BSP Lightmap Editing

[Devoted]

Dear community members,

 

 

 

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I am very happy to be back in this forum, although not many of you know that i was around, because of years being underground. 

Till now i was and am specializing in 3D design and animation, also level design and i have made dozens of player models for JK and quite a few maps, many of them are unfortunately lost, but who remembers me, does remember Fortunately/unfortunately, one of the simplest generic duel maps was saved on the filefront mirror: https://mrwonko.de/jk3files/Jedi%20Academy/Maps/Free%20For%20All/121210/

It just uses the most basic radiant functionality and has even no curves, no custom textures or shaders, but it has survived, so it's something at least!

 

 

 

 

I am currently designing a map in 3Ds max (yes, yes, thank you for the great plugin that is now available!), using custom shaders, textures, etc, based on Rend2.

I am slowly coming to the stage where i am considering how in general the lighting in-game would look like, and a great idea came to my head, and that is the main question: Is it possible to compile my bsp, take out the baked lightmaps, edit them by projecting realistic shadows from my 3ds max baking render, put them back to BSP, compile and have them working in game? In this way i could greatly improve the lighting, general ambience look in game by faking and baking the realistic shadows from 3ds max render. Any Ideas on what to start from? 

If any progress could be done, i will start immediately writing a little instructional tutorial on the whole process step-by-step and will post it in this forum.

 

May the force be with you!

And thanks!

[AshuraDX]

Which plugin that is now available?

[Delta_135]

You can export the lightmaps from a compiled bsp via the -export switch in q3map2 (and import with the -import switch)

but this only gives you a .tga image that you can edit

You can't re-render the light on the map itself unless someone knows of a way to extract the compiled map geometry with the lightmap uv's intact

[Devoted]

  On 9/5/2019 at 4:15 PM, AshuraDX said:

Which plugin that is now available?

This one: https://jkhub.org/files/file/1687-3ds-max-2013-map-exporter/

I'm of course waiting for your plugin with great impatience! Despite the fact that so many years past, I'm still willing to practice q3 mapmaking regularly.

[Devoted]

  On 9/8/2019 at 7:42 PM, Delta_135 said:

You can export the lightmaps from a compiled bsp via the -export switch in q3map2 (and import with the -import switch)

but this only gives you a .tga image that you can edit

You can't re-render the light on the map itself unless someone knows of a way to extract the compiled map geometry with the lightmap uv's intact

So the main problem I will encounter is that there will be no way to import the maps UV's into 3ds max.

But: can I just use the grandpa's méthode and just export the original TGA's from BSP, then painfully edit them by hand, and then import them back?

And also, if yes, can I upscale the lightmap TGA's resolution?

P.S. AshuraDX, by the way, if you're making your own plugin, would it be possible to edit the UV's using your plugin? If I'm thinking in the right direction, one could actually complete the whole task by using your Q3ME.

Thx

[Delta_135]

  On 9/9/2019 at 8:53 PM, Devoted said:

So the main problem I will encounter is that there will be no way to import the maps UV's into 3ds max.

But: can I just use the grandpa's méthode and just export the original TGA's from BSP, then painfully edit them by hand, and then import them back?

And also, if yes, can I upscale the lightmap TGA's resolution?

P.S. AshuraDX, by the way, if you're making your own plugin, would it be possible to edit the UV's using your plugin? If I'm thinking in the right direction, one could actually complete the whole task by using your Q3ME.

Thx

 

I guess, i have never tried to change the size of a lightmap before importing it