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Finally some light on lightmaps. Light maps are used for static objects in a game environment. Computation of lighting for a complex scene or an open environment can be pretty cpu intense and slow down your FPS. The best way as of now to increase those FPS is to make use of light maps.

IrrEdit

What does a light map do ?
Light-map basically deals with the caching of bitmap based on light placements in a scene. These bitmaps can then be used in your 3d scene as textures to emulate the light/shadow to give a realistic looking environment. With the help of multi-texturing and blending, amazing close to real world environments can be created.

There are a lot of tools that can help you create light maps. If you are a newbie and want to try out free tools then following are some you can try out.

• Lightmap Maker ( http://www.awingsoft.com/LightMapMaker/lightmapmaker.htm )
• IrrEdit ( http://www.ambiera.com/irredit/ )

The above tools pretty much help a newbie to understand the aspects of lightmap and also create some cool looking 3d worlds. Explore them and i am sure you will be amazed with what these tools can create for you.

If you find something better or new ways of doing it , float your ideas through comments.

Also have a look at these links:

1. http://dubane.com/cons/max2004/helpers/lightmapping.html
2. LightMap Xtra from vagtmedia
3. A howto lightmaps from XForm