C’mon, people this material stuff is simple! Really!

[ADCK]

OK, but how did you make those lovely light cones? You need your lovely texture before you added the light effect and then the light effect as a separate greyscale texture - You do keep all these effects separate don't you, before combining them at the end?

That I did with layers. But I flatten the image when Im content with it. I know it's probably not the right way of working but. I'm used to work in that way.

Well next time, instead of flattening it, delete everything but the lights and save it as a new image

(EDIT) Eh, I kind of pushed your request off the current page, if any mods are reading this please check the previous page

[DaddyHoggy]

OK, but how did you make those lovely light cones? You need your lovely texture before you added the light effect and then the light effect as a separate greyscale texture - You do keep all these effects separate don't you, before combining them at the end?

That I did with layers. But I flatten the image when Im content with it. I know it's probably not the right way of working but. I'm used to work in that way.

I used to do that in GIMP too - much to my annoyance later - now I keep two versions - the flattened png for Oolite and the original .xcf with all the layers so if I need to fiddle I can go back - this is true even for my ads for YAH!

[pagroove]

Thanx everyone for helping. But I decided to leave the lightmaps as for now. A least for today.

Anyone who want to make a lightmap version of my OXP. Go Ahead.

[JensAyton]

That I did with layers. But I flatten the image when Im content with it.

Well, now you know not to do that next time. :-)

[ADCK]

Thanx everyone for helping. But I decided to leave the lightmaps as for now. A least for today.

Anyone who want to make a lightmap version of my OXP. Go Ahead.

Ah, that would be tricky, adding lights is relatively simple... but removing baked in ones from a diffuse map can be difficult. (which would need to be done before adding a lightmap, or it will look weird)

[pagroove]

Thanx everyone for helping. But I decided to leave the lightmaps as for now. A least for today.

Anyone who want to make a lightmap version of my OXP. Go Ahead.

Ah, that would be tricky, adding lights is relatively simple... but removing baked in ones from a diffuse map can be difficult. (which would need to be done before adding a lightmap, or it will look weird)

Hi ADCK,

My Behemoth textures also had baked in lights and it they look great now. Did you do anything different with it?

[ADCK]

Thanx everyone for helping. But I decided to leave the lightmaps as for now. A least for today.

Anyone who want to make a lightmap version of my OXP. Go Ahead.

Ah, that would be tricky, adding lights is relatively simple... but removing baked in ones from a diffuse map can be difficult. (which would need to be done before adding a lightmap, or it will look weird)

Hi ADCK,

My Behemoth textures also had baked in lights and it they great now. Did you do anything different with it?

There were more lights originally, you had some on the underside and prongs, but i removed them. as they didn't seem to have any source (that took longer than you would think, hours) the ones on front and top seem to be projected from windows or light projectors. so I kept them in (plus i was tired from removing the other ones) but because they are already lit i'm lighting them twice by doing them again in an illumination map, so i have to compensate for the orginals or they would appear... uh not sure of the word, i guess over-bright? and getting them to match perfectly was no easy thing to do, the illumination map had to align perfectly with your baked in ones, or it would look weird.
Bascially the lights look great now cause I spent ages perfecting them
It would of been alot easier and gotten the same results if I had the original image sans-lights.

To see the raw data for where the lights are, open up "pag_beh1_e.png" in gimp/photoshop/whatever and turn off the red and green channels.
This will leave you with a black and blue image, the more blue, the brighter the light, with black being total darkness, these are the areas that glow when not lit by the sun.

[pagroove]

Ah, that would be tricky, adding lights is relatively simple... but removing baked in ones from a diffuse map can be difficult. (which would need to be done before adding a lightmap, or it will look weird)

Hi ADCK,

My Behemoth textures also had baked in lights and it they great now. Did you do anything different with it?

There were more lights originally, you had some on the underside and prongs, but i removed them. as they didn't seem to have any source (that took longer than you would think, hours) the ones on front and top seem to be projected from windows or light projectors. so I kept them in (plus i was tired from removing the other ones) but because they are already lit i'm lighting them twice by doing them again in an illumination map, so i have to compensate for the orginals or they would appear... uh not sure of the word, i guess over-bright? and getting them to match perfectly was no easy thing to do, the illumination map had to align perfectly with your baked in ones, or it would look weird.
Bascially the lights look great now cause I spent ages perfecting them
It would of been alot easier and gotten the same results if I had the original image sans-lights.

I can do a flat texture version with no lights of my Old ships. I will make a non light version tomorrow.

[ADCK]

I can do a flat texture version with no lights of my Old ships. I will make a non light version tomorrow.

Ah cool, I can do a shader version (normal/specular/glow maps) version with that, however, the shaders I currently use are known to have a bug on certain systems (which effects all my oxps) so am holding off on doing any oxps for the moment, until I can get a fix for the shaders, or until I can figure out how to do it without shaders (i have a basic idea of how to do it, but I havn't tried yet)

[Lestradae]

BTW, PAG asks a question I meant to ask myself on several occasions - for Windows and/or Linux machines is there an easy way to convert old XML files to Open step as all the new whizzy stuff is in Openstep and all the old ships I'd like to play with are in XML.

... Of course the orginal Plist was written in another format. ... I need to have a rewrite of your example in that other format. Or are there some converters for that? ...

You can find a plist Editor for Windows by clicking here, that does what you are asking for!

[ADCK]

BTW, PAG asks a question I meant to ask myself on several occasions - for Windows and/or Linux machines is there an easy way to convert old XML files to Open step as all the new whizzy stuff is in Openstep and all the old ships I'd like to play with are in XML.

... Of course the orginal Plist was written in another format. ... I need to have a rewrite of your example in that other format. Or are there some converters for that? ...

You can find a plist Editor for Windows by clicking here, that does what you are asking for!

Ugh, what an evil website, all these download buttons to other stuff to try and get you to download suspicious software. I recomend only viewing that site with firefox and addblock/noscript. make sure java and flash is turned off too.

I use Plisteditorforwindows too, but it doesnt convert XML to openstep, it only converts openstep to XML unfortunatly.

[Frame]

OK, but how did you make those lovely light cones? You need your lovely texture before you added the light effect and then the light effect as a separate greyscale texture - You do keep all these effects separate don't you, before combining them at the end?

That I did with layers. But I flatten the image when Im content with it. I know it's probably not the right way of working but. I'm used to work in that way.

you should get used to save your work all the layers intact, that way you can always go back and edit small stuff you are not happy with, and even copy small stuff out...

I'm not going to tell you this is the best way because I write it is. It is the best way because it is the best proven way and this approach is used throughout the gaming industry...

As for my credentials in the said industry. I have never worked in the industry, however I have been part of several MOD making groups for Quake1-2,Freespace1-2, BF1942 Galactic Conquest.

to quote a famous sic fi character.

You must unlearn, what you have learned..

Try http://www.pslover.com/

while you are learning new stuff, you can perhaps bury your old habits

Cheers Frame..

Edit sry: somehow missed that there was a page 3 of this discussion..
but by recommendation still stands..