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Originally posted by Jonathan Wilson:
ok, here is the full story on lighting in W3D files.
1.there is the WLT file. A WLT file is basicly a bunch of light definitons. The format of these is documented in the w3d_file.h and stuff, its not complex.
2.there is the PRELIT_VERTEX and PRELIT_LIGTHMAP chunks in the w3d file. The format of all the relavent chunks is documented in w3d_file.h so thats not a problem
and 3.there are the special lighting textures. For example nod_tower001.w3d has a folder called nod_tower001+ that has a file called 0.dds in it.
These texture files contains some kind of lightmap information, how it works I havent a clue.

Acording to Greg Hjelstrom, westwood uses some special commercial costs big $$$ lighting tool then runs the output of that tool through some special in-house program to generate the 3 items above. Anyone that has the necessary information (the formats of the relavent chunks plus the deails of how the special textures works) and the necessary skills could write their own lightmapping tool. I havent heard anything anything indicating that abjab or anyone else is working on such a tool but I might be wrong

As for abjabs w3d->gmax converter and stuff, the reason its not out yet is because the people working on it havent got the time (too busy with other things I guess)

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Ok, Jonathan, thanks for the useful info you gave me.