How do you (or do you) lightmap such a long shrub section? I have created some shrubs in my scene using one stick with leaf cards. I instanced the piece several times to ceate several shrub sections through-out the scene. However, for this section shown in the pic, I have a circle divided into four sections, each one mesh. Using the flatten mapping tool in 3ds Max, I’m getting this giant mess of a lightmap layout for it. I’m thinking this is likely not the solution I’m looking for. Any thoughts or advice on how to proceed? Do plant sections like this even need lightmaps? I know some people simply use emissives on vegetation, esp when using the foliage tools (I’m not here).
You should UV unwrap each shrub separately. Then you can import it once and just place instances of the same shrub over and over again in the world.
Also cool environment. Looks like Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy VIII in this shot.
Instead of using flatten, try just using the arrange elements button instead (I can’t remember if it was called that specifically but it should be something close).
Otherwise, have you tried using preview build 4.5 automatic lightmap on import feature?
Thanks. Balamb it is. As you can see here below, It looks right when I use a single piece instanced several times, but wrong when turned into a giant mesh:
it happens because of insufficient light map resolution needed to store baked light information, i made apartment where floors and wails were using same light map but i cranked up LM resolution to 1024