Lightmap Tutorial - C&C: Renegade Game

LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: MEDIUM- KNOWLEDGE ON MAX AND RELEVANT SOFTWARE

Original Lightmap Tutorial by Sloth4urluv Compiled and Re-Edited by Mauler
*Note* If any files,Images, or any other problems arise or if you need any help don't hesitate to ask i will try to help you or at least guide you in the right direction*

This tutorial was written to explain the basics of making lightmap/shadows playable in Renegade, it does not go into detail on how to setup up your level lighting. Its more on how to apply your lightmap into the renegade engine.

Tools Needed:
3DS MAX RenX Gamepack
MULTI UNWRAP v2.1
BFF EXPORTER

3DSMAX PORTION OF TUTORIAL

1.0-GETTING STARTED

First thing you want to do is setup your model for its light map. You want to either group or attach your mesh into one single Object. Here i have my mesh, a landscape i want to be mapped [Not textured but yours can be doesnt matter]. Remember Only pick the object you currently want to be lightmapped/shadowmap (Exteriors/Interiors/Landscape Etc..)

1.2-SET UP YOUR LIGHTING

Here i have my lighting all in place and ready to get a light map! * TIP:You might want to put a INVERSE DECAY ON your lighting option to give it a more realistic looking atmosphere

1.3-MULTIUNWRAP YOUR MESH

Now select you model to mapped and run your MultiUnwrap tool and that should appear!. Next step is to assign a channel you want to work on, you can pick any so long as you remember this channel later! after that is done hit UNWRAP UV's and now your probly looking at a mess in that UV Window that just popped up, were gonna fix that.

Now hit selection face mode [Pictured above] and make sure you have select element on, once thats is done..

You want to select all faces in the UV window you can do this by hitting the cross arrow button and simply selecting all faces until they turn red once you have them.. hit the MAPPING tab and click on FLATTEN MAPPING.

Once this window pops up there are two settings you can adjust these are FACE ANGLE THRESHOLD and SPACING. you can adjust your angle to you prefence by going up or down on angles but make sure you set spacing to 0. And when that is done you should end up with a map similiar to this, once your finished simply close the UV window.

1.4-RENDER TO TEXTURE

Once your all done setting the UV's on your object, its time to render your texture!. Click on you SINGLE MESH you want to lightmap and go to RENDERING TAB on the Main UI, go down to RENDER TO TEXTURE and you should have a window like this pop up.

Under Objects to bake you should have your single mesh appear in there next you need to set padding this simply softens shadows gives it a nice effect usually more than 60 should be good!. Next set your Object channel using the on you had set earlier! In MULTIWRAP PORTION. Now for your OUTPUT press ADD and choose LIGHTING MAP then you can name your file output TGA and set the SIZE of the OUTPUT TEXTURE. All done? click on render and a window should pop up like this of your render

Congrats you have just made a lightmap textured object!! but its not over yet now we have to export it!.

1.5-EXPORTING TO RENX VIA BFF EXPORTER

Now once you have set up your lighting and lightmap texture you have EXPORT YOUR SINGLE MESH OBJECT here are the settings for BFF EXPORT **MAKE SURE ITS THE ONLY ONE SELECTED, MEANING ONE MESH** save your .MS FILE and Once that is done your finished with MAX

2.0-OPENING YOUR MESH IN RENX

Click on the HAMMER TAB IN RENX and go to MAXSCRIPT then RUN SCRIPT and find your exported .MS FILE AND RUN IT. Your Mesh Should appear once it does your now free to texture your MESH

2.1-RENEGADE MATERIALS SETTINGS

VERTEX TAB - Change STAGE 1 MAPPING TO YOUR CHANNEL YOU HAD SELECTED EARLIER Next..

SHADER TAB - Under ADVANCED Change DETAIL COLOR to SCALE

TEXTURES TAB - Set STAGE 0 MAPPING to you desired texture of choice and set STAGE 1 MAPPING TEXTURE TGA OUTPUT FROM MAX (THIS IS YOUR LIGHTMAP (USE SETTINGS SHOWN)

2.2-FINISHING UP

This is my map in RENX before EXPORT AS RENEGADE TERRAIN

HERE ITS IS AS SEEN W3D WITH LIGHTMAP SHOWN
Congrats on making your first new lightmapped mesh ENJOY!!! Here are some of my own test models using this method!! WW Nod Silo And My Silo Interior ALSO CHECK OUT MY MODDB PAGE TO VIEW MORE COMPLEX MODELS WITH LIGHTMAPS

****UPDATE****

Since it has been awhile now..thought i would share new methods that have improves this tutorial, i have now been able to completely use 3DS Max to assign your lightmaps with out the need of using 3rd party exporters or importing into RenX of course you need the Export tools for 3DS Max in order to do it.. so now the update.

** This part requires you to have some extensive knowledge on UV mapping, and have set up existing UV map Coordinates to your model**

First off we need you model loaded

Next, make a copy of the mesh you wish to have lightmapped

Now we have the mesh, we need to clone it. Name the cloned mesh

Now we have your cloned mesh remove any textures you may have applied

Next step is to render your lighting to 2D Texture - so go ahead and render to texture with setting i have in this tutorial

Render it and it should give you your precalculated lighting in a 2d Image

Now to to do the next step still require's you to have unwrapped mesh from UNWRAPTOOLS - Save the UV's that were generated from the Unwrapper

Once you have you UV's saved you can use em for your next step (HIDE THE CLONED MESH AT THIS POINT) - Now that you have UV's saved go ahead and select your ORIGINAL NON CLONED Mesh and goto>Modifiers>UV Coordinates>UnWrap UVW

Now with this option open on you original mesh, look at the sidebar and First load up your UV's you had saved on your CLONED mesh and apply to you new mesh and change the Channel to your set channel you had saved in RENDER TO TEXTURE option (mine was channel 2)

Once that has been completed, simply apply your lightmap texture to stage 1 Texture (same settings as the RENX part)

once your done simply export and your done!!! all without RenX!!!