Quick update
The ambient occlusion map of the Mk VII balloon is ready. This is a poor wings3d render of it:
notice the shadows on the side of the balloon, and the enhanced 3d effect in its fins
Now it is time to work on the normal/bump map and on the specular mask. Works on them won't last long (just the time to fine-tune them).
I see one problem though: land based balloons can be GR2 objects, and they can be set with all their masks enabled with no problem. Nonetheless, if we are going to add balloons to some dat ships, they need to be dat objects or they will render black (as GR2 guns on dat ships). The problem is that, IIRC, ship equipments don't support the UnifiedRenderController, and we need for it if we want self-illumination and normal maps to work. For self illumination map I have a workaround: having created a non-overlapping diffuse UV map, I can overlay the AO map on the diffuse one (this is is the method I have used for the above render, by the way); the problem still remains for the normal map.
Atm I see only three possible solutions:
- giving up the normal map
- if memory serves me well, there is a separate controller which can be used either for AO or normal mapping without need of the unfied render controller. I need to check if we can use it on ship equipments without side effects.
- converting the dat ships which are going to be fitted with balloons to GR2 format, but given the current state of the GR2 editor, converting complex units would take long, and with not guarantee of success
Any suggestion guys?
