Tools for Softimage
The Bakery for Softimage was a tool I developed to streamline the light baking process for Tony Hawk: Ride and Tony Hawk: Shred.
Previously, I had created a similar tool, The Bakery for Maya, which was used to light the environments for Tomb Raider: Anniversary and Army of Two: 40th Day. However, with our studio’s next project utilizing Softimage, I needed to adapt the system to fit the new software requirements.
Because the art department found the previous tool easy to use and capable of delivering high-quality lighting results, it became my responsibility to develop a new version for Softimage.
Since the tool had to be rebuilt from the ground up, it was an opportunity to add new features and improve upon the old version. The two biggest upgrades were the addition of light map creation and a customizable sky dome with preset options.
Light maps are pre-calculated lighting data saved into image files. They can either be stored separately or composited directly onto the 3D model’s texture, further conserving memory. The Bakery tool merged light maps with textures, streamlining the process.
The advantage of light maps over vertex lighting is that they allow for complex light and shadow details without the need for additional geometry.
The tool supported both vertex lighting and light mapping, giving artists control over how lighting was calculated for each object.
The light dome was a new feature designed to automatically set up lighting that represented both the sun and the sky. For realistic environments, it was essential to have a light source representing the sun and sky illumination to accurately color the shadows. The light dome provided a unified solution, simplifying the process of lighting entire environments with realistic sun and sky effects.
Lighting setups could be easily adjusted using presets and sliders. These presets provided a quick starting point for creating scenes such as sunny days or sunsets, without the need to build the lighting from scratch. With this system, an environment’s lighting could be set up in just minutes.
Artists also had the option to create custom presets for any lighting values they wanted to reuse. These custom presets could be shared among users, allowing for consistent lighting across different projects.
This tool made the lighting process enjoyable for artists and consistently delivered results everyone was proud of. Once completed, it was adopted as the primary lighting solution for the next project, Tony Hawk: Shred.