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Lightmapping... [message #92268] Thu, 03 June 2004 15:36 Go to next message
deadmoap is currently offline  deadmoap
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I'm not too into the whole 3D graphics thoery, but does renegade support lightmapping? I have a few programs that do lightmapping... but file conversions are what I'm worried about. Gmax wont export texture, for one thing. But I think a lightmap is like a texture that just brightens or darkens certain areas. I think I could get away with doing this:

Export the map from gmax to gile[s] (my favorite lightmapper)
Render the lightmap
Export to 3ds
Import in gmax
Apply textures to my map

Would this work? I know that the 3ds format supports lightmapping, otherwise I don't think gile[s] would export to it. But I'm mainly wondering if I have to apply the texture before lightmapping.

But even if it did work, does the w3d format support lightmaps? In fact does renegade support lightmaps?
Lightmapping... [message #92276] Thu, 03 June 2004 15:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Sanada78 is currently offline  Sanada78
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I'd like to know if it's also possible to do lightmapping for mod maps. The official maps have it, but they used some sort of max plug-in I think.

Lightmaps make the maps look ten times better than with crappy vertex light.


Ooh, nasty.
Lightmapping... [message #92291] Thu, 03 June 2004 16:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Aircraftkiller is currently offline  Aircraftkiller
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They also take up three times the processing power on your video chipset.
Lightmapping... [message #92293] Thu, 03 June 2004 17:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Sanada78 is currently offline  Sanada78
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But I'd say it's worth the extra performance cost.

Ooh, nasty.
Lightmapping... [message #92299] Thu, 03 June 2004 17:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
deadmoap is currently offline  deadmoap
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Oh I didn't know they take up more processing power. Maybe they'd be okay for a single player map, but when you're playing with 79 other people, you need all the performance you can get.
Lightmapping... [message #92302] Thu, 03 June 2004 17:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
maytridy is currently offline  maytridy
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Then how did WS get away with it?

Lightmapping... [message #92304] Thu, 03 June 2004 17:18 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Aircraftkiller is currently offline  Aircraftkiller
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They didn't get away with anything. The multi-pass lightmapping, in conjunction with the close proximity of the bases and the way the levels were designed, ended up causing most of the frame rate issues in the game.
Lightmapping... [message #92307] Thu, 03 June 2004 17:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
SuperFlyingEngi is currently offline  SuperFlyingEngi
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...but we must always remember that it was always EA's fault.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt (1918)

"The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect "domestic security." Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent. --U.S. Supreme Court decision (407 U.S. 297 (1972)

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Lightmapping... [message #92316] Thu, 03 June 2004 17:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Aircraftkiller is currently offline  Aircraftkiller
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EA owns WS, or what's left of it... So, by extension, you're saying WS is at fault. And you're entirely correct.
Lightmapping... [message #92488] Fri, 04 June 2004 11:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
deadmoap is currently offline  deadmoap
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I still say it's EA's fault because they're stupid and I hate them. Those dirty bastards.
Lightmapping... [message #92519] Fri, 04 June 2004 12:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
NeoX is currently offline  NeoX
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deadmoap

I still say it's EA's fault because they're stupid and I hate them. Those dirty bastards.
So true.
Lightmapping... [message #92521] Fri, 04 June 2004 12:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
NeoX is currently offline  NeoX
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deadmoap

I still say it's EA's fault because they're stupid and I hate them. Those dirty bastards.
Lightmapping... [message #94724] Fri, 11 June 2004 22:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
PiMuRho is currently offline  PiMuRho
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Aircraftkiller

They also take up three times the processing power on your video chipset.


From Jani Penttinen - engine programmer for Renegade:

I have no idea what this means, but lightmaps are just an extra texture
stage which modulates the primary texture. Lightmaps cause regularly no
performance hit, though it is true that they tend to add the number of
textures in the scene, which slows things down a little (not much, if
everything is designed pretty well). On older video cards it is sometimes
needed to render the lightmap as an extra pass (rather than a secondary
stage), which obviously consumes more fillrate.

Lightmaps are always 100%
precomputed, so they don't make things slower. Lightmaps are usually really
low resolution, because the lighting information doesn't need to be
accurate. Especially when you combine with the high resolution primary
texture, the results are pretty good looking.



Aircraftkiller

They didn't get away with anything. The multi-pass lightmapping, in conjunction with the close proximity of the bases and the way the levels were designed, ended up causing most of the frame rate issues in the game.


Not true at all. What caused most of the performance problems was that the
assets had been mostly designed for older generation of 3D cards, and not
really optimized for new hardware (new being GeForce2 in this case). After
the game shipped I created guidelines for new art and we succesfully created
levels with moren than 500k polygons visible, running a steady 60 fps on ATI
R200 (GF3 era card). Do some googling and search for Renegade 2 screenshots,
you should be able to find some that were leaked after the studio was shut
down. This was running with the same core technology, just with better
designed art assets.


Lightmapping... [message #94725] Fri, 11 June 2004 22:56 Go to previous message
Aircraftkiller is currently offline  Aircraftkiller
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That doesn't make much sense considering things shouldn't go slower when they're less detailed, unless something REALLY went wrong.

I was told that the lightmapping caused a lot of processing hits due to the second pass, or detail texture, it added across the board on the entire level by Mike Amerson, who was working with the Islands level and had mapped it out himself. Just going by what he said with that one.
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