Game Development — pc lighting FX

Emission Map Guide for Artists

Emission maps are used to describe how much bloom/glow should be emitted from parts of a sprite/texture.

Emission maps are grayscale: black means no emission for that pixel, white means full intensity emission. To start, here’s an example of a sprite with its corresponding emission map:

We don’t want the entire building sprite to be emitting bloom/glow, so we create an emission map in which everything is black except the windows of the building. The result is that only the windows will emit a glow. Most lighting effects should be achieved through programmed lighting and emission, so most art will not need lighting drawn into them.

Example table to describe the relationship between a sprite, its emission map, and the emitted bloom.