[PC and Trial] Lightmaps- lighting and brightness of a level

Tutorials for the PC version of Halo 1.
Post Reply
User avatar
EchoRanger449




Articulatist 250

Posts: 463
Joined: Thu Aug 10, 2006 2:44 pm
Location: It was all fun
Contact:

[PC and Trial] Lightmaps- lighting and brightness of a level

Post by EchoRanger449 »

Lightmaps can be edited without Halo PC.
If you're new to photoshop or some other kind of bitmap editing program that can be used for Halo bitmaps, you may have tried editing the lightmaps for the level. What you might've gotten was an image similar to this-

Image


You probably gave up like me and decided to cancel out the bitmaps (there are fifteen of them for bloodgulch.

Perhaps You got something like this-

Image



However, if you looked a little closer, you'd notice that the dds format for AGB isn't the same- they have different numbers for some of them. Depending on what plugin version you have, you may see "16 bit (5:6:5)" or "5:6:5". I'm not sure about the other levels, but for bloodgulch, choose that format.

You should end up with something similar to this-

Image

Please note that the difference between making your lightmaps 95% darker or shutting them off makes 100% difference. Even a small hint of light will enable the night vision to work. If you cancel out the lightmaps, nightvision will not work without a flashlight.

Edit: Also, there is a second major difference between canceling out your lightmaps and darkening them: if you cancel them out, the lighting won't match for scenery items, vehicles, equipment, or players.

Edit: make sure that you select "no" if you are told your bitmap is too large. "yes" may and probably will wreck the lightmaps and possibly other important bitmaps such as the UI "options" text (it happened to me once).
Post Reply