mental ray light setup for game level

Matroskin

Can anyone share experience on how one may do efficient lighting setup (in my case - mental ray in max) for the game level considering that the lighting solution will be used to create lightmaps.

Especially that concerns the way to obtain nice AO with regular casted shadows.

Because if I use 1 directional Light (Sun) and skyligtht with global illumination and final gather of mental ray i do get some AO but it is too subtle. If i use ambient occlusion shader on everything i can get sharper and more visible AO but no casted shadows from Directional Light

I can do both solutions separately and them multiply them in Photoshop, but maybe there exists better way to have that in one light setup.

thanks

sprunghunt

If you're using mentalray you should delete the skylight. It's not really for mentalray.

To use AO on textures in mentalray try using the mentalray ambient occlusion shader and use a RGB multiply to combine it with your diffuse texture in max.

But I'd combine your map in photoshop afterwards as it'll be easier to edit your texture then.

I just tested this and it works fine for me. I'd suggest using the 'mentalray shadow map' shadow type on your spotlight for best results. Also try increasing the 'spread' on your mentalray ambient occlusion shader.

MattW

I think the sky light he's referring to is the MR skylight, which is created when you use a sunlight or daylight system which means it's fine to keep in the scene.

Matroskin

thanks a lot for tips.

MattW, no, it is actually regular Sky that I use So i gotta replace it by MR skylight as u mentioned i guess.

sprunghunt, thanks for RGB multiply hint, i will try that out