LIGHTMAPS animated HELP

[Jorak Uln 458]

Hi, 

 

this question goes to all of you guys who are experienced with lightmaps.

I also talked to FS about it and as more eyes see more, i really want to find a way to solve this:

 

The general idea is to animate the long lightline at the Endar Spire and  the LM around it with the same flickering motion:

 

 

 

 

As you can see, animating them was possible; the only error i got is the "timer" reset after exiting and reentering the cell.

Note: the long lightline has no timing reset.

 

supreme kotor from LF also mentioned this:

 

Funny that you should mention that . I have been doing some experimenting and I believe (extra emphasis on the word "believe") we should be able to add custom lightmaps as invisable placeables..

 

I really would appreciate any idea to make this possible!

[Sithspecter 909]

Well, my forte is in creating lightmaps, not animating them. I'm surprised that you were able to make heads or tails of the existing ones in KotOR, which seem to be pretty confusing and tightly packed to me.

 

First off, would you be willing to explain the process you used to animate the lightmaps to line up with the flickering lights? Did the lights already flicker?

 

That's a very strange problem that the timing would change. I would think that possibly leaving the specific "room" would maybe cause the animation to stop altogether, but apparently that's not the case. KotOR doesn't have any animated lightmaps already in the game that we could reference, so that's unfortunate for your mod. Maybe the lightmaps don't render when they're not in view of the camera? That's the only explanation that I can think of based on your video.

 

Also, I seriously doubt that lightmaps could be added as invisible placeables, given the nature of lightmaps. I'd like to hear a better explanation of that idea.

[Jorak Uln 458]

No the lights dont flicker by default. Heres how i did it:

 

First i created the lights retexture LHR_lit01. I modified the brightness with a flickering animation with 25 pics at 10 fps.

Then i took the surrounding lightmaps, recolored them and simply gave each of them the same brightness animation also with 25pics and 10 fps.

 

About the timing: I modified m01aa_03a in that scene, and as long as i stay in that corridor, the animation will be synchronous - that means also if i turn/walk around.

BUT: At the point when i left the room to e.g. m01aa_02a,  then the animations become asynchronous - each one differently.

 

EDIT:

 

SS, your a genius! I tested it and your right - the lightmaps dont render, but only when i 

 

a) left the room m01aa_03a

and 

b  turn away the camera from them.

 

That means:

if i leave m01aa_03a to 02a but without turning the camera from the animated corridor,

then the animations are displayed correctly.

 

So the solution seems to be to tell Kotor not to affect neighbored areas Lightmaps when turning the camera away..

I have no idea how to script that unfortunately..

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

No the lights dont flicker by default. Heres how i did it:

 

First i created the lights retexture LHR_lit01. I modified the brightness with a flickering animation with 25 pics at 10 fps.

Then i took the surrounding lightmaps, recolored them and simply gave each of them the same brightness animation also with 25pics and 10 fps.

 

About the timing: I modified m01aa_03a in that scene, and as long as i stay in that corridor, the animation will be synchronous - that means also if i turn/walk around.

BUT: At the point when i left the room to e.g. m01aa_02a,  then the animations become asynchronous - each one differently.

 

EDIT:

 

SS, your a genius! I tested it and your right - the lightmaps dont render, but only when i 

 

a) left the room m01aa_03a

and 

b  turn away the camera from them.

 

That means:

if i leave m01aa_03a to 02a but without turning the camera from the animated corridor,

then the animations are displayed correctly.

 

So the solution seems to be to tell Kotor not to affect neighbored areas Lightmaps when turning the camera away..

I have no idea how to script that unfortunately..

 

I doubt it's possible to do any of that with scripts. You'd have to play around with the rendering engine.

[Canderis 180]

Shot in the dark here, but IIRC the VIS file handles which module chunks you can see from each room. Perhaps that could be edited to solve this?

[Sithspecter 909]

Well the problem is that the rooms are definitely already connected in the VIS file seeing as they are right next to each other.

 

I think Varsity Puppet is correct in his theory that this is due to the rendering engine, and I really don't think you'll be able to do much about it.