Day/night node grouping and exporting

[dogrokket]

I just added the night nodes to my building and I'm having trouble getting them to go away during the day. I am wondering how these night nodes need to be grouped/childed to export properly. I've been able to get these night nodes to work properly in the past, but for some reason, my trickery isn't working. I think that blender and 3dc should have the same grouping methodology for the export. The night nodes have the _fx_night suffix and I am using the Tex shader.

Any thoughts?

wfnight.jpeg

wfday.jpeg

[jpetersjr]

I had the same problem and I never could get a answer for it, that's why all of my buildings don't have night textures.

[dogrokket]

I had the same problem and I never could get a answer for it, that's why all of my buildings don't have night textures.

JP, I'm sure this can be done my friend... I've managed to make it work with other scenery objects, so I'm not going to give up. Don't give up on those night nodes! It's the difference between a ho-hum building and one that rocks!

[PapaXpress]

Um dog? We have covered this ground already...
viewtopic.php?p=127327#p127327

[dogrokket]

Ok JP, I figured out how to make it work, once again, not exactly sure how, because I thought I tried it before....

I joined all the fx_night nodes together as one object. Now they display correctly. No parenting involved. In blender anyway, I think it may have to do with the last object you select in order, then you join them. Seems that's the game of figuring this all out. Now.... on to POINT LIGHTS! Woo hoo!

[dogrokket]

Um dog? We have covered this ground already...
viewtopic.php?p=127327#p127327

Yes Papa, in another life! Thank God it didn't have to do with scripting....

[PapaXpress]

Point lights are simple enough, but they must be added as child objects to the parent model. This is done in the blueprint, not in the model. I will need to check again but I think RCAP has the source IGS and XML of the lights so you can do this.

[jpetersjr]

For a lot of things like my houses I use something like a dummy window. It is simply just the window textured in such a way that you wouldn't notice it during the day and at night it seems to light up.

As for my big city buildings, I still have to figure out a way to make them work with night windows without overwhelming RW with the poly-level, since even a 50 story building, or a 100 story building, if you don't have a lot of windows lit up at once in one area section it's hard to see that they even light up from far away since the windows appear tiny and more in the less, just part of the wall.

That's why some of my buildings from far away you can't tell if there's actually any windows there since it has so many thousands of windows.


Luckily though, for auto's, you don't necessarily need light up textures so one can get a break from that by building the auto's and the semi's.



...Cheers...


J

[dogrokket]

Point lights are simple enough, but they must be added as child objects to the parent model. This is done in the blueprint, not in the model. I will need to check again but I think RCAP has the source IGS and XML of the lights so you can do this.

I have done some research on these things (there's a pretty decent thread on this board) and the parent child issue will be new to me (I don't have any kids, that I know of). There are also some good threads on UKTS.

[PapaXpress]

*sigh*

I really need to make a tutorial for this... if I only had time.

[dogrokket]

As for my big city buildings, I still have to figure out a way to make them work with night windows without overwhelming RW with the poly-level, since even a 50 story building, or a 100 story building, if you don't have a lot of windows lit up at once in one area section it's hard to see that they even light up from far away since the windows appear tiny and more in the less, just part of the wall.

JP,
Since this building is ten minutes away, I went down the other night and took some night photos. There were only a handful of offices lit up, along with the top floor arch window. In Gimp, I created a 1024x512 png file and added a strip of windows as a layer, then a few more random windows, along with the top floor arch window as new layers. Then I exported it as one png file to use as my unwrap image in Blender. Then I created a few plane objects (not sure what you call them in 3dc). I unwrapped these planes with the UV image editor and then randomly duplicated and positioned them over the building. The only tricky issue, is that if you position them too close to the building, they will shred and flicker as you move away and around the building. Once you get them positioned to your liking, combine them all as one fx_night object. That way, when you export, they will show up at the proper time in the game. This doesn't cost a lot of polys, unless as you say, you have hundreds of windows. The way to do this is in your image program. You could make a texture file with transparency and create one large plane object or a few smaller ones and just overlay them on the faces of your building. I think this will work with the tex shader. If not, I can probably find one that will work in this case.

[dogrokket]

*sigh*

I really need to make a tutorial for this... if I only had time.

Someday I will make a few Blender/gimp tutorials when I know enough. Sigh.

[dogrokket]

Point lights are simple enough, but they must be added as child objects to the parent model. This is done in the blueprint, not in the model. I will need to check again but I think RCAP has the source IGS and XML of the lights so you can do this.

Papa, you are correct. There is a point light blueprint. I successfully created that, and from what I gather, you need to make this point light a child object of the building. Did that. Got it to appear, on the ground underneath the building, but I think I'm supposed to be able to select the point light and move it around into position in the asset editor preview window. When I select the point light, the whole scene gets selected and the building moves with the light. Obviously, I haven't done something right
Here's a pic of the BP editor window:

BPpointlight.jpg

Don't know if that helps, but how does one properly make a point light a child of another object, so that it can be selected and moved???

>>>EDIT: Okay, I found the third box on the left side of the preview editor where the point light can be selected and manipulated. It's awkward, but it's a start. Can this point light be duplicated in the model, or do I have to create a new point light for each instance?

[PapaXpress]

The light object or "gizmo" can be added as a child to your building (the parent) blueprint as many times as you like. When you export the build with the children in the asset editor you will see in the lower left flyout all the children and then you can drag them around to where you need them placed. When you exit the asset editor remember to save the parent blueprint so it remembers where you placed everything, and then export.

[dogrokket]

The light object or "gizmo" can be added as a child to your building (the parent) blueprint as many times as you like. When you export the build with the children in the asset editor you will see in the lower left flyout all the children and then you can drag them around to where you need them placed. When you exit the asset editor remember to save the parent blueprint so it remembers where you placed everything, and then export.

Sorry papa, I've been answering my own questions pretty quickly! I got that figured out. I added 4 instances of the pt light and positioned them. The only other thing I haven't figured out yet, is can these things be 'aimed', specifically, upward? In real life, the lights are aimed upward along the sides of the building from below. I pretty much have the effect I want, but the lights are casting a glow on the ground as well, sort of Omni directional. I even placed a black cylinder under bottom of the light IGS file, but it doesn't seem to have an effect. Is this possible? I would post a pic, but I'm in Mexico City now and can only connect with my iPad.