Vertex Lighting?

# 1 23-03-2006 , 09:57 AM

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Join Date: Feb 2005

Location: Sunny Ol' Wigan, UK

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I am currently reading up a book called 'Creating the Art for the Game' and before I start I must say it is completely awesome and takes you so deep into what goes into producing game art. But what I am struggling to get my head around is Vertex lighting!

Is my interpretation right of this, if not please correct me...

Vertex lighting, you set up your scene, position the lighting until you are happy with the effect, then via the menus ( I don't have maya to hand to say which it is) Select Vertex lighting and this 'burns' the lighting info on to the model, thus all you need to do is export your model to the game engine and this now contains all the relevant lighting info.

Is this correct?

Also, is this the normal way to go about lighting most scenrios in game?

Thanks

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# 2 27-03-2006 , 11:37 PM

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i think its called baking a light map- but im not sure

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# 3 28-03-2006 , 12:04 AM

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Join Date: Aug 2002

Location: Seattle, WA

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that's essentially the case. It's not the most common thing in the world, as the game I'm working on now is the first I've worked on that uses it.

depends a lot on the engine's support for it, of course.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 4 28-03-2006 , 08:49 AM

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Thanks for the responses, Mt, what is the usual lighting path you have taken prior to this game? Using regular lights in the scene? Isn't using any other lighting source other than vertex lighting considered quite memory intensive?

Thanks, I'm trying to guide myself into the game industry so I may be asking more of these types of 'routine' questions. Thanks for your patience. user added image

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# 5 28-03-2006 , 02:17 PM

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So far, in all of the other games I've worked on, the game level editor used light sources that were placed within the game engine.

The Lord of the Rings game I worked on, did in fact use vertex lighting, but it wasn't something that we did in Maya because our environments were modular... that is, we'd be using the same set pieces of hallways and rooms to form our dungeons and so on, so Wall1 had to be able to be lit differently throughout the level. So, we placed lights within the game editor and the editor actually would bake the vertex lighting into the modular pieces.

Vertex lighting from within maya is only applicable really for set pieces that are only going to be seen once from one lighting setup so it can be baked down before exporting. Unless you are given room to have, say, 3 versions of an area... day, night, dusk for example. In which case, you'd export 3 different models all with different lighting applied.

Hope that makes sense.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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