Previewing Level Lightning inside 3d modelers
Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 5:23 am
It is easier to preview what the level looks like with lights and shadows in a modeler (in autodesc Max -for instance,you can hit "Quick Render" to see what the scene looks like in the perspective viewport),provided you can get to a .map exporter.
Because each time you move around a light in the editor you have to compile again and wait a while to see if the light casts nice shadows on the bsp geometry-if not,you go back to the editor,move the light again and preview once more over and over.
Newer modelers have hardware driver display support,which can show the shadows in the viewports without having to render the scene-at a performance cost.
If you have already placed approximately the lights to the right position in the modeler,all is left to be done inside the editor is to set the lights radius,color etc-anyway it saves much time to place geometry with lights in a modeler.
What you cant export as convex is tubes,arches,but you can build these in the editor.
I know the Editor is a modeler too,but what it can not do,is to quick render a single static frame of the perspective viewport so you can preview the Lightmaps.
Because each time you move around a light in the editor you have to compile again and wait a while to see if the light casts nice shadows on the bsp geometry-if not,you go back to the editor,move the light again and preview once more over and over.
Newer modelers have hardware driver display support,which can show the shadows in the viewports without having to render the scene-at a performance cost.
If you have already placed approximately the lights to the right position in the modeler,all is left to be done inside the editor is to set the lights radius,color etc-anyway it saves much time to place geometry with lights in a modeler.
What you cant export as convex is tubes,arches,but you can build these in the editor.
I know the Editor is a modeler too,but what it can not do,is to quick render a single static frame of the perspective viewport so you can preview the Lightmaps.