POSTED June 03, 2010
Hey guys. Finally i am in position to show you the results of my work.
BEFORE
AFTER
Check the difference on the concrete part. What is the difference: Lightmaps! I've only created lightmaps for the concrete part, yet you see how different is the quality of the results. Notice, i did NOT change a simple vertex of the 3D structure... I only added lights and stuff and i let Blender make the shadows for me on a new texture (lightmap) with new UVs. Imagine the quality difference in case i did that for all objects on the stadium.
Lightmaps needs multiple UVs. Don't worry, you won't have to do much work manually. I am gathering tutorials and information to find the quickest and better way to do this. But we are now switching to a new SEF format (which i chose to call SEF2010 and with .sf2 extension) which supports multiple UV handling, Meshes and Crowd Lightmaps too.
There is yet some work to be done in order to make the new version and Python Plugins stable enought so that they work in every case, but the hard part is done. Keep your eyes on Moddingway.com for news and any new announcements.
This is one of the tutorials that helped me to get into the lightmaping procedure. Just start reading and get prepared for the revolution.
Cheers...