First, understand that because of the way cubemaps work in SWBF2 you will never get a perfect cubemapping reflection unless you are working with a sphere. SO with that being said you should never waste too much time trying to make it perfect. just make it good enough for whatever you are designing.
so first we need to create a new perspective camera by going to model > primitive > camera > perspective.
next when the camera creation window pops up, first set the format to custom (red box), then set your picture ration to 1 (green box), under field of veiw set your camera angle to 90 (blue box).
at This point you should make sure you camera root for the camera you just created is at ZERO position (translation X:0, Y:0, Z:0) you can see in the image above the default creation is X0, Y2, Z20.
next for camera interest, set it to Z-5 and everything else to 0, this will allow our camera to face perfectly straight along the Z- axis.
usually I rename my cameras at this point to whatever plane they face towards sine this is my Z- axis camera I name it accordingly, this is more for organization and ease of understanding which pictures go where.
Next, branch select the camera root for the Z- camera, and duplicate it (ctrl +d) with the newly duplicated camera rotate the camera root for it 90 degress along the Y axis, this should make the new camera face along to X- axis. above is how my scene looks with the new camera named accordingly.
repeat this process another 2 times, rotating an additional 90 degrees along the Y axis until you have 4 cameras in a cross as seens above. assuming you started with the Z- Camera your duplications will be (clockwise 90 degrees) Z-, X-, Z+, X+ axis.
next duplicate you Z- camera 2 more times and this time rotate one of the cameras 90 degrees (this will be your y+ camera) and the other -90 (or 270) degrees this is you Y- camera. at this point make sure you drag all 6 camera roots into a new null (model > primitive > null) this is so we can use the null later to drag all 6 cameras easily (i named my null here cubemap_root).
next we want to set up an ambient lighting rig (this can be accomplished with a point light but unless you materials have the ambient slot or are lambert materials using 6 infinite lights will be faster than redoing all your existing materials) so first in your explorer view, branch select your light created by the default scene and either hide it (youll have to hit H twice in most cases if its never been modified before) or delete it all together.
next create a new infinite light by going to Model > primitive > light > infinite.
when the above window opens make sure under Light contribution specular is left unchecked (for cubemapping we usually dont want this)
now following the same steps we did with the camera creation branch select the light and duplicate it rotating it 90 degrees along the Y axis 3 times until you get the cross shape above.
and then duplicate the light two more times and rotate 1 of them 90 degrees along the x axis and the other -90 (or 270) along the x axis to get the shape above.
now with the cubemap root selected (the null we created) simply drag it and translate it until its centred to where you want your cubemap to bake from.
next go to render > render > pass options
with the pass options open, first make sure override scene options is checked. under format (green box) set it to custom. Next unlock your aspect ration (box should be uncheck, this is highlighted in orange), Set your aspect Ratio and Pixel Ratio both to 1, Set your width and height to be square and a power of two (i always like to do 512×512 and downscale later), this is all highlighted in the blue box. Finally Select which camera to use ( I always like to start Z- and work my way around the same way it was created).
Next go Render > preview.
after your image is finished rendering click save and original size and save your image. After this go back into your pass options and select a different camera (i usually go x- camera second) repeat this process and render and image from all 6 cameras.
once all 6 cameras are finished rendering simply open all 6 images in your favourite image editor and stitch the images together to form your newly baked cubemap.
So with the creation of the floor it was planned as follows: I want to make the floor itself, a hole in the floor, some triangles that seperate and open up the floor so people can go to and from the chancellors holding office, and I wanted to add the tunnels which yoda escaped from to just add a little flared detail (I added doors to these, they are too small for a character to actually go through they are intended to just be a nice detail). It is of note I planned the chamber itself to be approximately half the size of the actual studio model, this is to accomodate battlefront 2’s poly limits.
first I actually started the floor by duplicating the very bottom rows wall, I then duplicated the bottom edges and translated them down and scaled them in to make a taper. This will be the very start of my floor.
I repeated the duplication translation and scaling process with the edges selected until I had roughly this shape.
next around the base of the taper, I applied a basic texture and then plugged in the bump map into the diffuse and used render map to finish my texture (you can read about this process in part 3 and 4 of making the senate if you missed it)
for the next part of the taper I applied a slightly lighter texture, this will actually be the ledge a series of spot lights will rest on later.
next out of the next section of the taper down, I deleted some polygons, this will be where a yellow light bar goes. The deleted polygons will house some holo panels and some cylindrical stands, so the polys are not needed there.
I then installed the light bar texture onto the remaining polygons.
next for the very bottom of the floor I simply made sure the edges in the middle of both sections of the floor were approximately halfway between the two sections of the floor. this is more for texturing later than anything.
and finally I installed a very basic texture for how I thing the floor should look.
and as usual, I installed a bump map to the diffuse then rendermapped my texture to bake the final product.
next I added a cube for the base of that cylindrical stand (im not really sure what those things are somebody tell me if they know)
I then added a cylinder itself to that part, duplicated all the top faces, and scaled them down, I then translated them down to give this nice interior dip shape.
I then took the poly on the back, duplicated it and translated it backwards until I had a little bit of a tail sticking out.
with the modelling complete I applied a very basic texture to the model.
next for the creation of the holo panels base I simply added a cube, and duplicated its faces until I had 3 relatively even subidivisions I ran along the side of the wall where i deleted my polys earlier. I then drew some edges to create a bit of a rounded edge near the top.
I then added and baked a texture to resemble what this area looks like.
for yodas tunnel area I simply dragged a new cube and duplicated the sides, scaled them up and translated them sideways to make roughly 5 new rectangles. I then took the from face on both sides, and duplicated them scaled them down then dragged them to get that nice dip shape.
finally I created a cylinder for the tunnel itself, duplicated its top face and scaled it down and inwards to make that pipe like shape. I then selected the cube and went model > polymsh > boolean > union to merge both objects together.
after applying and baking a basic texture this is how we are looking for that area.
for the hole in the floor I created a triangle and duplicated it, rotated it by 20 degrees and continued this process until I had this nice shape with a hole in the middle ( the hole is left to create a godray in the chancellors holding office later)
for the lights on the floor I simply created cubes and adjusted them until they had a tapered shape, I then duplicated and rotated them across the rest of the floor, note I have a basic grey scale texture on them for now so i can see roughly how they will look before i finalize the textures.
I repeated the process of creating tapered cubes and applied the appropriate greyscale to the second row, duplicated and rotated them into position.
and once all the lights in row 2 were in place this is how my total floor was looking.
finally repeating this process for the final row I applied a nice reddish purple texture to the cubes and applied my appropriate bump map, then simply baked the texture.
Next I placed a series of spot lights facing towards the floor starting from each of those floor lights I used render preview to make sure all the lights looked proper.
with the lights aroung the outer ring after baking the texture with the lights this is how we looked.
and finally after baking the floor spot lights to the floor using render map, exporting the msh and getting it in game, this is how we are looking with the finished floor. Next we will be on to designing the chancellors holding office.
So in this section we are going to be making a few rows, and the first section of our rows the goal is to make so we can create and bake a basic light and shadow map, apply it to our current models and make it tilable so the rest of the senate can be made with just some simple duplication.
so first I started by duplicating the wall I made in the last part and rotated it 20 degrees then lined up the bottom of the wall with the bottom of the first wall.
I repeated that same duplication process until I had a complete ring of walls.
I then used the weld point tool and welded the sides of the wall together (I chose to weld to right side to the left sides)
next after the entire wall was complete I duplicated the base I created in the last part.
I simply repeated the same process as above, rotated each base by 20 degrees until I had all them added to the ring.
and finally I did the same thing with the pods. we actually dont need all of these pods for the shadow and lighting map, but I duplicated them to make sure my ring looked proper before I started (this way im not moving around polys last minute).
next I repeated this duplication process for the next two rows, However I only left 3 pods in the second row and 2 in the third row. The Middle pod of the second row is our template for our light and shadow map. when we bake our texture itll fake the lighting to the rest of the pods.
first I installed this cylindrical shape behind the pod this will be the light bar behind the pod.
and then I put this above the door to mark the red light in the centre of the door.
I created a single spot light in the scene and placed it 60 units above all the pods, then adjusted its cone until all the pods were hit evenly by its light. I then turned on its shadows, and adjusted its shadow map values until I had these nice soft shadows under the pods.
this is another rendered veiw of what the soft shadows look like inside the pod.
next for the lights behind the pod I placed a spot light and softened its intensity until I got what I thought the light should look like.
finally I repeated the spot light process for the middle light on the door. I removed my original spot light to show how the lights look.
Finally with all that in place I baked my shadow map. First to do this I simply change every object in the scene to have a plain white texture. Then I go Render > propertie > render map and simply bake my surface colors, this gives me my texture for my detail map (I used render type 28 (normal map with gloss) and in texture slot 2 I placed the shadow map to give soft shadows to the objects via texture) for the lights itself with shadows disabled I simply rendered another render map with the regular texture and surface color and illumination.
with our soft shadows and light map in game this is how the pods look.
With our pods and walls now tilable and just needing to be placed its time to move onto designing the floor.
So first initially this project was started with the intention of being a single model, however due to request I will be making this into a full senate map. Continue following this blog to see all the behind the scenes of how the entire map is being made. A lot of the techniques i’m using to create the rest of the map I covered in making the pod itself however I will still show roughly how i’m making each model.
so first for the base housing of the pod, I created a very tiny cube. This Cube I then lined up roughly where the housing will meet the back of the pod.
extending the cube out to approximately the desired length of the pod to where I want the door frame for the wall. (this will be adjusted later its just to give a bit of a visual while I model.)
next I extended the side face of the cube to be a little past where the side cylinder of the pod is.
and finally I translated the bottom face of the cube to be just below where the side cylinder of the pod is. This gave me roughly the shape of the top of the housing.
next I put two slices into the bottom face of my cube this is so I can extend a angle out of it later.
I actually screwed up so i deleted one of the slices and simply dragged the other one until I had roughly this shape.
finally I duplicated that bottom face and translated it both down and forward until it had approximately the angle im looking for.
I drew one edge at the bottom of this angle so I could create the middle.
then simply duplicated it and moved it until its position was 0 along the x axis. I then deleted the poly face where it wasnt needed (when this welds we dont want artifacts inside the model)
next I created a grid and placed it behind this shape roughly where i would want my wall (this was created more or less for a guide so I knew everything was lining up)
next I placed a new cube underneath the pod, this will be the place where the pod rests.
I then duplicated the bottom face, translated and rotated it until this nice curve was put into the cube.
I repeated this process one more time until this sort of cubic torus shape was made.
going back to the front of the model I duplicated the front face and scaled it down til I had this smaller rectangle on the inside.
I then duplicated it again and translated it backwards to make this rectangular indent.
duplicating the entire base so face I starting working on a high res model to bake my normals. I started by adding a few new edges to get two more rectangular boxes on the top face.
after translating and scaling them I wanted these two desired shapes.
next I drew more edges around where my pod would be sitting (I selected the polys im adjusting the help visualize where im going)
and again I simply duplicated them, scaled them down and translated them inwards to make this nice indent.
and finally the same process, I drew more edges on this side of my base, translated scaled them inwards until I had my full desired shape.
after completing this process this is roughly how my high res base looked for the pod (notice I hid the pod in this screenshot)
next for the high res stand portion i simply slice the polygon vertically until I had a number of subdivisions.
I then simply dragged the subdivisions up to make this nice curved shape with the two lanes in the middle.
then sliced these sections in the middle a number of times so I could make grooves later on.
after duplicating and dragging each of these sections this was the approximate shape i was left with on my high res model
finally I applied this really basic texture to the standard model and baked the normals with my high resolution model.
I then applied my normal map to the model, and one the texture and the newly baked normal map were on I checked to make sure it all looked right in my render preview.
Once I had my render where I wanted it I simply baked a rendermap to finish my texture.
and finally after making the base symmetric this was how we looked with the newly baked texture.
for the back wall I first duplicated the base so i could make sure I knew roughly where I needed the wall to curve (remember this will be a cylindrical taper of a room)
and the back grid I used as a template earlier I simply dragged the edge to the bottom of the bases angle.
I then drew a few edges around where I want the walls door to be (note this is going to be a temporary thing for now, once I figure out how my finished halls will be designed the door and textures will change)
I then duplicated this polygon and dragged it backwards to create the hall and door.
next for the high res door I started by seperating the door into the segments I want with different shades.
and i drew a bunch of edges for around where I want my high resolution door frame itself.
finally after the different segments were in and all my edges were drawn I dragged and scaled all my desired poly faces to make my grooves.
within edge I applied the texture I want to use to bake my high res normal map.
after applying all my new edges and translating all my surfaces this was what my back wall looked like for the high resolution model.
after baking the textures and the normal maps for both the walls and the base this is what we look like in game.
Now with the base and wall complete and ingame our next task will to be to start to duplicated some of the pods, bases and walls into rows so we can create a proper lighting and shadow map. This will be covered in our next part.
This blog post was originally written for Discord user Deputy Dropshot. Again this wont necessarily teach you everything for UV’s a lot of UV mapping is practice and experimenting til you find something that works for you. I will try to cover some things in here. In the near future I will be doing some video tutorials to help illustrate how I do my UV mapping on my object for now I hope this helps.
so first i started with a cube, In this part I will show how to weld together faces and make two edges seamless. Here you can see ive selected the top and front face of my cube.
In the texture editor you can go veiw > show selected (or simply press Shift+H) to show only your selected faces.
Now here you can see the two faces ive selected. the green portion shows connectivity (the edged where the polygons physically connect to one another) so I want these two faces to be welded together to make it seemless.
first select either all the points in the texture editor or the polygon face you want to rotate so match the other, if it is a perfect square or line you can usually just go tools > rotate by 90 and this will rotate it, otherwise youmay have to manually rotate.
once you rotate the two sides like above to match and face towards eachother simply enable snapping and manually move them together, this will weld the points together (note, if you can do it with the full poly selected move it close as you can and simply do it with individual points.) You can enable snapping by clicking the small square target looking icon next to the S/R/T buttons in the texture editor (or go snap > enable snapping)
once snapped together we can look at our cube and see how the new faces line up seamlessly.
now for rounded edges like a cylinder, although a texture projection does exist, you will notice a standard cylinder texture projection really deforms the texture on the top of the cylinder.
for something like this I like to simply select all the polygons on the rounded edge.
In the texture editor I then click the cylinder subprojection menu with those polygons selected and click best fit, this will make a projection just for those polygons while keeping the top faces as their own projection (assuming you used unique UV’s which is always reccomended)
this is what my finished projection looks like after clicking best fit, scaling the projection down a bit and moving it to the side.
now for something like a cone, the easiest way for me to do this is to make it a “top down” projection, this can be done with a planar projection.
first I select all the faces on the top side of my cone.
then in my texture editor I simply click the planar subprojection and set it to XZ object aligned, notice the nice circular top down shape in the middle.
I know not much detail has gone into this post. It is intended to give a small idea how to do a little bit of projections. again most of UV is going to be trial and error and just practice. pay attention to how your UV morphs your textures, itll help you understand how it affects your models for later.
Harrisonfog approached me with a fun idea for Jabbas palace in his remastered project, make Max Rebo to fit inside of the organ. The concept I was given was to make Max Rebo with his hands covering his face like he does in ROTJ.
So first I had to import our current model of the organ from SWBF2.
I placed a cylinder primitive inside of the organ. This will be where Max Rebo’s body starts.
Next I selected all of the polygon faces on the top side of the cylinder, duplicated them (ctrl+d) and translated them up, I then scaled them up to give this taper shape.
repeating that process of scaling, translating and duplicating only the top polygons of the cylinder, I did this 3 more times until I had this nice plump round ball like shape. This will be the base of his body.
The very top I scaled inwards a little more than the rest of the body, this is to eventually help the head and shoulder blend onto the body.
I created a cube primitive and positions it roughly to where I want the top of the head to be.
Next I simply duplicated and translated the back face of this cube along the Z and Y axis until I got this little curved shape (note at the very end of this I also dragged one of the edges to make a flat face 90 degrees from where I started.
after creating that 90 degree turn I continued to duplicated and translate until I had this nice tail shape for the back of the head
I then duplicated the side faces and translated them along the X axis to make 5 subdivisions, this will be used later to smooth out the back of this little head tail.
I dragged the points on the bottom of this shape to make roughly a cylinder like shape to help make the back of the head be more spherical by the end. this will be where that tail ends and meets the back.
next I dragged the very back faces of the polygons to be inside of the back.
I then selected the points of the polygons at the back of the tail and started translating them to create a smooth surface for the tail
repeating these steps I moved up the back of this polymesh and rounding the back until I felt it blended right.
I continued the smoothing process until I hit about this point, I want to leave this area as is for now so I can add the ears later.
next, similar to how I designed the back of the head, I duplicated and translated the faces on the front side of the cube to make approximately the shape of the forhead.
much similar to how the back of the head was designed I selected the points on the top of the forehead and began translating them until I got roughly a smooth surface for the forehead.
Once the forehead was smoothed I created a new cylinder primitive and placed it roughly where i think the arm should meet the bodys mesh.
I selected the side face of the cylinder, duplicated and translated it along the X axis several times until I got this shape on my cylinder. A break down of how this works is basically I create one set of subdivisions for the shoulder, two for the elbow, two for the hand and an extra set for where the fingers will meet.
Next I selected the points of the shoulder and dragged them inside of the bodys mesh to help visualize where the arm will meet the body.
I then scaled down the points where the elbow will be to help visualize where the arm will taper.
next same concept I scaled down the points for the hand to help visualize what the taper of the hand will look like.
Now with those tapers in place I simply have to take the other edges and points in the arm and translate them until my tapers blend with the arm.
next I created a new cylinder and selected its top face and duplicated it, translated it out, this will be a finger.
after creating the shape i wanted for the first finger I simply duplicated the finger model, translated, scaled and rotated it until I made the rough shape of the other 4 fingers.
with all the fingers in place I simply merged the 6 models together (arm and 5 fingers) this is so after I freeze the operator stack I can start welding the fingers to the arms.
After the fingers points where welded to the arms points you can see we are left with a much smoother shape.
with the arm complete I went back to the head and began dragging the 3 polygon faces on the bottom of where we left off with the forehead to make the trunk.
With this shape I began to first manipulate the points where the forehead ends to make a taper shape to the trunk.
Next I simply smoothed the polygons on the trunk to create a cylindrical shape.
then with the very bottom of the trunk I duplicated the bottom face of the trunk translated and scaled it down until I got this nice rounded bottom.
finally I selected all of the polygons in the middle of the trunk and scaled them down to give me a nice tapered appearance.
next for the ears I selected the polygons on the side of the head duplicated them and translated them out along the x axis.
I repeated this process 3 more times until i had the desired subdivisions for the ear.
next I simply selected the points on the outer edges of the ear and translated them along the X and Z axis until I had the approximate desired shape of the ear.
I then moves all the outer points closer together to make the outer edge of the ear thinner. I then started to drag each point until I had a nice smooth surface for the ears shape.
repeating these steps I created the other ear on the other side of the head. I then selected every poly on the “inside” of the model and deleted them (this is so i can properly weld the neck together)
to seal and create the remainder of the head and neck i simply selected the edges show above and dulpicated them and translated them to create more subdivisions.
with those subdivisions in place i simply welded the points from my newly created subdivisions to the top of the head.
repeating that with my remaining edges i created additional subdivisions for the neck and simply welded the points all together until my entire head model was one mesh.
Next i went back to the body model and used the add edge tool (default “\” key) to add edges around the neck pretty close to the head model but wasnt too worried about it being precise.
I then selected all the polygons inside those lines and deleted them to create this hole in my model (note what im about too do can be achieve through boolean union, but it doesnt always work so i like to do it manually on complex geometries)
I repeated this process around where the arms meet the body as well to create arm holes.
Next i simply merged my head, body and arm models into one mesh then started welding all the arm hole points to the arms and all the neck and head points to the head until the entire model was sealed.
and with all the points welding the model is complete. Now we want the arms to cover the eyes.
to accomplish this first i created a series of nulls as bones and set them as children of one another. I created seperate parent chains for the ears and arms.
As pictured here you can see the green lines are the nulls where my bones are placed.
next I simply enveloped my mesh to the bone nulls and prepared to turn some bones.
now I simply rotated and translate the bones (note i made an arm, forearm and hand bone) and moved the hands until they covered the eyes.
I then repeated this process with th other arm and hand until they were approximately where desired.
and finally i rotated the ears down until they rested on the shoulders.
finally with the model roughly where i want it to be I went edit > operator > freeze operator stack. this freezes the geometry in its current position and removes the envelope from the bones.
I duplicated the entire model after it was done to create a hi res model. at the back of the head i drew some edges with the add edge tool and translated their points outward to create some ridges.
on the fingers i simply created a greyscale bumpmap and applied it to the ip of the hi res models fingers.
for each of the fingers i drew an additional greyscale bumpmap to raise the details in the ridges of the fingers.
after all my fingers were in place i simply checked the render preview window to make sure my bump map looked alright.
I repeated this process and simply added some spots to the remainder of the hires model. After I was satisfied with this I simply opened ultimapper in XSI selected my hires model as my source and started baking a normal map and an ambient occlusion map.
after that was baked I simply chose a plain blue texture and applied my new normal map to the model in XSI. against that plain blue texture this is what it looked like. When complete I went into XSI Rendermap and rendered a new diffuse.
And with my new diffuse I created a material, and applied it to the model, I used render type 28, in texture 1 i put my newly baked normal, with texture 2 i put my AO map (darkned by 50%), exported and ingame, and this is how we look. I know the texturing section seems short but thats all there was too it, I made a blank texture with only blue, applied some normal maps, and let xsi do the rest. And thats it we have our new model :).
So my first step in finishing this pod was to model a high resolution model of the side cylinders as seen in the picture here. These were very simple and most of the tasks i did to accomplish this were already seen in part 2.
First i created a high poly cylinder of the exact dimensions of the side cylinders but I added 4X more subdivisions to make it appear more rounded.
Next I selected all of the polygon faces on the bottom of the cylinder and duplicated them. I then Scaled them down slightly so that I had a nice small ring around them.
Next I translated them down just slightly. This was done because I am just trying to create a small indent in the normal map.
After translating them down I simply rescaled them up to be the same approximate size as the cylinder again to create the look of that indent. I repeated this process for both the top and bottom of the cylinder until I ended up with the shape above.
Next using the same method I just used I selected all the top and bottom faces again and scaled / duplicated them 4 times until I ended up with the subdivisions in the picture above.
I then selected the polygon faces and raised them row by row until I finished with this nice slightly rounded top on the cylinder.
Selecting all of the side faces of the cylinder I duplicate the polygons.
I then scaled them down and translated them down on the Y axis, duplicating them again I scaled them slightly down on the X,Y, and Z axis to get this nice indent in the cylinder. I then simply applied a cylindrical texture projection and put the same bumpmap in part 2 on this portion of the cylinder to make the grooves.
Once done I simply clicked render > property > render map and baked my texture with the grooves to get this finished cylinder.
Next for the console I simply duplicated the console. The high res model doesnt have to be perfect (infact if we added too much to this it would screw up our normal map because of the thin ledge on the top).
Next I simply drew edges around the bottom of the console where it meets with the pod, and scaled in lower on the x and Z axis until I got this nice indented shape.
Finally I used the add edge tool on the front of the console and added long rectangles, I then duplicated them and translated them outwards on the Z axis to make the shape above. Finally with all these steps done I baked my textures for the console in Render Map and applied it to the model. After using the new hires models I baked my normal map and ambient occlusion map in Ultimapper.
A copy of the completed normal map generated using ultimapper. There were a lot of not smooth triangle faces on the normal map caused by ultimapper but honestly its a fan made mod, Im not reallly worried about making it look perfect I just want it to look good enough.
Finally with the model exported I tested it to check its materials and textures. This doesn’t have to be perfect quite yet, as we add more parts to the level it’s self we will actually adjust this models shadows and lighting. For now I wanted to get its base textures done and set up to move on.
Finally I used the ambient occlusion map I baked in Ultimapper at the same time as my normal maps, lowered there brightness by half (to make my brightest color medium grey (R:128, G:128, B:128) and applied it to render type 28’s texture 2 slot, This is actually technically the Detail map area, but because detail maps force ZE to dodge lighting those pixels we can use it to fake ambient occlusion. above is the finished pod with ambient occlusion active.
So Basically what render type 02 does is it applies ambient lighting to an object via a texture. It is important to note 2 things: First, your light maps MAXIMUM lighting should be no higher than medium gray (50.2% on all channels or R:128, G:128, B:128). Any values higher than this will cause light bloom to kick in uncontrollably. (Honestly I think this deals with the fact that light maps seem to have been snuck into the Light Bloom settings.) It is important to note that if you have a white texture, and you have your light map set to medium gray, the light map will make the white texture 100% ambient. This is the highest value you should use for your light map as anything higher makes bloom kick in for white textures. Second thing to note is world lighting with this flag applied to your model will do nothing. This is an absolute Ambient Light Map, the objects lighting exclusively comes from this map when applied.
1.) Implementation
This is very simple to implement, simply choose a greyscale texture to use as your light map and input it into the texture 2 slot, (in this case its testcube_base.tga). Then change your render type to 2.
For this example I am using my multiple colored cube texture as a diffuse texture.
This is the lightmap I will be using, note because the red and white sides are darkest they will be lighted the darkest. Because the light blue colours on the right recieve a full gradient we should see each shade of blue light very differently. Again this shader recieves no light other than from this texture.
Here we can see the way the gradient lights the cube.
Now there is a misconception that alpha in either diffuse or lightmap affects the light map. In reality it does not, alpha is translated in this map as black, so in reality although alpha darkens the light, what its actually doing is just blackening the image. I recommend doing this in the actual RGB channels and not in alpha as it is not intended for alpha and this can produce unexpected results.
One last note: Data0 and Data1 in XSIZEtools will control the texture repeats on the lightmap. This will not repeat, Data0 controls U repeats, and Data1 controls V repeats.
I would like to say that even though I am covering Glow in this section I STRONGLY SUGGEST NOT USING THIS RENDER TYPE. There are other Render Types (11, emissive, check box glow) that are much easier to manipulate and provide better results.
As a bit of an example this type of Glow is basically the “Hardedge” of all our glows. Things are either going to Glow (uncontrollably and very strongly) or they will not.
1.) Implementation
After using XSI ZE Tools to create your material, Click ZEIFY to enable ZE flags to the material. If you then click Edit you should see a pop up screen like this. For this type of glow we need 3 things. Our diffuse Texture, a glow map (which needs to be called in the Texture 2 box above it is “testcube_base.tga” I am using as my glowmap) And all you need to do is set your render type to 1.
This is my diffuse texture. This type of glow will use the colour from the Diffuse texture to use as your glow colour. It is of some important that in order for a colour to glow from this diffuse using this specific flag for glow the colour needs to be above 128 (or 50.2%) in AT LEAST 2 CHANNELS. (eg. for glow to work you need at least R:128, B:128)
This is a copy of our glow map, this operates in greyscale, and basically the lighter colours will glow and the darker ones will not. Much like our diffuse the glow map will only allow affect and allow glow if the colour is above 50.2% (so R:128, G:128, B:128 minimum for glow to work and again this will only work if the diffuse in that area has at least 2 colour channels above 128 or 50.2%) Remember with this type of glow SHADE IN THE GLOW MAP DOES NOT MATTER. This is either going to Glow or it is not.
In game this is our test cube, and as you can see it is very very bright.
THINGS THAT DO NOT AFFECT GLOW:
The diffuses alpha channel for this type of glow has zero effect on glow.
The Glowmaps alpha will have ZERO effect on this type of glow.
Vertex Lighting has No effect.
ZE lighting has no effect.
Shadows have no effect.
This glow is absolute. It is either on, or it is off.
Our most basic type of material in ZE is going to be the diffuse texture, basically this is just the texture applied to the model with no extra shading. It may seem repetitive or unnecessary that this is REEALLLY covered here, but for the sake of completion I will write an article.
1.) Implementation
First Open ZE Tools Material Manager by clicking the area highlighted above.
Once inside the Material Manager is open in the name box type the name of the material you wish to create (in this case I typed “RenderType” into the box and then click the Create Button. On the right side where it says “assign Tex” click that button to assign your desired texture.
Navigate to the image you wish to use for your model (this assumes you already have a set of UV coordinates)
Once your texture has been assigned simply highlight your desired material (in this case its Rendertype) and then with your model selected click Assign.
Above is a testing cube with the diffuse texture applied.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 (Classic 2005) Modelling 