Support for lightmaps in DTS
by Richard Dost · in Artist Corner · 09/22/2004 (4:35 am) · 5 replies
Hi All,
I have a friend that is helping me with the modeling part of my project and he ran into an interesting issue. He has created a fairly large building as a DTS object and we want to use 2 set of textures for it. One of the textures would be fairly small and it will be the wall texture, and we want on top of it merge another texture containing the lightning information. I am testing this with a modified version of the Torque 1.2 codebase.
He is using 3d Max 5, and he told me of 2 possible ways to acomplish this:
a) Creating a lightmap on top of the texture. I don't know much about the usage of lightmaps but I did a quick search into the engine code and all the references to lightmap usage are in reference to DIF objects which we don't use, so I am afraid this is not possible. :(
b) Another idea is to set in Max to 2 materials to the DTS and use Max blending feature. However when we try that the exporter give us the error "Unexpected material type on node body2". I look into this table http://www.alexswanson.com/torque/dts/, and it seems that there is some degree of support for Additive textures in the 3d Max exporter, but I am not sure this is what we need.
So my questions are:
a) Is there any way to use lightmaps in DTS object, perhaps in Torque 1.3 or in TSE ?
b) Is there any way to use blended textures in DTS objects?
c) At last is there any other way to do what we want, I am fairly new to 3d development so it is likely I am missing something.
I appreciate any advice on this matter and thanks for you time in advance.
I have a friend that is helping me with the modeling part of my project and he ran into an interesting issue. He has created a fairly large building as a DTS object and we want to use 2 set of textures for it. One of the textures would be fairly small and it will be the wall texture, and we want on top of it merge another texture containing the lightning information. I am testing this with a modified version of the Torque 1.2 codebase.
He is using 3d Max 5, and he told me of 2 possible ways to acomplish this:
a) Creating a lightmap on top of the texture. I don't know much about the usage of lightmaps but I did a quick search into the engine code and all the references to lightmap usage are in reference to DIF objects which we don't use, so I am afraid this is not possible. :(
b) Another idea is to set in Max to 2 materials to the DTS and use Max blending feature. However when we try that the exporter give us the error "Unexpected material type on node body2". I look into this table http://www.alexswanson.com/torque/dts/, and it seems that there is some degree of support for Additive textures in the 3d Max exporter, but I am not sure this is what we need.
So my questions are:
a) Is there any way to use lightmaps in DTS object, perhaps in Torque 1.3 or in TSE ?
b) Is there any way to use blended textures in DTS objects?
c) At last is there any other way to do what we want, I am fairly new to 3d development so it is likely I am missing something.
I appreciate any advice on this matter and thanks for you time in advance.
#2
My friend and I evaluated a while ago the advantages and disadvantages of using DIF interiors vs DTS objects, and we decide that losing some of those features (we don't use collision or fogging) was an aceptable tradeoff since we won the ability to design complex shapes more easily.
Our level is not that big and we are happy with the look of it (and the performance is OK), pretty much the only feature we are missing is the lightmap support. :(.
09/22/2004 (6:27 am)
Hi Brett,My friend and I evaluated a while ago the advantages and disadvantages of using DIF interiors vs DTS objects, and we decide that losing some of those features (we don't use collision or fogging) was an aceptable tradeoff since we won the ability to design complex shapes more easily.
Our level is not that big and we are happy with the look of it (and the performance is OK), pretty much the only feature we are missing is the lightmap support. :(.
#3
Unless you have made changes though you won't have any collision thats worth speaking of.
Blend is not a valid material according to Torque. Torque only take Standard and Multisubobject.
Blend would be nice though.
Matt
09/22/2004 (3:56 pm)
Max 5 can bake down your Models procedural textures and lightmaps. It take a little planning and know how but you could use it. Break your model up into several differnet material channels and bake them of so they are about 1024x. (I think TGE will run that size now.) Then add all of the baked material into a Multi_Subobject You would probably want to set your materials Self Illumination to 100 so the engine doesn't try lighting it at all. then export it.Unless you have made changes though you won't have any collision thats worth speaking of.
Blend is not a valid material according to Torque. Torque only take Standard and Multisubobject.
Blend would be nice though.
Matt
#4
Thanks for your reply. We are actually using this same technique right now. Baking the textures in Max, however we are trying to find a way to add even more details to the textures.
About the support for Blend material in Torque, do you know how difficult would it be to implement it? I have spent some time working with Torque and I also have some experience with the Max exporter code; so I may be able to give it a shot to make it work. (I haven't really getting into the rendering area of Torque, mainly because so far it has fulfill all our requirement, this may be a good excuse to look into it).
Any pointer to resources or a good place to start looking would be greatly appreciated.
09/22/2004 (11:32 pm)
Hi Matt,Thanks for your reply. We are actually using this same technique right now. Baking the textures in Max, however we are trying to find a way to add even more details to the textures.
About the support for Blend material in Torque, do you know how difficult would it be to implement it? I have spent some time working with Torque and I also have some experience with the Max exporter code; so I may be able to give it a shot to make it work. (I haven't really getting into the rendering area of Torque, mainly because so far it has fulfill all our requirement, this may be a good excuse to look into it).
Any pointer to resources or a good place to start looking would be greatly appreciated.
#5
If not you might have to try the game export interface. But that's probably alot of work.
Then you have to build somthing for torque that has corresponding properties and works.
There is a resource for adding Bump map to static dts object and one for adding Detail textures to a DIF shape. They might give you a clue.
Dts shapes per pixal lighting
Dif objects
Detail textures
Maybe that willl help
Matt
09/23/2004 (2:47 am)
I wouldn't have a clue. Best thing would be to just open the docs max sdk docs and see if there is even a valide way at getting at the material via C++ exporter. If not you might have to try the game export interface. But that's probably alot of work.
Then you have to build somthing for torque that has corresponding properties and works.
There is a resource for adding Bump map to static dts object and one for adding Detail textures to a DIF shape. They might give you a clue.
Dts shapes per pixal lighting
Dif objects
Detail textures
Maybe that willl help
Matt
Torque Owner Brett Fattori
- Brett