RTCW has issues with vertex lighting and shaders… namely… if you want things vertex lit, you can’t do certain things with shaders.
Before I start bump mapping things, is it possible to do bump mapping and not have the shader go fullbright under vertex lighting? For this project I’m on, vertex lighting is more important… but I’d like to do a bump mapping effect.
What kinds of things are we bound by if we want proper vertex lighting?
Bumpmapping = Lightmap only.
You shouldn’t even compile in Vertexlight.
Make sure all of your shaders have nopicmip, and you don’t compile vertexlight.
(This will assure that cheaters won’t be able to use vertex or go to picmip 6 and gay your map up.)
Yeah… this map is for competitive play though… so vertex should be an option… being a competitive player myself, I want to do vertex lighting so I can “gay” the map up 
Also, I noticed that the compiler doesn’t recognize “nopicmip” in shaders… maybe it’s jsut one shader that’s misspelled, but I always see an error message regarding shaders with nopicmips in them.
I did a bunch more readong on bumpmapping, and tried to implement it… couldn’t get it to work though. I’ve been setting a .1 lightmapscale, low thresh, super 2, etc… maybe my bump map is to complicated?
Is the alpha layer of the normal tga necessary for proper bump mapping? I’m using PS 7.0, and it won’t save that alpha layer… and PS won’t update to 7.01 for some reason 
I’ve seen some people using JPGs for bump mapping… so I’m thinking an alpha layer in the TGA is unnesessary… something I’m missing?
While I’m at it, are there any link to working shaders and textures for bumpmapping? I’m thinking I should just use one that works to play with before trying to make my own
Matt,
You have something against people with lower end systems ? Picmip 2 and vertex light can make the difference between ‘unplayable’ and pretty smooth. BTW, there is no way you can "not compile vertex light’ … (the -vlight compile option has nothing to do with the in game option)
PB gives server admins the ability to conrol how gay (as in bright and chearful :D) the players settings can be, so there is no need to try to do it in the map.
Hummer, see the recent threads about :q3map shaders. As long as all your shader stuff is compile time (bump map should be, since it just goes into the lightmap AFAIK), and you have an image of the same name, this should do what you want (giving non-fullbright vertex lighting)
If you are using an official texture that already has a shader, I suppose you would have to make and distribute a new copy of the image…
I assume you looked at this thread ?
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=880
Hummer, see the recent threads about :q3map shaders. As long as all your shader stuff is compile time (bump map should be, since it just goes into the lightmap AFAIK), and you have an image of the same name, this should do what you want (giving non-fullbright vertex lighting)
Yeah… I’m doing that for the map I’m working on… I figured out after the thread was posted that bumpmapping only deals with lightmaps… I jumped the gun a bit I guess
If you are using an official texture that already has a shader, I suppose you would have to make and distribute a new copy of the image…
No need to… I just remade the offical shaders (the ones I wanted to use)… you don’t need to redistribute the actual texure.
I assume you looked at this thread ?
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=880
Yeah… but it didn’t help me… I get distortions only if I use the settings in that thread… a low thresh, 2 for super, low lightmapscales, etc. I thought my problem might lie in the alpha channel that isn’t saving in my nomal TGA for the bumpmap… I need to play around with it more though… see if I can get someone else bumpmapping to work first
[quote]If you are using an official texture that already has a shader, I suppose you would have to make and distribute a new copy of the image…
No need to… I just remade the offical shaders (the ones I wanted to use)… you don’t need to redistribute the actual texure.
[/quote]
Right, but if it has any shader, then vertex lighting will be fullbright. (well, any shader with a lightmap stage I guess…)
I’m talking about the situation where wolf comes with
textures/foo/bar.tga
a corresponding shader script
textures/foo/bar
and then you make your own
textures/foo/bar:q3map
to do bumpmaping
So even though you don’t distribute textures/foo/bar:q3map, wolf still sees a shader.
For the bump map, isn’t there a special plugin that generates the actual bump map ? (note, I’m speaking from vague memory here. AFAIK, the compiler takes a ‘normal map’ as input) If you haven’t already, you might try searching on the quake3world.com forums.
Right, but if it has any shader, then vertex lighting will be fullbright. (well, any shader with a lightmap stage I guess…)
I’m talking about the situation where wolf comes with
textures/foo/bar.tga
a corresponding shader script
textures/foo/bar
and then you make your own
textures/foo/bar:q3map
to do bumpmaping
So even though you don’t distribute textures/foo/bar:q3map, wolf still sees a shader.
So, you’re talking only about bumpmapping, right? I’m using textures contained in the standard pk3s, and I used my own shaders… two, one normal one and one with :q3map appened to the end, and I didn’t need to include the texture, and it’s not full bright. I would think that since bumpmapping is a compile only thing, I could get away with sticking bumpmapping stuff in the :q3map shader… maybe I’m wrong
For the bump map, isn’t there a special plugin that generates the actual bump map ? (note, I’m speaking from vague memory here. AFAIK, the compiler takes a ‘normal map’ as input) If you haven’t already, you might try searching on the quake3world.com forums.
Yeah I’ve been checking them out, but the go-to tutorial I found says to make an alpha layer for use with that plug-in, which I do, but it doesnt save because of PS 7.0 bugs. Since it’s not working, I’m wondering if it has something to do with that bogus alpha layer, or something else… I seem to be doing everything else right 
I’m on a low end system (GeForce 1) and it’s fine.
-novertex in the light compile = BLACK MAP when you go to r_vertexlight 1. It’s great… People shouldn’t use vertexlight in the first place SINCE THE COMMAND WASN’T EVEN MEANT FOR THEM. (People with GeForce f’n 4s, etc. That command was intended for people with Voodoo 1 cards, etc.)
-novertex, and nopicmip shaders = a mapper’s dream come true. Throw in a little -patchmeta, and you’ve got a map that no one can make look lame.
Congratulations on creating a map that people will refuse to play.
I can see you’ll get on with ET - rumours indicate it won’t allow config tweaking. But since tweaking IS allowed in RTCW, don’t expect people to play your map by ruling out tweaking. Why not spend the extra effort and make your map look decent in vertex lighting? It IS possible, if developed with this in mind right from the start. Mainly you just want to avoid fullbright hell, that’s all.
I remember when I had to use vertex light because my old POS Radeon VE played everything dark and was very un tweakable (yes I set r_ignorehwgamma 0). It didn’t look half bad and I cut down the time my system spent considering how to project the lightmap properly and more time for it to let me play. There is nothing wrong with vertex light other than you don’t like it for God alone knows why. Just because someone can’t afford the new high end hardware to play the map with lightmap mode is no reason to exclude them from being able to enjoy a map. Unless you’re a complete and total ass that is.