Lightmap Manager 2: Animated Lightmaps, per object baking and saving

Hello Everyone

we are so excited to announce our latest tool "Lightmap Manager 2" which is now available at the asset store and delivers a set of advanced features:

1- Animated lightmaps : in which now you can fake motion of light and global illumination through baking lightmaps against a light animation and then playback them on runtime.

2- Per Object(s) saving: now it is possible to save the object with its lightmapping and then retrieve it while maintaining the lightmapping on it or even exporting it as a package to be used in another project.

3- Per Object(s) baking: it is possible to bake an object or a set of objects alone without losing the lightmapping from the rest of the scene but be careful as any unselected object(s) will not be calculated by the lightmapper thus it will not cast shadows on the selected objects.

Live Demo

Animated Lightmaps live demo scene (webplayer)

all of it and a lot of more features from the free Lightmap Manager Lite for only 50$

http://u3d.as/content/mixed-dimensions/lightmap-manager-2/2jz

 

Is this available yet, I cant find it in the asset store. Also Can we fade the lightmap sets into other lightmap sets like night day?

 

1. It is currently available.
2. I guess this is exactly what animated Lightmaps are supposed to.

@Baha
Sounds very interessting, but doesn´t this require huge TextureMemory the bigger your scene is?
I will have a look at the free package.

 

How does this work? Can you use it for terrain? How much resousreces it costs?

 

It will be available really soon but we had to migrate and wait for Unity 3.4 to be released which is now available so we are finalizing it.

Fading is available through the blend feature, blend is available in the free version as well but we will develop it more in future updates.

Thanks and yes the TextureMemory will increase when your scene size increases but you can use the blend feature if your light does not move but change color or is very soft when it comes to shadows.

Well, you can use it with terrains and regarding the resources cost, animated lightmaps is costly when it comes to resource use however we plan to do GI faking in the future and if we find a way to do realtime GI then we will do it but we will start with animated lightmaps for the meanwhile.

 

How much it will cost to use your system for terrain shadows for whole day/night cycle? It would make sense to use animated lightmap instead of real time shadows for buildings and all not-movable objects. Shadow on terrain is moving VERY slow, so no need for high "framerate".

 

Looking forward to this!

 

*bump*

Nice Tool look forward to any release from Mixed Dimension

 

finally released to the asset store

http://u3d.as/content/mixed-dimensions/lightmap-manager-2/2jz

 

Is this only for Unity Pro.

 

actually it works with the FREE version as well

 

Cool! Can we blend lightmap sets into other lightmaps for a night day cycle now?

 

You can do animated lightmaps but if you mean to blend from a day lightmap into a night lightmap with the shadow changing its place then you will need to write some code, drop me an email and I will see what case you need and I will help you coding it if needed.

 

Any suggestions or feedbacks on the features are welcome anytime

 

Hello,

Thanks for the super cool Lightmap Manager 2!

We need to use LM2 on a web based project. Currently we get a bunch of compiler errors when we switch to web player platform.

such as :

Assets/MXDLightmapManager/IndexManager.cs(113,35): error CS0117: `System.IO.Directory' does not contain a definition for `Delete'

Assets/MXDLightmapManager/IndexManager.cs(172,39): error CS0117: `System.IO.Directory' does not contain a definition for `Delete'

Assets/MXDLightmapManager/IndexManager.cs(180,34): error CS1061: Type `System.IO.FileInfo' does not contain a definition for `CopyTo' and no extension method `CopyTo' of type `System.IO.FileInfo' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

Assets/MXDLightmapManager/IndexManager.cs(187,34): error CS1061: Type `System.IO.FileInfo' does not contain a definition for `CopyTo' and no extension method `CopyTo' of type `System.IO.FileInfo' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

Assets/MXDLightmapManager/IndexManager.cs(233,43): error CS1061: Type `System.IO.DirectoryInfo' does not contain a definition for `GetFiles' and no extension method `GetFiles' of type `System.IO.DirectoryInfo' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

In theory LM2 rocks. Do you guys have a fix or workaround? So far with out project workflow it'd be a pain to strip out LM2 every time we make a test build.

Thanks!

Elliott

 

Really nice stuff. Really nice.

 

Hot fix have been submitted to the asset store also I will send it to you by email.

 

(bookmarked)

 

Looks like this is exactly what we need for our project.

Just to be shure before i buy it.
We need tot switch between about 30 lightmaps and we have to do this trough scripting.
We want to controll ( darken and lighten ) the general illumination in our scene.
We have a pinball simulation and want to bake several lighting conditions into lightmaps and switch these trough scripting.
Coding is done in c#.
Do you think it's possible ?
I can't find much examples covering Lightmap Manager 2, some sample code would be nice.

Data.

 

yes, you can do all of the above with lightmap manager 2, I will write some examples in c# for all of the above and post them here later

 

Thanks for the quick answer.

I'm going to buy it right now.
Lightmanager looks very promising.
Also thanks for your offer to post some samples.

Gr, Data.

 

Got a lot of errors when importing the package on the iOS platform. Try putting #pragma strict (implicit on iOS) at the top of BakeSelection.js file and you'll see what I mean. Is it possible to get this fixed?

 

Is it possible to use it on android/ios?

Like ratamoph said, I had the same issues with lightmap manager 1.

 

We have done a fix for this, I will send you the update tomorrow and will upload it to the asset store as well for both versions of lightmap manager, could you please drop me a PM with your email address and invoice number so I can drop you the update.

Yes, it can be used with Andriod and iOS when we update them, I will submit the update tomorrow and hopefully it gets to the asset store this week.

 

Hello,

I've already made you this question on Youtube, but I wanna be sure you understand what I meant before I buy it.

So, I'll post the question again here, and also attached some example images.

I want to control a house by adding a lightswitch that will turn on/off, but instead of having a real time light, can this be made by Lightmap Manager 2?



This is a sample scene I've made just to explain this better. Here you can see only the sunlight coming in throught the window. Lightmap 01



Now here, imagine this is some sort of lamp turned on. Lightmap 02



And this a ceiling light, an emissive shader. Lightmap 03


Can I control this by external scripting along with your Lightmap Manager 2?
Also, will this work with Light Probes? Having that many lightmaps?

Thank you!


EDIT: I've tweaked that scene a little bit just to make another question. What if I want to make a lightmap for each individual Emissive Light? Will that be possible to easily switch on and off?

 

Hi

You can use lightmap manager lite to switch between lightmaps which is FREE and if you like it then you might consider buying any of our tools in the future , if you are using iOS or Andriod then you might also want to drop me an email so I send a fix for it as we are fixing some issue for iOS and Andriod on lightmap manager lite.

However the following are my answers to the questions below:

If you want to bake multiple states then switch between them "whether with lite version or LM2" which is what I think you are trying to do then the answer is yes, if you want to to merge between the lights "i.e bake each light alone" then the answer is not yet, but I will be glad to provide such functionality "Merge" in the next update for LM2.

We haven't tested it yet but we will test it and if it does not work now we will make it work in the next update

I will make sure this feature comes to life in the next update of LM2 as we are working on its documentation and some fixes as well for both versions.

Thank you so much for your interest in lightmap manager, hope you find it helpful to you .

Note: Providing support is always our pleasure, there is a dedicated support tab that comes with the tool as well.

 

I've tried to use the Lightmap Manager Lite, and I can switch between two lightmaps. How can I switch between one more lightmap?

 

Hi,

I have replyed to you by email as well but thought to put my answer here for anyone else having the same issue

First of all, thanks for your interest in lightmap manager, to switch between lightmaps use one of the following techniques:

1-Add the switch component -> add all of your lightmap textures to the near and\or far textures then set it to trigger in "Execute ON" field then you can simply add the following code to your script:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. Switch slm =   this.GetComponent<Switch>();
3.  slm.AdjustSwitching(1, 1);

where 1 in this context is the index of your lightmap in the lists, the first param is for the near lightmap, the second param is for the far lightmap.

2- If you want to directly manipulate the lightmaps list you can use the a function and give it the textures instead of indices and in this case you will not need the switch component at all just roll your own script and call the following function:

Code (csharp):

1.          
2.     int index = obj.renderer.lightmapIndex;
3.            SwitchLM.switchmaps(index, far, near);
4.  

Where
index is the lightmap index we want to switch in the current context it is the lightmap index for the current gameobject
far is the Texture2D for the far lightmap
near is the Texture2D for the near lightmap

Hope this help you out to do switching between multiple lightmaps, in case you needed anything it will always be our pleasure to help you out.

 

Does this work on IOS or Android? Thanks

 

Yes it does we have uploaded a new tutorial as well explaining the features and how to use them seen below:

 

Any word on this working under Unity 3.5 RC? It does not load the light maps that I have generated.

InvalidCastException: Cannot cast from source type to destination type.
LightmapManager.OnGUI () (at Assets/MXDLightmapManager/Editor/LightmapManager.cs:197)
System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)

 

We are working on an update for 3.5 but we can't launch it yet to the asset store, if you wish, drop me an email and I will send it to you

 

we found a problem on the "OnGUI()" function in LightmapManager.cs.
In our developpment process, we are using Subversion, and each file on the project has an .meta file associated. So, when we use the "load" button to switch the lightmap, the "TextureImporter importer" (on line 198) try to load the .meta and, of course, the Importer doesn't want to import the .meta as Texture !
An other test is needed here to exclude subversion file

Thanks !

 

Ok, let me fix this and update the Asset store, also could you please drop me your email so I can send you the update

 

BTW your main video is now marked as Private and doesn't play.

 

I will fix it right now thank you so much

 

I'm using Unity 3.4.2f2. After i imported Lightmap Manager 2 from the Asset Store I get a lot of errors, and it says my meshes don't have UV's...
I've attached a picture of the errors.


You can open the image in a new window/tab to get a better view of the errors...

 

There is a new update with all of these issus fixed that will get uploaded to the asset store shortly but if you wish drop me an email or send me your email via pm with your invoice id and I will send you the latest updated version.

Lightmap Manager was a bit platform dependent but we have fixed it to become cross platform.

 

Hey Baha,

I'm having the same issue with Lightmap Manager Lite. Can I send you a PM with my e-mail and get the fix for that? Thanks.

 

Sure

 

Hey Baha,

I know you're pretty busy, but I wanted to check if you got my PM or not? I look forward to the update. Thanks.

 

Yep, sorry for being late on you, I will send you the update soon

 

So what's the status on the update?

 

Sorry for being late with the update as we are prepering for GDC and we don't have a final update yet but drop me an email or PM me and we send you our latest today

 

How about me? Can I get the update sometime?
: )

 

I am interested in the per object baking and saving feature, but I would like to hear some review from users.
Is the tool updated for working with Unity 3.5?

Thanks

 

Great looking tool! Before I purchase, just had a couple questions...

The animated lightmaps look especially cool. Does anyone have experience using the animated lightmaps on ios? Seems like it would be quite processor intensive for mobile-- but maybe lightmaps are quicker than I think?

Secondly, what are best practices for optimizing batching using Lightmap Manager 2? I suppose one could batch objects one by one or by groups with your tool to optimize batching? Another asset out there optimizes batching by automatically grouping objects with the same texture into the same lightmap. Are there plans to incorporate something similar with Lightmap Manager 2?

Thank you very much!

 

Hello,

I have a similar question as angel_m.

Has the tool been updated to support Unity3.5 ? Specifically does it support Directional Lightmaps ?

 

We use Beast lightmapping for quite a few of our projects. Does this work with Beast, or does it do its own lightmapping?

We want to use it, but probably can't if it isn't compatible with our existing lightmaps.

 

Hi Baha,

I need to backe lightmap for scene objects that will be used to procedurally create environment.
Will this tool can allow me to do this ? Will this work then on ios ? Will this works with latest Unity Version ?