Adding lights

[Lil'Momo]

Hi there . I just wanted to add lights to my building. I opened "libtwrhelipd_lan2.dff" , took the four lights , and connected them to my object. It looked like this:

 

I created the dff, txd and the col which all work ingame except the four lights! Ingame I couldn't notice any of these lights. So that's my question, how do I add lights exactly?

I gotta know, without lights it doesn't look spectacular..

This is a pic of the building ingame ( unfortunately without any lights):

[SeaNorris.]

Have you connected them to the hierarchy

[Lil'Momo]

Yes. Here's a pic:

[xmen]

yeah i have the same problem , when i click on attach button there is nothing wxcept of mine object , some one tell how can i attach omni or sunlight to mine object

[AK-73]

 

I gotta know, without lights it doesn't look spectacular..

 

 

Before adding lights, I suggest adding vertex lighting. Vertices can be assigned different colors in the vertex sub-object mode in gmax/3dsm. You can make them visible in gmax/3dsm by opening the objects properties menu, it should have an option to shade the object with vertex colors. Study some orginal GTA buildings and how R* made use of preliting for some good effect. Maybe that eliminates your need for actual lights inside your .dff.

 

I don't know about SA but in VC, there were at least three ways to give some world geometry a form of lighting effect:

1. Vertex preliting - this just shades the object.

2. Light objects inside your .dff, I believe that is achieved by having omni lights as children of your top-level object. These lights not only shade the geometry of the .dff but also the player running by the building etc. I think the lights were not visible though.

3. 2dfx lights inside of the .ide file. These are the classical GTA street lamps, traffic lights, etc light effects. They're visible and effect their environment too. Only if the first two effects don't do it for you, you will have to learn how to make use of those. I just read they're being handled differently in SA so I'm afraid I can't help you with those, if that's what you really need.

 

Alex

 

[xrk]

 

2. Light objects inside your .dff, I believe that is achieved by having omni lights as children of your top-level object. These lights not only shade the geometry of the .dff but also the player running by the building etc. I think the lights were not visible though.

 

Was this in Vc?? I never see it and I did have every model in max when I converted them to sa, anyhow I think this is more or less how 2dfx is done in sa and for that type of shading we can now do it via coll files.

 

 

 

yeah i have the same problem , when i click on attach button there is nothing wxcept of mine object , some one tell how can i attach omni or sunlight to mine object

 

From what I've read we cant export 2dfx yet hopfully some-one will come along and tell me I'm wrong

Edited June 13, 2006 by xrk

[AK-73]

 

Was this in Vc?? I never see it and I did have every model in max when I converted them to sa, anyhow I think this is more or less how 2dfx is done in sa and for that type of shading we can now do it via coll files.

 

 

I see. Well, yes, if I remember it correctly, very prominently the hotels along ocean drive had lights inside their .dffs.

 

 

From what I've read we cant export 2dfx yet    hopfully some-one will come along and tell me I'm wrong 

 

 

I've written my own export script for gmax and Vice. It's only export, it's for VC, it's buggy and it's messy as a result of lazy quick and dirty programming (it was my first maxscript too) , etc. But if anyone is interested, I can release it as open source for further development or for comparison if some folks want to start their own scripts from scratch. The good thing about open source is that the community isn't dependent on a single contributor and that if there's a bug in the app/script, some people may be able to fix it themselves without having to wait for the author of the app/script.

 

Just an offer.

 

Alex

[DexX]

2dfx lights are stored inside DFF's this time around, and currently Kam's exporter doesn't export this data. it has to be added by hand with a hex editor, which is very inefficient, but it can be done.

 

@ Ak-73, what kind of exporter have you written, one for map data or dff's? i know Kam has written his, and i have my own that i havent released. might be interesting to compare them all.

[AK-73]

 

2dfx lights are stored inside DFF's this time around, and currently Kam's exporter doesn't export this data. it has to be added by hand with a hex editor, which is very inefficient, but it can be done.

 

@ Ak-73, what kind of exporter have you written, one for map data or dff's? i know Kam has written his, and i have my own that i havent released. might be interesting to compare them all.

 

Well, it shouldn't be too difficult to code a simple standalone GUI app that can replace dummies with lights but that's of course again just a kludgy solution.

 

My exporter is only for .dffs. Kam's old gmax scripts didn't work with anything but low poly geometry, so I decided to write my own. As mentioned, it's not pretty but I know the code and I can fix bugs with relative ease. As of now it does support world geometry, skins&bones, and vehicles. But as I recently discovered it expects geometry to have (0,0,0) rotation. Don't know if I'll ever bother to fix that one...

 

Alex

 

PS I've also written my own gmax .ifp exporter as well as a simple console app that patches the gmax output directly into an .ifp file. I've converted that way a number of animations for my mod that now get used by the LC project as well.

 

PPS No, it doesn't support lights yet either but that's going to be fixed soon.

[xrk]

2dfx lights are stored inside DFF's this time around, and currently Kam's exporter doesn't export this data. it has to be added by hand with a hex editor, which is very inefficient, but it can be done.

 

Even down to the co-ords on the model?? you probably have to be one of the clever modders to do that lol

 

@DexX

your exporter, that isn't what you was going on about in your sig a little while ago is it??? (the pudding thing?)

[DexX]

Yea, even the light coordinates. its not that difficult to do though, once you understand the format. yea the pudding thing referred to my script. i prefer to talk about it only when im actively working on it, and with school, that isn't as often as i like. but i get a vacation coming up soon, so hopefully i'll atleast get it out. got one more card up my sleeve too, hehe. more on that later.