Guild of Writers

This is a tutorial page.Versions available: PyPRP; 3ds Max; Korman.

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Light Maps are what we use to show light splashes (like you would see from a spot light) or for defining shadows better. You can use them just about everywhere, but keep in mind that they can bloat your texture prp. Cyan kept the number they used of these to a minimum, and limited them to interior places. For larger areas, you might want to consider using Vertex Painting to define your shadows better.

Getting Started

Making Light Maps with 3ds Max is very easy. First you will need to set up your lights that will be producing the light splashes and shadows. Directional lights work well, but you can use any Max Standard light. Do NOT try to use Plasma Run Time lights for this (remember, Plasma RT lights are for lighting up the avatar and animated objects).

Once you have the lights set up, go to their Modification Tab. Adjust the light to your tastes. You'll note that I have two places circled in the picture below. GPNMilano noted that having these off or on do not affect the light mapping for Plasma, however they may for some other pre-rendered project you may be on.

Also, further down in the rollout, you need to set the map size to the same size as the actual textures being used on the object:

Next, select the object that the light map is going to be on (in this case it's a floor). In the Modifier Tab, add another Unwrap UVW modifier (Do not use the one you put in to UV map your texture - This will need to be a 2nd UV channel), in the rollouts, make sure you set this one to channel 2:

Next, open up the UV Editor and remap this 2nd channel so that all the faces lay inside the single texture tile. If the faces are outside the blue box, things will not look right.