Is it possible to export map into 3dsmax, bake photorealistic lightmaps, and import it back?

[CrimsonChin]

Source map maker's lightmap renderer fails to satisfy me, so I want to export the map geometry (with textures if possible) into vray so the map will look almost photorealistic.

Is it possible?

[TurtleeyFP]

It's been used in the past, people were doing that for detailed shadows on heightmap-generated 3d skyboxes. That wouldn't affect shadows on players and physics props though so it's not really practical.

[veDemaG]

Hiyougami pulled it off.

[video=youtube;YRfOUBzTiQw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRfOUBzTiQw[/video]

[Firegod522]

[url=http://dev.wallworm.com/topic/2/wall_worm_model_tools.html]Wall Worm Model Tools[/url] Try this out.

[Grenade Man]

It isn't practical. In a real game environment it fails to look convincing and its very resource expensive and large in file size.
I'm not trying to sound rude, but if you aren't satisfied with the default lighting you probably don't know how to use it properly.

I would rather look into values like "[B]$reflectivity[/B]" for materials, lightmap scaling in hammer and [B]-StaticPropLighting -StaticPropPolys and -TextureShadows[/B] for vrad.exe on compile.

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$reflectivity
[url]http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/VRAD#Effects[/url]
[url]http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Lighting[/url]
[url]http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Advanced_Lighting[/url]
[url]https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Sky_List[/url]

If you know all of it's tricks, the default lighting is extremely powerful.

[GoldPlatinum]

[QUOTE=Grenade Man;45405484]It isn't practical. In a real game environment it fails to look convincing and its very resource expensive and large in file size.
I'm not trying to sound rude, but if you aren't satisfied with the default lighting you probably don't know how to use it properly.

I would rather look into values like "[B]$reflectivity[/B]" for materials, lightmap scaling in hammer and [B]-StaticPropLighting -StaticPropPolys and -TextureShadows[/B] for vrad.exe on compile.

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$reflectivity
[url]http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/VRAD#Effects[/url]
[url]http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Lighting[/url]
[url]http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Advanced_Lighting[/url]
[url]https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Sky_List[/url]

If you know all of it's tricks, the default lighting is extremely powerful.[/QUOTE]
The way lighting is rendered in Source is outdated

[Grenade Man]

[QUOTE=GoldPlatinum;45405679]The way lighting is rendered in Source is outdated[/QUOTE]

I never said it isn't. I'm just saying that it still can look good, and if someone wants better they are better off mapping for another engine.

[Fulcrum]

There are tools to manually edit light maps. So this is definitely possible.

[TFlippy]

[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;45407371]There are tools to manually edit light maps. So this is definitely possible.[/QUOTE]

Such as? :o
I'm looking for one for ages.

[Grenade Man]

Don't get your hopes up. Its not really user friendly. I tried doing something with it but its a huge pain.

[Zanarias]

[QUOTE=TFlippy;45409204]Such as? :o
I'm looking for one for ages.[/QUOTE]

There's one somewhere on TF2maps, but I think it primarily existed to fix an issue with VRAD at the time.

[wallworm]

I build levels entirely in Max all the time (no back and forth or even use of Hammer). That being said, I have not ever felt the need to add lightmap support into Wall Worm as the VRad results always do the trick. I had considered looking into it a long time ago... but I'm not convinced it would add any real value.

In my opinion, just working with lights, lightmap scale and vrad compile parameters is about all you need to accomplish an effect.

Can you give an example of a result with standard RAD results where you are having a problem and an example of your desired results? You might find an answer to your quest in the current compile tools.