures as opposed to doing it in code... so i can get a good representation of a bumpmapped object just from the b3d...

... or is this already common knowledge and i'm the last one to figure it out...

anyways...

yeah... John's got it right... aint you guyz up on the latest scientific nooos... this is the experimental nuclear teapot sub... actually, i was just too lazy to rewrite a bit of code, so i replaced the sub hull with a teapot...


hey... i realy wanna thank the guys for posting screenies from their great looking scenes in the Graphics Preview forum... they really helped me realize just how bad my stuff is, and pushed me into playing with more and more stuff...

Gile[s] is a gem... and the b3d format is a godsend...


oh yeah... IP... MatEdit-->http://www.blitzbasic.com/toolbox/toolbox.php?tool=83 it's still in the ToolBox\3DTextureTools forum... a util to help quickly visualize the different blending options without having to code and wait for a recompile...

Wallows... i like that idea... dynamic lightmaps... a system of dynamic lightmaps... hhhhhmmmmm....

--Mike

I actually use gile[s] for material visualisation as well.

yeah... that's the point i was getting at... not the lightmapping...

(read above again, i added a few lines)

--Mike