Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
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FIGURE 6.17
Screen grab from Second Life showing the texture needed for animated wings (top left) and its applica-
tion to a dragonly vehicle. When the animation script is added, each wing picture (1-4) is displayed the face of the prim
sequentially for a fraction of a second, giving the overall effect of a luttering movement.
6.8.3 T
exTures
WiTh
B
aKed
l
ighTing
and
a
mBienT
o
CClusion
When you get your inal mesh object build textured and lit in your 3D modeler, you will probably have the
option to add in Ambient Occlusion to the render process. Essentially, Ambient Occlusion is a rendering
process that calculates how the surrounding hemisphere of ambient light in the scene will be obstructed or
occluded by the existing objects or buildings. Once this is initiated, it creates a “dirt map” or soft-shadow
map on the entire scene. When this graduated tone is layered into the overall colored rendering of your
model, it can enhance the lighting effects, especially when you have soft daylight or indirect glow in the
scene. At this point, the shaded and lit texture can be unwrapped from the surface of the model and saved
as a lat texture ile or “Baked texture.” When the model is imported into Second Life or OpenSim, the
mesh model and its lit, shadowed, and colored baked texture comes with it and is reapplied to the surface.
3D Modelers like 3DSMax and Blender offer Render to Texture (creating a baked texture), and UV unwrap-
ping features in their programs to help you create this effect.
All of this effort in prerendering or “baking” the shadows and lighting of Ambient Occlusion onto the
surfaces in your model is to encourage a speedy graphics performance for the visitor in your game or virtual
world. The less work the graphics card has to do with each texture, the smoother and faster the frame rate
will be for the visitor. If you have a model that you would like to view with Ambient Occlusion before you go
through the baking process, you can see how this effect looks inworld by turning on Advanced Lighting and
Ambient Occlusion in the Avatar/Preferences/Graphics menu (Figure 6.18).
6.9 PROJECT: DESIGNING A DATA VISUALIZATION
ENVIRONMENT: YOUR 3D TIMELINE OR RÉSUMÉ
Virtual environments connect with external databases via specialized LSL (Linden Scripting Language)
functions. The introduction of real-time data visualization or data display within the 3D environment has cre-
ated some sensational results in the art and communication design sectors. This connectivity gives you many
interesting ways to explore a database and your relationship to data being collected in real time worldwide.
