2 - Static lightmap baking

Overview

Enlighten provides static light baking functionality in GeoRadiosity. For each light that is marked for baking, Enlighten calculates the light's visibility and then bakes the direct light contribution with the radiosity and ambient occlusion. Baking produces a high resolution output texture, which is saved in the scene_output\<scene name>\baking folder.

The first image below shows the Arches scene in dynamic lighting mode. The second image shows the scene after baking.

The most obvious difference between baked and dynamic lighting is the more realistic soft shadowing in the baked texture. For more information, see Control Baked Soft Shadows below.

Bake lighting

To bake the lighting in your scene:

Open GeoRadiosity and load your scene.
Select the Precompute tab and click Full Precompute. The scene must be precomputed before you can bake.
Select the Lighting tab.
For each light that you wish to bake, select the light and then select Baked Light. Alternatively, if you wish to flag all lights for baking, click Set All Baked.

Lights that are not tagged as *Baked Light* remain dynamic; radiosity from these lights will be updated in realtime.

Click Bake. The Overwrite Lights File dialog is displayed.
Click Yes to save the lighting configuration. All lights marked for baking are then baked. The GeoPrecompMonitor window displays the baking progress.

The first time you bake, the process may take some time. Subsequent bakes will be much faster, because only updates to the saved lighting configuration are processed.

Preview baked light outputs

When baking is complete, you can use the Compositing options on the Baking tab to preview and modify the baked light outputs. For more information, see the Baking tab.

Control baked soft shadows

To set soft shadows for baking:

In the Lighting tab, select the required spotlight or pointlight.
Select the Light Casts Shadows checkbox.
Use the Soft shadow radius slider to adjust the radius of the light for soft shadows. The radius is rendered as a sphere around the light.

Baked area lights

Enlighten supports real time area lights, including bounce lighting, on PC. These provide a real time preview of the accurate area lighting produced by the baker. Real time area lights are not displayed on consoles.

The intensity of area lights is normalised by area; a small area light has approximately the same perceived intensity as a large area light, although the large area light affects a larger area and generally has softer shadows.

Area lights use a physically correct squared distance falloff model which is different to the simplified models used for point, spot and directional lights. Thus, area lights are much darker in comparison to other light types and/or require higher intensity values to achieve the same level of brightness.

To create an area light:

Click Add Arealight.
Position the light and resize it using the Rectangle width and Rectangle height sliders. The image below shows the area light before baking.

Select the Baked Light and Light Casts Shadows checkboxes.
Click Bake and then click Yes to save the light configuration. The image below shows the area light after baking.

Baking example

The following example demonstrates a typical baking iteration scenario.

The image below shows the Arches scene after baking. All the spotlights have been baked.

After the purple spotlight is moved, the lighting looks "wrong" because the baked light is still being rendered and the lighting is not updating dynamically in realtime.

To preview the new light position:

Select the Force Dynamic Lighting checkbox to render all lights as dynamic. Baked light is no longer rendered and the purple light is updated in realtime as you move it.

Alternatively, you can temporarily deselect Baked Light for the purple light. Now the purple light is dynamic and therefore is updated in realtime. The baked lighting is still rendered.

Finally, deselect Force Dynamic Lighting, select Baked Light for the purple light, and click Bake. Click Yes to save the lighting configuration. The new lighting configuration is baked.