Topic: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
A nice add-on for creating light maps of entire scenes (source: BlenderNation) :
http://code.google.com/p/blender-addons-by-mifth/
Re: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
Nice plugin!
We have something similar for 3dsmax too ( Flatiron - http://www.texturebaking.com/ ), but it's not free.
I wish there where more open source 3dsmax plugin developers around 
Re: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
That's why I like Blender 
Re: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
Im hardly a pro at blender, but why is a plugin needed for entire scenes..so blender by default doesn't 'light' entire scene when you apply a map, and without plugin makes it hard to do that ?
When you are on a budget things can get iffy, and while its wonderful that blender exists for those with few funds, Im also finding that I really like Truespace 7.61 beta8 ( has never crashed ), which I find can do everything ( or very close to it) blender/max can, and a lot more.
If I could wish for a new feature for maratis, I think it would be to ease the restriction on needing blender to finalize a export for other modelers to avoid the blender necessity. I think that holds maratis back a lot.
thx
gm
P.S.- I've seen some amazing plugins for max that don't exist in such a form for blender, even if they aren't free, so while free is nice, its not always optimal I think I've seen a forest system plugin for max that i'd LOVE, and nothing like it for blender. That's what I'm getting at,,things like that.
Re: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
gamemaker wrote:
Im hardly a pro at blender, but why is a plugin needed for entire scenes..so blender by default doesn't 'light' entire scene when you apply a map, and without plugin makes it hard to do that ?
The script makes one Texture Atlas for all objects. In other words the script unwraps entire scene into one UV.
gamemaker wrote:
When you are on a budget things can get iffy, and while its wonderful that blender exists for those with few funds, Im also finding that I really like Truespace 7.61 beta8 ( has never crashed ), which I find can do everything ( or very close to it) blender/max can, and a lot more.
I love blender it does everything I need and not only that programs like "Truespace", "Milkshape" and 3DSMax are not cross platform.
gamemaker wrote:
If I could wish for a new feature for maratis, I think it would be to ease the restriction on needing blender to finalize a export for other modelers to avoid the blender necessity. I think that holds maratis back a lot.
gamemaker wrote:
P.S.- I've seen some amazing plugins for max that don't exist in such a form for blender, even if they aren't free, so while free is nice, its not always optimal
I think what your really trying to say is that you dont like blender. I feel the same about 3DSMax and Photoshop!!!!
Last edited by zester (2012-12-31 23:27:08)
Re: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
Blender tries to hard to be an everything tool......yet ain't really good at anything. Animating in blender is a p.i.t.a., the sculpting is goofy, and the save system is not intuitive at all. I know, Yo Frankie was made with it. I can show you thousands of mods made with Milkshape. Milkshape, Fragmotion, Pacemaker---all are intended for one purpose only---to create models for games. Blender was an internal artist tool, that was released for the linux guys many years ago.
It hasn't changed much....still an art tool, not a modeling program for games
Last edited by Wrapscallion (2013-01-01 15:29:52)
Re: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
I agree that Blender is trying to do too much things, but I find modeling really simple and powerful, I was originally a 3dsmax user and would never go back. Blender animation system is a bit complex to use, and from my experience texture painting is a bit buggy, but I find the sculpting tools really great. We have the chance to have multiple free 3d softwares available, the best is to use each one for what it's doing the best.
What I'd like to see is an exemple of this Blender addon to bake lighting for a Maratis level.
Someone also talked about a lightmap software called Giles : http://www.frecle.net/index.php?show=giles.screenshots
looks interesting too.
Re: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
I am playing with the TextureAtlas script right now, it works if your using the proper combined versions of blender and the script, for me it was Blender 2.63.0 and TextureAtlas 0.14 other combinations ether didnt work or crashed.
Ill post a tutorial and example hopefully sometime today.
It doesnt really require a tutorial to use as its only a single button click and then bake, but there are 3 or 4 options you need
to set, and the video tutorial ui is an older version of the TextureAtlas script and the video is just really blury.
You will need a image editing program like gimp or photoshop to convert white to transparent
In gimp its Layer --> Transparency --> Color to Alpha
Before Color to Alpha
After
Last edited by zester (2013-01-01 20:00:00)
Re: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
@Zester, It took me a while to figure it out, but tweaking the default UV window of blender will cause the "something went wrong" problem. if you don't tweak the window, it works fine on 2.65a (so just create another layout if you need uv mapping and it's alright)
@Anael, Giles gives great results however it is ALOT of extra work (importing/exporting/managing textures names, re-assigning everything, etc), and render time (even preview renders) are quite long also.
Well, that's still an alternative for those who can't stand blender
But now honestly with the Atlas plugin there's no reason to look somewhere else, lately i've done alot of tests with Texture Atlas plugin and yeah, it's just awesome.
There's only one thing that kill your workflow : Texture paths (for spec and normal maps), i definitely can't find a good way to organize everything in a manner that you don't have to edit anything
Re: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
zester wrote:
gamemaker wrote:Im hardly a pro at blender, but why is a plugin needed for entire scenes..so blender by default doesn't 'light' entire scene when you apply a map, and without plugin makes it hard to do that ?
The script makes one Texture Atlas for all objects. In other words the script unwraps entire scene into one UV.
gamemaker wrote:When you are on a budget things can get iffy, and while its wonderful that blender exists for those with few funds, Im also finding that I really like Truespace 7.61 beta8 ( has never crashed ), which I find can do everything ( or very close to it) blender/max can, and a lot more.
I love blender it does everything I need and not only that programs like "Truespace", "Milkshape" and 3DSMax are not cross platform.
gamemaker wrote:If I could wish for a new feature for maratis, I think it would be to ease the restriction on needing blender to finalize a export for other modelers to avoid the blender necessity. I think that holds maratis back a lot.
gamemaker wrote:P.S.- I've seen some amazing plugins for max that don't exist in such a form for blender, even if they aren't free, so while free is nice, its not always optimal
I think what your really trying to say is that you dont like blender. I feel the same about 3DSMax and Photoshop!!!!
What I think about blender is irrelevant actually, and the fact I was trying to get at, which I stated I thought pretty clearly, were that maratis IS held back imho, due to its insistence on blender finalization. Max is the only tool atm that has someone working on it ( only if you have the very recent version, everyone else is out of luck: I get why, authors time is limited, etc..,), so short of blender and max, you are out of luck,,unless you don't mind holding your nose and using blender as the final 'tool'. I"d rather not
cu
gm
Re: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
gamemaker wrote:
zester wrote:gamemaker wrote:Im hardly a pro at blender, but why is a plugin needed for entire scenes..so blender by default doesn't 'light' entire scene when you apply a map, and without plugin makes it hard to do that ?
The script makes one Texture Atlas for all objects. In other words the script unwraps entire scene into one UV.
gamemaker wrote:When you are on a budget things can get iffy, and while its wonderful that blender exists for those with few funds, Im also finding that I really like Truespace 7.61 beta8 ( has never crashed ), which I find can do everything ( or very close to it) blender/max can, and a lot more.
I love blender it does everything I need and not only that programs like "Truespace", "Milkshape" and 3DSMax are not cross platform.
gamemaker wrote:If I could wish for a new feature for maratis, I think it would be to ease the restriction on needing blender to finalize a export for other modelers to avoid the blender necessity. I think that holds maratis back a lot.
gamemaker wrote:P.S.- I've seen some amazing plugins for max that don't exist in such a form for blender, even if they aren't free, so while free is nice, its not always optimal
I think what your really trying to say is that you dont like blender. I feel the same about 3DSMax and Photoshop!!!!
What I think about blender is irrelevant actually, and the fact I was trying to get at, which I stated I thought pretty clearly, were that maratis IS held back imho, due to its insistence on blender finalization. Max is the only tool atm that has someone working on it ( only if you have the very recent version, everyone else is out of luck: I get why, authors time is limited, etc..,), so short of blender and max, you are out of luck,,unless you don't mind holding your nose and using blender as the final 'tool'. I"d rather not
cu
gm
My mistake, I was under the impression that You and Wrapscallion were hijacking the thread and going off topic because you wanted to inform us all on how much you dislike blender.
Re: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
It's not a matter of disliking blender, it ( for me) is pointing out other choices. Also---blender is not easy,especially not for beginners.
Last edited by Wrapscallion (2013-01-05 07:02:50)
Re: Add-on for Blender : bake light maps for entire scene
Quick Tip: When using TextureAtlas or Baking Ambient Occlusion in general. If you notice that bakeing just stops mid process or your getting "Streaking" you need to scale your model to a larger size.