[AWhite]

I studied the topic for a long time with the creation of static lighting for a model through Blender 3D.
A month later, I studied this topic and decided to share it. Wrote an article on the wiki addon.
I think someone will be useful.


Go to GitHub.Wiki

[Kalcor]

The more I played around with vertex color baking in blender, the more convinced I was that the feature is broken. At least in my blender version (2.71).

The only good way to do it is probably using 3dsmax radiosity. The lighting in SA is all precalculated/baked, but it seems the 3dsmax radiosity is ray traced, so it looks better than dynamic lighting in a lot of cases.

[AWhite]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor The more I played around with vertex color baking in blender, the more convinced I was that the feature is broken. At least in my blender version (2.71). The only good way to do it is probably using 3dsmax radiosity. The lighting in SA is all precalculated/baked, but it seems the 3dsmax radiosity is ray traced, so it looks better than dynamic lighting in a lot of cases.

In this article, I made the lighting without light sources, because in 2.8 there is a bug with the light on the object.

[Garr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor The more I played around with vertex color baking in blender, the more convinced I was that the feature is broken. At least in my blender version (2.71). The only good way to do it is probably using 3dsmax radiosity. The lighting in SA is all precalculated/baked, but it seems the 3dsmax radiosity is ray traced, so it looks better than dynamic lighting in a lot of cases.

both 3ds max radiosity baking and its vertex painting tools are far better than what blender offers. im pretty sure most assets, except for roads and terrain, were painted manually. i know the extra baggage is annoying, but id strongly consider using 3ds max for all SA related modelling as its vastly superior in workflow, scripts and tools

[Yaozu]

Vertex color blending only gives you a solid day and night time color where the color transitions instantly between day and night and doesn't provide ray tracing like 3DS Max's radiosity solution.

I wouldn't recommend using vertex paint to paint the object to give that fake sun glare effect; you would get better results setting up omni lights in your radiosity solution.

I'd recommend 3DS Max 2012 for GTA SA plug-in support.

If anyone is interested in using radiosity in 3DS Max this will help you out: https://gtaforums.com/topic/273217-3...nced-lighting/

If you have any questions or need help feel free to ask me.

[Kalcor]

When you bake the lighting to vertex colors, it'll preserve any ray tracing.

The instant transitions are done with timed objects, not vertex colors.

The world objects in GTA3/Vice City only have a single set of vertex colors. When R* wanted change an object to night colors, there are 2 seperate models and they'd use timed objects.

In San Andreas, every object can have two seperate vertex color layers, and these are automatically blended as time passes in the game. There are still timed objects used to add lights to windows on big buildings etc.

[Yaozu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor When you bake the lighting to vertex colors, it'll preserve any ray tracing. The instant transitions are done with timed objects, not vertex colors. The world objects in GTA3/Vice City only have a single set of vertex colors. When R* wanted change an object to night colors, there are 2 seperate models and they'd use timed objects. In San Andreas, every object can have two seperate vertex color layers, and these are automatically blended as time passes in the game. There are still timed objects used to add lights to windows on big buildings etc.

It may be myself not baking it properly from my experience when I was first starting out as I used to use a vertex color solution in a similar way of easy color for kdff. I always found it wasn't ray tracing properly and would transition from night and day vertex colors in an ugly instant fashion.

I then learnt about using radiosity solution to bake the vertex colors which introduced ray tracing for my models.

TOBJ's normally have one set of vertex colors for special building such as the neon lit hotels in the Ocean Beach area in VC.

That's not strictly true, for the VC and 3 objects they used TOBJ's for some objects like the hotels but other objects used a ray tracing process similar to SA.

[Garr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yaozu Vertex color blending only gives you a solid day and night time color where the color transitions instantly between day and night and doesn't provide ray tracing like 3DS Max's radiosity solution. I wouldn't recommend using vertex paint to paint the object to give that fake sun glare effect; you would get better results setting up omni lights in your radiosity solution. I'd recommend 3DS Max 2012 for GTA SA plug-in support. If anyone is interested in using radiosity in 3DS Max this will help you out: https://gtaforums.com/topic/273217-3...nced-lighting/ If you have any questions or need help feel free to ask me.

i've been using vertex paint for years, and so have many people who have been making environment mods before 0.3DL came about. r* used vertex paint on buildings, and didn't directly bake radiosity into their models lol

model and neon sign i made with vertex color and illumination painting, not radiosity, including a TOBJ


models adjusted to have better lighting, once again through vertex painting


radiosity works well for getting an initial bake, but you'll still need to touch it up with vertex paint if you want to add lighting variation to your model, and don't want it to look like shit.

[AWhite]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garr i've been using vertex paint for years, and so have many people who have been making environment mods before 0.3DL came about. r* used vertex paint on buildings, and didn't directly bake radiosity into their models lol model and neon sign i made with vertex color and illumination painting, not radiosity, including a TOBJ models adjusted to have better lighting, once again through vertex painting radiosity works well for getting an initial bake, but you'll still need to touch it up with vertex paint if you want to add lighting variation to your model, and don't want it to look like shit.

I did not quite understand, are the screenshots showing models using color vertices?

[Garr]

yes.

[Yaozu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garr i've been using vertex paint for years, and so have many people who have been making environment mods before 0.3DL came about. r* used vertex paint on buildings, and didn't directly bake radiosity into their models lol model and neon sign i made with vertex color and illumination painting, not radiosity, including a TOBJ models adjusted to have better lighting, once again through vertex painting radiosity works well for getting an initial bake, but you'll still need to touch it up with vertex paint if you want to add lighting variation to your model, and don't want it to look like shit.

I always got better results using radiosity for my models and using omni lights for lighting variation.