Torque's communication with pureLIGHT

[saindd]

How was the communication from T3D to pureLIGHT? Did pureLIGHT UV-unwrapped the whole T3D level or was this done by T3D? And in which format does T3D expect to read the lightMap/toneMap textures from materials?

[Dwarf King]

You take a piece by the time or if the landscape is a collada model and put into PreLight and PureLight and bake the light in that program. PureLight is a program by it self. You then import it back into Torque 3D and thick the box for using PureLights baked light (if I am not mistaken). I did it as an test on several models last year and the result was pretty fine. I failed a few times in the first initial tries :)

Also PureLight comes with support for collada. I forgot which texture format it takes but I believe it was png...

This was a great help for me:

It kind of gave me the idea how it worked back then.

I can see that you have spent some time on this forum:

http://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/142028

I will send an email asking the the maker of PureLight if they can make the tool available in any other way as the GG store is not active anymore.

Update: Email sent. Waiting for an answer.

Second update: @ThomasPittman has answered this thread.

Edited May 21, 2016 by Dwarf King

[ThomasPittman]

The communication was largely one sided. You would load your scene into pureLIGHT and then it would write out a Torque3D mission file. There were once plans to integrate pureLIGHT directly into the Torque3D editor, but, those plans got derailed several times due to some of the past shake ups at Garage Games.

[saindd]

Any plans of releasing this tool so the community can work on it again?

[Dwarf King]

Any plans of releasing this tool so the community can work on it again?

 

While I understand this question then please remember that the maker of the tool spend time(and money) making it.

However in order not the see the tool go into the void I have some suggestions:

• You could allow use of the the tool until a certain income was met

• You could ask for a small royalty if the tool is used in a project

• You could do as CryTech and let it be a Pay What You Want product

• You could sell it directly from your own website store(it is really very easy to set up with CMS software around in these days)

• You could Open Source it and ask to be mentioned in the credits if PureLight is used in a project

• Insert you own suggestion here

 

@ThomasPittman do you find any of the suggestions interesting?

The only interest I have here is to make sure that you awesome work does not go into the void. I have a commercial license myself of PureLight and I found it to be worth the price. However, we are seeing new times with Unreal 4 offering everything for free up front, Unity as well. CryTech now offers CryEngine 5 for a Pay What You Want model.

All in all I understand that you should get something from the noble act in offering the use of PureLight for new users. I also respect all the work you have put into it. I am just afraid to see this tool go away so no new Torque 3D users get to use it. Torque 3D MIT is what it is due to many parts(the work below the hood plus add ons etc.) and one of those parts also counts PureLight software as it allows for a fast way to bake lights.

I hope that my suggestions has not offended you and that I do not come off as a person trying to force you into doing anything you do not wish to do. I understand if you do not see the benefits of my suggestions above and decides to not offering the tool anymore.

Edited May 30, 2016 by Dwarf King

[saindd]

He might not have the time or energy, or even the will, to keep supporting the technology. Selling something also means providing bug fixes and support, which is very expensive and time-consuming. If he's not interested in the technology anymore, it makes sense to just release it as open-source software, so people can do their own bug fixes and find a way to work with it. That's what GarageGames did. And it's much better than having software rotting on old disks.