Lights and lit textures.

[Epifire]

Hey guys, back to work on my old map and I'm wanting to add some flare to my level geometry by getting some good lighting in it. So far I'm just looking to see a good means of developing it as well as options and what can be done.

I'm looking to make some standard light props that will emit light and will have glowing textures to provide a convincing source. Not sure how (and what all can be done) in the ODF for this but I'm also concerned as to just how I might add a glowing texture.

So I guess I'm wondering just how to accomplish all of this. Here is an example of some colorless ambient occlusion bakes I'd like to develop into lit textures...

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Personally I'd only like to have the light panels themselves glow exclusively, but just nailing that down and the ODF side with the light attachments would be wonderful right now.

[sereja2]

Seems, there is untextured models only. To make texture glow, you have to add the texture itself first. XSI & Pandemic exporter, let you do this, by selecting polygons and add some render number, when export it. If you use XSI Mod Tool, it's better to just add different materials to separated parts of the model, and hex edit it later, after export. The hex code for SWBF1 light textures:

Code: Select all

04 00 00 00 01

.

[Epifire]

It's been a long time since I've tried to hex edit anything, but is it safe to assume I can "tag" the preferred areas of the model under a single cluster? I don't have the pandemic exporter since I've never had an old version of XSI outside of the modtools. I have been working under the ZEtools user created addon but I assume the hex edit process can still work?

[sereja2]

I am use ZETools, and always edit render effects with hex editor, since it's more easy. You just need to make separate polygons, and add different materials for them.
Perhaps, ZETools, have function to manage render effects of the selected polygons, but you need to figure out, how it works...

[Epifire]

I am use ZETools, and always edit render effects with hex editor, since it's more easy. You just need to make separate polygons, and add different materials for them.
Perhaps, ZETools, have function to manage render effects of the selected polygons, but you need to figure out, how it works...

Either way I think I'm still sticking with Hex Edits for now. Do you happen to know where a guide might be for that? I tried and failed last time I attempted it so I'm gonna want to have a full rundown on it before I start editing things.

I also believe you can add transparency to sections as well through Hex Editing if I'm not mistaken? I recall trying that but I can't recall if the TGA file type could support an alpha channel.

[ANDEWEGET]

You can easily add any type of render/material effects to materials in ZETools.
To do that just launch the Material Manager from the ZE Tools menu entry, then select the materials which should have special flags and hit the ZE-ify button.

After that, you can easily change the material flags by inspecting the material object property page (select the material in the Material Manager and press Edit, then scroll down a bit).

For the Glow effect you'd just tick the Glow box.

Rendertypes are currently only displayed as a number, so check this page for what they actually do.

That should be a lot safer (and more efficient, as you don't have to redo it every time you re-export the .msh plus you will create the materials anyways).

[Epifire]

Oh man thanks a bundle Ande! We seriously have all these rendertypes supported? I see reflection, refraction and normals, all of which I heard were never available for our usage in any of the SWBF titles.

EDIT: I've done all I can using both a totally separate mesh and clusters but tagging the material doesn't seem to have had any effect. I'm probably missing something (not sure if I have to have additional lines in the ODF to enable it) but I think I've done just about every thing I can inside XSI.

[ANDEWEGET]

Sorry for the late reply, didnt have internet for the last week.

Which render types/flags did you use? If you give more information I can test it myself.