Ultimate Lightmappers comparative chart

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afecelis
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Ultimate Lightmappers comparative chart

Post by afecelis »

Hi guys!!!

after experimenting a little bit with the most popular and recent lightmapping possibilities that exist for Irrlicht, I decided to post screenshots on the results with each format as well as a small comparative chart that summarizes some basic points. This as a reference point to help the community :D

I started out with a level created and lightmapped in Cartography shop and loaded it into Irrlicht using Mohaps' Mtrix extension csm loader:
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/co ... estcsm.jpg
It's a basic level with 3 textures and radical colored lights to exaggerate the lightmapping effect. From cshop, I exported to .X to use deled's X importer and re-texture and place lights there, and also exported to Giles (from Cshop) for a third point of reference.

Deled result:
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/co ... tdeled.jpg
as you can see, since the .X map exported from cshop doesn't include the original lights; they must be placed in deled's own pointlight format. So to achieve the same level of lightmapping involves a lot of experimenting with deled's lights.

Giles result:
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/co ... tgiles.jpg
the gls file exported from Cshop does include the lights, but once in giles you notice that their values have gone crazy, so tweaking the lights is also necessary. At least the lights are placed where they're supposed to. To get the giles file into Irrlicht I used Zdimitors dll exporter to My3d format.

From Giles I exported to 3ds and used Lordtrancos PulsarLmtools to generate the lightmaps and Jox's loader for Irrlicht:
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/co ... stlmts.jpg
more deep testing to do on lights here , ehehehe :D

And finally I imported the 3ds file into 3dsmax and re-placed the lights, rendered-to-texture and then exported to My3d format:
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/co ... stmy3d.jpg

so here's a brief summary:
Image

so you guys can make your own conclusions.

Final remarks:
1. Lighting is critic for good lightmapping results, so learn and study the tool of your choice in depth. Once you find a good formula that gives you great working results, stick to it. It's easy to tell by just looking at the pictures that I didn't tweak much in each format to try to get a similar result as the reference image (csm).
2. It's also important to remark that Irrlicht counts now with many supported formats for your levels; and also that you can translate between them easily without loosing any of the texturing or meshes info :D
3. I was also going to include a comparative with the map as bsp and lightmapped with Q3 tools, but I decided to use some of the free options available.
4. This chart wasn't made to say if a certain lightmapping format is better than the other. You can get excellent results with each and all of them if you follow my recommendation above.
5. Too bad I couldn't try any of Murphy's stuff. It would've helped a lot, so perhaps for next chart? The only one I had available was a blender level loaded into Irrlicht using OctTools, but I couldn't get lightmaps to work.
6. I want to thank Mohaps, Ilbuzzo, Jox and Zdimitor for their help and close interest to follow and answer each and every of my questions and emails. You guys are really patient!!! thnx thnx thnx!!

hope it helps!!!
:D
Last edited by afecelis on Thu Mar 24, 2005 3:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
jox
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Post by jox »

Nice work! Good overview of the possibilities. Great as reference. Murphys stuff is missing but you can still add that later. I think it would fit good as sticky in the FAQ/Tools section.
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afecelis
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Post by afecelis »

done! moved and made sticky! :D

Sometimes I really have a hard time deciding where my posts should go, :wink:
afecelis
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Post by afecelis »

ok guys!!

I just uploaded an all-in-one app with separate exes for each lightmapper so that you can try it out yourselves. :D

all use WASD except deled which uses arrow keys. Alt+f4 to quit.

http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/co ... appers.zip
ZDimitor
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Post by ZDimitor »

I found error in your table Gile[s] My3D file size is not 827 Kb but only 76 Kb. Check it!
afecelis
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Post by afecelis »

ooops!!! yup you're right! 827 kb is the size of the Giles gls file, and not the My3d file. Thnx Zdimitor.

so what do you think about it?

edited:
fixed the table, thnx Zdimitor for the correction.
Last edited by afecelis on Thu Mar 24, 2005 7:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
ZDimitor
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Post by ZDimitor »

Very, very cool test!

I think you should include Murphys stuff, to have full overview.
Last edited by ZDimitor on Thu Mar 24, 2005 7:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ZDimitor »

Much better :)
vermeer
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Post by vermeer »

yup....


Well, I have testing tools, and I have used my crappy level for do any kind of tests... basicly, I think the radiosity solution of FSRAD, which is what is used with his oct tools, has the possibility of achieve more quality than Norc's Slimshady (you didnt test it either ;) ) , or the very similar LM tools from Trancos.... In fact, surely realizing this (and as he's quite humble) he did all his stuff with fsrad, too...

Even more...I am a Giles user...well...I am not sure if actually...I mean, perhaps FSRAD can give mor equality than Giles, in certain aspects, but anyway, it's for me a bit inferior like all th efree lightmappers we speak about: they don't consider curved surfaces (look at the venus sculpture , and the cone flat shading-lightmapped in Afecelis sample) , while Giles and Max do...

For me that is key, very important.Though a workaround I ahve come in my privater projects, is just lightmap the curved once separatedly or edit the lightmaps in 2d.But no good...
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darkdragon

Post by darkdragon »

Why do you lock peoles thred for no reason I saw 5 that you locked
Afelious By the way i like your raven picture
just please dont lock my girlfriend megans thread she needs help and badly :cry: if youd help her thatd be awsome just tell exodieous i dint mean to bark at him but he was the 10th peson to discourage me that day sorrry :D
afecelis
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Post by afecelis »

you can tell me this sort of stuff thru a PM (private message). Don't use another topic to keep messing things around. Oh yes! but for that you gotta be a registered user so do yourself and us all a favor and register.

You gotta try and control yourself before calling people names; probably people who may be grownup-adults who don't deserve to be treated like that by some youngster.

It's not that I'm locking threads for pleasure; just when they become something that has already been answered a zillion times before, or way too controversial or out of topic. That's my job here.

That thread will remain locked for the incident with Exodus.I don't aprove the way you talked to him there. If your GF needs help tell her also to register and make a formal post in the beginners or advanced help section.

thank you for your comprehension
fireside
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Post by fireside »

Do any of these lightmap solutions work for linux? Also, why can't blender make lightmaps with radiosity? I'm a complete newb to Irrlicht right now, and just wondering what the best option for develpment is.
vermeer
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Post by vermeer »

Blender has only one UV channel. Besides, no smooth groups (u still could split meshes for a good lighting bake/normals)

The only possibility needs extra coding. That is, u can actually bake a greyscale lighting map, and use it as ur lightmap, with "a bit" of work, and not as well as with other lightmappers. But u'd need: the OBJ exported with thebitmap texture, another obj, or same one, with the lightmap bitmap...And by code, make one be the texture of ur mesh, the other load as lightmap (multiply mode or smething...) Mim tools for mim format could take these two objs , with its uv channel 1 "textures" adn build a lightmapped level of it, with the help of MIM loader. Don't ask me for em , please, I have uploaded a hundred times...if there was a server to upload irrlicht valious stuff, I'd upload again, but no more temp servers...besides mim project is not continued and probably does not work withlatest irrlicht.

the plugins for baking th elight at channel1 of UV :

http://www.alienhelpdesk.com/index.php?id=22
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fireside
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Post by fireside »

Thanks for the reply. At least I know it's a possibility.
pinballwizard
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Linux lightmapping

Post by pinballwizard »

fireside wrote:Do any of these lightmap solutions work for linux? Also, why can't blender make lightmaps with radiosity? I'm a complete newb to Irrlicht right now, and just wondering what the best option for develpment is.
The Windows fsrad.exe works under Linux using WINE.
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