Kotor Blender Lightmaps

[Jiiprah 32]

You will need the KOTOR Blender plugin. I used the 3.3 LTS version of blender but it looks like it has now been updated to newer versions. I still recommend using a LTS version.

First you need to switch to the lightmap UV. If you don't, the lightmap will be baked on top of the diffuse texture. You can find this under UV Maps in each meshes Object Data Properties. Select each mesh and click UVMap_lm. Yes, it is tedious but it's required.

To bake the lightmaps with the plugin, click the KotOR menu -> Lightmaps -> Bake(Auto). You should click an empty space, first, to make sure no meshes are selected. If meshes are selected it will only bake for what is selected. At this point you may notice the lighting looks bad. The UVs need to be unwrapped and some lightmaps will need to be resized to a higher resolution.

This is optional but it helps me keep it organized. Look through the list of meshes and see which ones have lightmaps. I then rename the meshes to start with the lightmap name (lm0_Object19,lm1_Box01, lm9_mesh456,...). When unwrapping the UVs this makes it easy to select all meshes that share a lightmap, which you may be doing multiple times. 

There's 3 ways to unwrap the lightmap UVs. Each has different advantages and disadvantages.  The best to use will depend on each group of meshes, sharing a lightmap.
1) Lightmap Pack (Most efficient) - This one will work for most but sometimes the triangles of a face get separated, creating an ugly seam.
2) Unwrap (Medium efficient) - Keeps the basic shape of faces the same bust doesn't pack as efficiently. This one requires you to select all(a key) UVs first or nothing happens.
3) Smart UV Project (Least efficient) -  This one maintains the shape of faces perfectly but each UV takes up a lot of space. May require you to increase the lightmap resolution really high to look good (1024x1024 or more).
While in the layout workspace, select all meshes that share a lightmap. Then switch to the UV Editing workspace. All meshes need to be selected in the 3D view, for the UVs to show in the UV editor. Then select one of the unwrap types in UV -> Unwrap. Remember, if doing regular unwrap, selecting all UVs is first required.

Now, go back to the Layout workspace and bake the lightmaps. Some lightmaps may have weird artifacts or look low res. You can compensate for that by resizing the lightmap texture. Go to the UV Editing workspace and select the lightmap to edit. Then Image -> Resize. I try not to resize higher than 512x512 and I keep less detailed meshes between 16 and 128. The larger the texture size, the more memory it takes in game and the longer it takes to bake. Then go back to Layout workspace and bake again.
To save the lightmap texture, go to UV Editing layout then Image -> Save As. You will need to do this for each lightmap once and make sure you choose TGA when saving. After, you can use Save All Images.

I haven't even touched on lighting but here's a few tips:
- Under World Properties, the surface color will affect your lighting a lot. I prefer to just remove the surface(or make it darker) and it gives me more control over the lighting.
- Point lights fill the room with a lot of ambient light. If you want more control over the shadows use spot lights.
- The game engine will add even more lighting on top of the scene. You can control this in the light's Object Properties -> KotOR Model Node -> Light