From what I understand, lightmapping is the process of incorporating lighting effects and shadows into a mesh’s normal textures. For class projects, I really want to model a project (i.e. a house and surrounding terrain) in Sketchup, export to 3ds Max where I add materials, and bake lightmaps and export to Unity. Does this sound correct? And can someone provide a clear walkthrough on the process of baking lightmaps and exporting the finished product to Unity? The only tutorials I’ve found were baking lightmaps for animations and renders within 3ds Max. Thanks in advance!
When your model is within 3ds, you can unwrap the models UV’s, and finalize your textures , and add lights around the places you are going to want your light sources from. Than , Press the hotkey “0” - ZERO
This will bring up the Render to Texture options … you need to add a lightmap element - Target Slot / Map - and when you press Render , it will bake your texture for you. All in all the process is very simple. If you need any further help contact me, i will give ya a hand.
Do you think you could point me to a good step by step walkthrough of the UV unwrap process? Also, some tutorials imply that I would get a separate file after the baking process, and I would have to do something with it. Is this true, or do I just export it immediately to Unity? Thanks for your help.