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[ParoXum]

How to render Vertex Colors using a Radiosity Solution.

First, what's Radiosity ?

It's basically the best way to light things, for rendars, and for prelit models, just like GTA uses. Radiosity is a very powerful calculating process, that can simulate real life lighting. With particle effects, expositions, exposure controls, volumetric lights, fog light simulation and reflect-refract uv each others.


Vertex Colors, What you need to know (read carefuly) :

When rendering a vertex color system to a mesh, you need at least two parameters to be filled.

- First is the quality of the scene lights. Lights needs to be alway 3/4 view from the model for exteriors, and need to use soft shadows parameters (shadow map). The exterior light is never white. Always use a small ammount of yellow-grey to it.

For interior lights needs to be diffrent, you need to work with renders before starting to apply the vertex colors. You'll have to play with intensity, far attenuation, and advanced raytraced shadows. Note, when using more than 8 lights, max will not show the further added lights in the viewports. Only in the renders. For interiors, use a white-blue neon color, and an intensity of 1.0 for light sources that generate shadows.

Hint : If you placed all your lights correctly, but the scene is way too dark, please don't increase the intensity of them. Just add another small fill light with grey color, and 0.1-0.2 intensity.

- The other parameter needed for a good quality vertex color is the amount of polygons on the surfaces receiving projected shadows. Let me explain, since the colors are applied on vertex ticks, the more the vertex number is high, the more shadows and lighting changes will be noticeable. A good way to increase the resolution of a mesh without crushing it is Tesselate. Use it with tension to 0. It will divide your polies into 4, increasing this way the vertex used on your mesh. VERY Important.

The tutorial :

- Start 3Dsmax 8 or 9, whatever SP you have.
- Create your scene, if you already have one, merge it into the scene we're gonna set.
- Look at the picture :

- Go in the Render panel, Advanced Lighting window :
- Set all the parameters like on the pic !!! Very Important.







- You see the scene in viewport is still the same, normal. Place your lights, as explained before, at right place. Not on the neons, but a bit under. We're not in real life, omnis needs to be placed differently.




- Now that everything is tweaked as we want,

1. Press "Reset", to reset an old solution, in case you're rendering for a second time.
2. Press "Start", and then wait till the process is finished. It's gonna take alot of time on low end computers, and it'll also depend on the solution quality. For our example, 88% is a good ratio time/quality.

- Also the refine iterations are very important to get the best result. Wait till the refine iteration are done. Go get a cup of coffee, hot coffee.

=> When it's finished, follow this pic instructions :



1. Click "Setup" to set the Exposure Control Setting. For the moment, nothing is set yet.
2. Set the same automatic parameters as me.

Hint : You can tweak the ambient color, Color background and Tint of the lighting to get the right athmosphere settings you want. Each time you change one, press "Render Preview".

Hint : You can tweak Brightness and contrast aswell, but be careful with these value, because it's not really seen in the viewport, but after you applied vertex colors to the mesh. !!!

3. Press "Render Preview", Now you see the Radiosity Solution in the viewports. That's what we're gonna export with Kams Scripts, but before, follow these steps :



- Select the model that will receive the vertex paint, go in the tool panel, pop up the the "Assign Vertex Colors" panel (seen in basic tutorials).

- Set the SAME parameters as me, again. Make SURE you have checked "Radiosity, Reuse Illum From Solution" in the Options.

- Click "Assign to Selected" Wait till the computer has finished to take all the radiosity solution to vertex paint.


- You can now see exactly what's the result by toggleling the "VertexPaint" panel to the same state as in the pic below :



=> Last Step :

Use the same exporting values :



Here we are, now you handle the best lighting process. If you fail with this tutorial, you canstill use paint magic method, but that's far far from a radiosity quality.



ParoXum.
http://www.gostownparadise.com/

This post has been edited by ParoXum on Jul 11 2008, 11:51

[aad]

Wow thats really handy when it comes to adding NVC to dark hall ways etc, or adding some light to some ally's great tutorial Parox even i can figure this one out with to much hasle.

Thanx added it to my favorites now.

Aad.

[Blackadder.]

Very good tutorial, well marked out and easy to follow

Great Job

[-/TNT\-]

The height of excellence, thanks ParoXum!

And some questions:

1. How long does it take to render a scene like that one?

2. How do you make those reflections on the floor?

[ParoXum]

1. On my comp 2 : minutes. (3.2GHz Core 2 Duo)
2. Ingame or in max ?

[Jost_Vice]

Nice tutorial, mate. You re the boss in these zones. Thank you

TNT, they are done via Cullzones, jump into maps editing forum and in the documentation topic

[uni]

Awesome tutorial, thanks for sharing ParoXum.

[commando]

This is what I been waiting for, thanks for sharing you expertise. I have a few questions tho...

For prelightning exterior maps you just have to configure a skylight map and follow the radiosity options on this tutorial or do i have to input different settings for it.

[ParoXum]

For exteriors it's the same. But a skylight willl take more time than an omni. Prefer omni, even for exteriors.

[mickarrow]

Yay, an easy to follow tutorial on fancy lighting Thanks for sharing this ParoX. I'm gonna try this asap on some interiors....

[raresh_r]

very good ..i'll try it.
what if i want to make a dark place on a map ? a dark corner ...

[ParoXum]

Just use far attenuation. Or create an omni with negative intensity (will generate black light)

[Blaster_nl]

I don't understand it, I try almost everything but always radiosity looks like sh*t,

This is my scene before i started the radiosity (this is somwthing what i want that it is)
It's with 3 onmi's (all 3 with a yellow-grey intensity and shadows on)



This is it after the radiosity solution:



And this is it when everything is done besides making the dff:



Also ingame it looks like the last render.

[ParoXum]

= First your mesh is too LP.

= Second, you need to define refine iteration higher than 1 (30 set in the tut)

= Third, set the exposure control to auto, and if it's to bright, delete omnis. Only one omni is needed to cast shadows. Both others are useless except if it's fill light.

[abaad]

great tanks....

[abaad]

QUOTE (abaad @ Jul 17 2007, 23:41)

great tanks....

I dont know what rong that I had done...

but Im so sorry for bad post that I made .... which I don't know it ...

but may be this is the esp ling problem

because I'm not English one ....

great tanks ===>> i want to say ===>>great thanks

any way....I'm so so so sorry

really I want to thanks

[dertyjerzian]

QUOTE (abaad @ Jul 23 2007, 19:54)

QUOTE (abaad @ Jul 17 2007, 23:41) great tanks....               I dont know what rong that I had done... but Im so sorry for bad post that I made .... which I don't know it ... but may be this is the esp ling problem because I'm not English one .... great tanks ===>> i want to say ===>>great thanks any way....I'm so so so sorry really I want to thanks

I just HAVE to comment on this.

This is the prime definition of posts that use many smilies, but have every
right reason for doing it. abaab has used the emoticons to convey his
feelings, as he is unsure of how well he is communicating his thoughts,
though he knows he must be close. The emoticon brings clarity.

Keep at it dude. Are you using firefox? CTRL+T a new tab and use
Google Translate to help to get your words together, you will
learn quite fast

Even if it does not give you word for word what you will post, it will certainly
help you out in many aspects.

Just so you know, Great Tanks is easily discernible and you can be lax.
I feel bad for some of the post you are forced to read in English because
of the many worse and more confusing typographical errors

Keep it up dude, see ya out there.

[katherine04]

this is an interesting discussion.. thank you for sharing
simulation rachat de credit

[meow44]

great post. thanks for sharing

simulation assurance vie

This post has been edited by meow44 on May 30 2009, 19:34

[Surigangsta]

Nice tutorial, Only problem is I dont know excatly how i must put my omni light settings to get good results, It Works but it looks very ugly . Soo could U Rather Make A video tutorial so ill be able to see the way u set ure omni light settings

Greetz Me:)