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Shadow bakign in 3ds max

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 10:40 am
by Rayne
I was asked to write a tutorial on how i bake shadows in max. Today i managed to find some time to make this.
I was in a rush so it doesn't look pretty but it shows pretty much everything.

Re: Shadow bakign in 3ds max

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 10:42 am
by johnnyenglish
Sweet, you are a minor god and I shall erect a temple to you in my garden, next to the pond probably.

Re: Shadow bakign in 3ds max

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 10:43 am
by Rayne
johnnyenglish wrote:Sweet, you are a minor god and I shall erect a temple to you in my garden, next to the pond probably.

I think you'll be better of drowning me in the pond. let's just hope it's deep enough and we don't scare off the duckies.

Re: Shadow bakign in 3ds max

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 11:09 am
by johnnyenglish
Rayne wrote:I think you'll be better of drowning me in the pond. let's just hope it's deep enough and we don't scare off the duckies.


Nah, we wont do that. Is it ok for me to test this out and add it to the wiki?

Re: Shadow bakign in 3ds max

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 11:38 am
by Rayne
johnnyenglish wrote:
Rayne wrote:I think you'll be better of drowning me in the pond. let's just hope it's deep enough and we don't scare off the duckies.


Nah, we wont do that. Is it ok for me to test this out and add it to the wiki?

Yeah go ahead, give it a go and see how it looks like.

Re: Shadow bakign in 3ds max

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 11:44 am
by johnnyenglish
I've got a test map ready - I'll start experimenting when I get home later.

Re: Shadow bakign in 3ds max

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:55 am
by johnnyenglish
I've been interested in this and the whole process of using external lightmaps. I'm also trying to work out some of the process using blender but I hate blender, can't handle it.

Anyway, I'm stuck - no matter what I try I cannot get the game to load my external lightmap. What am I missing?

Re: Shadow bakign in 3ds max

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:27 am
by Rayne
I have no idea, i never managed to get external lightmaps to work either. That's why i tried this shadow baking technique.
Basically for external lightmaps to work you need a shader generated by the compiler that sends an instruction to use a lightmap image that will be overlayed.
For some reason that shader never worked for me as it's supposed to.

Re: Shadow bakign in 3ds max

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2011 7:32 am
by johnnyenglish
Ok, I'm close to giving up on external lightmaps altogether and will go back to the putting the shadow on the model texture method instead.

Its a shame, a higher res lightmap would do a lot to improve shadow definition and still allow for light entities to be placed for 2d elements.

Re: Shadow bakign in 3ds max

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2011 9:24 am
by Rayne
Well if you need lights just to affect the light grid i think light_junior does exactly that.