lightmaps (shadowmaps) generator

[mkul]

Hi, do You know any free program that allows to generate lightmaps with shadows and save it to file?

[z3r0 d]

once you had done that how would you propose they are applied to something in blender?

as for some links possibly on the topic:
rendering shadows for static particles:
http://oldsite.blender3d.org/showitem.php?id=57

radiosity:
http://download.blender.org/documentation/NaN_docs/Manual2.0/radiosity.html
radiosity buttons:
http://download.blender.org/documentation/NaN_docs/Manual2.0/RadiosityButtons.html

radiosity is stored in the vertex colors of an object

and I rambled some about it on my website:
http://www.geocities.com/z3r0_d/bTut01.html
(particularly about how to control the creation of new faces...)

in the latest version of blender it can be calculated when you render by pressing the radio button on materials you want to take part in the simulation (everything that emits light, and reflects it. Both the walls and cieling...), and press the radio button in the display buttons
(oh, and when doing the radiosity when you render the mesh is not subdivided at all, you have to do that yourself)

[Modron]

Lightmaps can be made easily in blender. Just light your object how you want it, select, in edit buttons press 'vertcol make'. I believe that is the procedure, but I will double check. I have it written down somewhere.
<edit> oh yeah, then in materials, press 'vcol light'.

[leon]

A quick thought: it would be great if Blender could use UV textures as light maps.

You could then:

1) Do the radiosity calculation the old way (i.e. let it decompose the mesh).
2) Get the light information as an image using the UV co-ordinates of the mesh (I'd have a go at writing a script myself for this).
3) Adjust the image in a paint program if you want (you could remove any artifacts here)
4) Apply the lightmap back to your old non decomposed mesh.

This would be fantastic for architectural walkthroughs etc. Does anyone know how difficult it would be to implement light maps in Blender?

Cheers

Leon