New Maya2Map Exporter for 5.0 + Source!!!!

#21 @James:

I guess you missed Matthew's post above:
"These lightmaps are generated using the lighting entities in the .map file when they are compiled by the various tools (q3map, vrad, and map2dif)."

So really all that needs to be done is to export the lighting info into the .map format, which I found out is in fact very simple. All I need to do is find out how to get the lights from the maya map exporter, and tell it to write them. I did find a section where it had something like:

world_t world;
// TODO lights, entities

So that's confirmation that they're not in there.
But it shouldn't take too much time to add, once I get a free spot in time (and since there's a holiday this weekend, I just might be able to manage it.) All the programming that's involved is writing text to a file... no math, so it's easily done. Calculating the lightmaps is lots 'o math, so I'll just let map2dif do that. If you want to get lighting like the above image, check out TGERad (forum search). Once you can export lights from Maya, TGERad will work wonders. Quark also allows a certain face to be flagged or something, allowing the entire face to be a light emmitter, and if I can figure that out, you'll be able to make very nice scenes such as the above just using Maya and map2dif. Although I'm not sure if maya2map handles portals, detail brushes, and the like. Most of the above scene is nice texturing, though. So I'm not guaranteeing that slapping a map together in Maya and running it through TGERad is going to make every scene breathtaking. It still takes work.

You do know that you can place light entities (from the torque entities) in Quark, and when you run map2dif, the interior is lit, right? This I know for absolute sure, as I've done it. Even the animated lightmaps work.

#22 @ John:
you are right about matts post I stand corrected.

Sounds very Promising solution though I think the prefered choice would be out of Maya straight to map2dif. I'm pretty sure that a gui front end can be made to make it look like the map2dif process is happening inside Maya. Anyway the point I'm trying to make is if a artist can use one tool with a pluging version or interface to get a dif out of maya that would be great. HAving to use so many programs to do such a simple thing is just rediculas.

Granted a GG made LEvel Editor on the LEvel of Q3radient.

The TGERad Look really promising. These Settings could be made as a set of plugins for Maya or a least mel front ends could be created?

#23 @ John:
you are right about matts post I stand corrected.

Sounds very Promising solution though I think the prefered choice would be out of Maya straight to map2dif. I'm pretty sure that a gui front end can be made to make it look like the map2dif process is happening inside Maya. Anyway the point I'm trying to make is if a artist can use one tool with a pluging version or interface to get a dif out of maya that would be great. HAving to use so many programs to do such a simple thing is just rediculas.

Granted a GG made LEvel Editor on the LEvel of Qeradient or UnrealEd is what is needed.
I will read about the TGE RAD though

#24 Hi,

i recently began to work with torque and find the way to model interior using quark like editors inconvenient, too.
well, the last post in this topic is from 26th may 2004. are there any alternative ways to model interiors using maya or 3ds max now?

here some comments to DIF generation process:

1. map2dif generates not only geometry + lightmaps, it also calculates visibility stuff basing on spatial partitioning what would be definitely needed.

2. afaik the map format supports muti-texturing with upto 2 textures ( correct me if i am wrong ). so one can use an external tool for lightmap creation ( i use Gile[s], it produces really good results, and costs only about 40 usd ) get it back to modelling package ( there is already a direct link from Gile[s] to 3ds max ) and export it to map format. note: the base texture and lightmaps have different uv mappings!

then one can use map2dif to generate the dif file, however the lightmapping process in map2dif must be disabled ( i think this task needs only a bit of source code modification for supporting a command line parameter which allows to disable the lightmapping in map2dif )

what i did not investigate is whether the map and diff format support more than 2 textures with different uv-maps!? this would be useful for lightmapping multi-textured geometry.

cheers
boto

#25 Hmmm, after taking a deeper look into the map2dif code i remarked that only one single texture is supported for geometry definition :-(
i.e. that the code needs more adaptations to get externally generated lightmaps!