Nightlighting Windows in Gmax

Recommended skill level: A basic knowledge of Gmax.

First we need a model to light up. I already have one ready, but this process can be used on any model you like. Here is an example:


As you can see, we have a box, with two floors and four windows.. the two from the left side have frames, but the right ones don't.. why? well,

Step number one on lightning is how you texture your windows!!

For the left windows, we are gonna use a transparent glass texture.. like this:



After applied we should get something like this:



How will the others be textured?

with a special texture.. both transparent and opaque.. like this:



As you can see on the material navigator, we have for the new material navigator two different maps, a diffuse color and an opacity map.. this last map will tell where you will see the texture, where you will not see, and where you sill see it, while able to see through it, in this order, where the map is white, black and gray.. the final result can be seen at the viewport.

After both textures are applied lets see how it looks..



Both windows are a bit dark.. that's because the background can be seen through, so we have to change that too.
We will do that by creating two rectangles (the same number of floors) and extrude them by 0.0m.. so we get flat planes which we put on the beginning of each floor like this:




Now let's do a preview:



Don't know what was better.. the dark or the pink.

The second step is to texture the floors.

So we are going to select the pink planes and texture them.. with what? Well, the best textures are more yellow, but also have all kind of colors on it.. shall have shapes on it too. Having things that you should see on the building you are making is also good.

This is the one I'm using:



So, when you do a new preview again we should get this:



Now they are much better. It looks like the house has life.

Final step on lightning is the actual lights!

Now we are going to compare the standard night maps used by many with the method we are using from the beginning.

First select both glass planes and change them names to: nite_window or something alike.. This will enable the night maps to these planes. After this, create a omni light, and add some color to it, I usually make them like this:



And change its name to nitelite_1 for instance. copy it as much times as much windows you want to light up. place them centered with the window and put them ~1.5m away from them, next to the ceiling. Through trial and error you will be able to adjust the multiplier to best results, and then you should get something like this:



As you can see, there are some differences.. My method brings a bit more life to the building.