Glowing Textures

I just kind of stumbled on the technique for getting textures to glow. (sorry to post if this has already been solved).

A glowing surface requires two textures, one for the surface, and one as the luminosity map. The luminosity map will define the shape and color of the glow.

The surface name needs to end with the command " <glow channel=pulse1>" (there are a few possible things the glow channel can equal, see the graphic SDK.

In LW Layout, load your object, open the surface view, and find the glow surface. Add the base texture. Just below that is a Luminosity line. Hit the little T button to select your glow map texture. Then set the luminosity value to 100%.

Save the object the surface is attached to (from layout). Then convert to a PSO.

A good example to examine is the LOR platform. It has several glowing sections, especially the bridge area. You can see the glow map seperated from the underlying texture map (that was the important clue).

Oh, and you can see the glow channel options that PS used by hex editing the existing *.PSO files. The PSO files are actually in amiga *.IFF data format, should anyone have time to write a converter. There are public domain *.IFF file read/write routines out there.

-Gtrout

HA! I knew the glows had to use luminosity maps as a mask! You can tell by the fact that the glows don't conform to geometry (it would be just plain stupid to force the actual modeling of windows with seperate surfaces and such).

GTrout - any chance you could move this post into this one...

www.i-war2.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1541

...so we could keep all this info together?

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The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
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Sure. I copied it over there. (I wish I could lock this thread). Perhaps you could mention in the first post that the issue is solved if you read all the way down the thread.

-Gtrout

Good point, I sure will.

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The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
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