DeleD Community Edition

[Paul-Jan]

Hi guys,

Just to let you know that we are working on 1.4 (quite hard actually), I thought this might be a nice moment to announce that from DeleD 1.4 onwards, the Lightmapper will not triangulate the scene anymore. In other words, you can just conveniently continue working on your scene after lighting it.

Screenshot of the new lightmapper in action:

[Daaark]

What happens on an odd shaped polygon. Say the tip of a cylinder, or a star shaped thin that was drawn.

[Paul-Jan]

If they are convex polygons, nothing special. If they are non-convex polygons (a star???), nothing special either (in theory some texture space would be wasted), but the rest of the DeleD functionality wont take that too well and has hopefully triangulated it by then But back on topic, there are no 'special cases'. The lightmapper simply doesn't touch the geometry.

[Sindwiller]

Well, besides that the lightmapper isnt triangulating the scene anymore, has something different changed? Performance, quality, accuracy, new functions...?

And i see that the edges are more darker and sharper then before. Is this also an new feature?

wfg, Sindwiller
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[The Anaconda]

yay good to hear it! last time i was working seriously on a scene I forgot about that, and was looking at a mess after I did a test lightmap halfway through >_>

(of course then I went to redo that part of the scene in Lightwave so I could do more detail and then export and import that into DeleD and I had to format and reinstall windows and the only thing I forgot to back up was the work I was doing in Lightwave >_> <_< )

and Ive got a new job now (after being unemployed for 8 months) so I can buy DeleD soon too
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[afecelis]

gret news!
2006 looks promising!

[Paul-Jan]

[hpesoj]

Very nice. One question, does this new update fix the artifact problem displayed below?

[trucker2000]

This is fantastic.
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[Paul-Jan]

Thanks for all the positive feedback guys

Hpesoj: Artifacts like the one in your image are caused by 'bad' mapping schemes (direction and possibly resolution of mapping changes over each triangle thus causing all sorts of discontinuities), which will be one of the main concerns at the next real lightmapper rewrite. The current (tiny) rewrite had a different goal: getting rid of the irreversible character of lightmapping (1.4 also offers the possibility to completely strip all lightmaps from the scene). However, as a nice side-effect :

[hpesoj]

So, artifacts won't appear unless you have specifically modelled your scene in enlongated triangles. Yay!

[Paul-Jan]

Yeah, hadn't realized that myself until you brought it up!

[kaylon]

I can't wait for 1.4 for this reason alone....

I Don't ever want to light anything currently as the forced triangulation really kills a scene ...

K
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I'm an Artist...It's my job to ask programmers for things that make my life easier.

[Jeroen]

[kaylon]

My pipeline involves continual lighing and construction...construction and lighting...and repeat...I will make some geometry and light the scene..I will do this for most new geometry...and then I will balance the level at the end. This is the only way to get a well lit level.

Having lights in visual groups or sets is also a must...so you can turn individual groups off and speed up lightmapping if you are only testing and setting up one section of the level.

K
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I'm an Artist...It's my job to ask programmers for things that make my life easier.