Texture Baking tutorials

[n6]

RTT work perfectly here but the problem is that the technik to bake texture has changed at every Vray update
It depends on what version you use.

Do you feel it's as good as the others out there right now if you bake your textures?

Sorry but what do you mean with "others"?

I dont know if that was your question but yes every scene can be converted for a realtime walkthrough with a very very good quality and realism. At least I can

[schmyvol_eye]

@ n6 - how

@ N6

hope this thread still gets checked, since I have a question about the technique you use to get your lightmaps into the 3d engine.

I'm working with quest and am trying to do exactly what you have done. When using RTT, what file format do you use? do you use the vrayimage format? or the openEXR format?

Here's my problem. When I save the maps as JPEG's and I combine the RAW light and RAW Gi in Photoshop (plus the diffuse map), the results I get dont match up with original render. My Lightingmap tends to be much darker and there are also other differences which become really noticable in the end. I read on the forums that the reason I'm getting this is because I dont combine floating point images (EXR), but since I dont have access to After effects or a similar software (and no money to buy) it's impossible for me to comp the RAW GI and the RAW Light pass together properly.

You dont seem to be having this problem, how do you do it? Dont you comp your RAW GI and RAW Light maps before taking them into the realtime engine? or do you simply assign (as described in an earlier post) the diffuse map to map channel 1, the Gi map to channel 2 and the Light map to channel 3 in the realtime engine, without every compositing them out of the engine?

I hope this isnt to confusing and you know what I'm getting at.

another question I have about that sibenik cathedral in one of your posts. Did you attach all the meshes together and then repacked the UV's? must of been a lot of work. it was extremely painstaking to do this in Max with the UV editor there for just a simple flat. But then again I packed the UV's of everything, even the smallest piece of furniture.

and the last thing. about that dragon in one of your posts. how did you go about decreasing the mesh density for it? because manually editing the mesh would take like, 20, 30 years...

thanks for any help... really struggeling with this.
cheers,
y

[MediaDream]

Re: @ n6 - how

and the last thing. about that dragon in one of your posts. how did you go about decreasing the mesh density for it? because manually editing the mesh would take like, 20, 30 years...

I don't know exactly how he proceed but when you work for low poly project
you make a high res model and a lowpoly mesh envelopping the high res.

then you project normals of the high poly on the lowpoly and you got a low
density mesh with the high details look.

hope I was understandable

[schmyvol_eye]

yep

yep very understandable. but that dragon model was pre-existing (i think) so he made a low poly model from the high poly version. thats what eludes me. but if he did make both models from scratch then this question is answered.

shot for the reply!

cheers,
y

[n6]

Re: @ n6 - how

Here's my problem. When I save the maps as JPEG's and I combine the RAW light and RAW Gi in Photoshop (plus the diffuse map), the results I get dont match up with original render. My Lightingmap tends to be much darker and there are also other differences which become really noticable in the end. I read on the forums that the reason I'm getting this is because I dont combine floating point images (EXR), but since I dont have access to After effects or a similar software (and no money to buy) it's impossible for me to comp the RAW GI and the RAW Light pass together properly.

I dont do my the compositing of RawGI and RawLighting channel in Photoshop, but in the realtime 3D engine.
It must be different in Quest3D I suppose but with BSContact VRML multiteturing it looks like this :

"MODULATE" "MODULATE2X" "ADD"

the first MODULATE is the base texture material the MODULATE2X multiply the base texture with the RawGI and the ADD well... adds the RawLighting to the previous result.

another question I have about that sibenik cathedral in one of your posts. Did you attach all the meshes together and then repacked the UV's? must of been a lot of work. it was extremely painstaking to do this in Max with the UV editor there for just a simple flat. But then again I packed the UV's of everything, even the smallest piece of furniture.

Regarding the UV packing : yes all my geometry is one object (at least when I work on it in max). I then do some auto packing, look at the result and find the parts that are wasting space, I cut it in order to have a better packing at the next auto packing phase, and so on... until I reach a good cluster covering ratio (over 60%).

and the last thing. about that dragon in one of your posts. how did you go about decreasing the mesh density for it? because manually editing the mesh would take like, 20, 30 years...

select your object/modify/add the modifier MultiRes/ play with it until you get satisfying result.

[schmyvol_eye]

wow THANKS!

wow thanks a lot!

I wasnt expecting a reply so soon but this is brilliant.

I dont do my the compositing of RawGI and RawLighting channel in Photoshop, but in the realtime 3D engine.
It must be different in Quest3D I suppose but with BSContact VRML multiteturing it looks like this :

"MODULATE" "MODULATE2X" "ADD"

the first MODULATE is the base texture material the MODULATE2X multiply the base texture with the RawGI and the ADD well... adds the RawLighting to the previous result.

yes quest can do this exactly the same way it seems. if this works you are my hero (and a godlike being).

Regarding the UV packing : yes all my geometry is one object (at least when I work on it in max). I then do some auto packing, look at the result and find the parts that are wasting space, I cut it in order to have a better packing at the next auto packing phase, and so on... until I reach a good cluster covering ratio (over 60%).

darn! I never knew you could do that! I always let the autopacker do its thing and afterwards manually edit (and delete) the UV's I didnt need. But it never occured to me that you could do another autopack afterwards, so that the deleted UV's stay out. OMG gotta try this as soons as possible!

select your object/modify/add the modifier MultiRes/ play with it until you get satisfying result.

okay I knew about Multires, but I didnt know it could give such good results. do you know of a good normal mapping tutorial? on how to apply the normal map of the highres model to the lowres model? mind you, you've done enough as it is, but asking is free

Unfortunatly I'm going away tomorrow till monday, but when I get back and this works, you and me, were gonna marry. :P

thank you very much in any case!
cheers,
y[/quote]

[n6]

[schmyvol_eye]

uhh one more

hey, just to get another in before I go away...

I was wondering about something last night. Lets assume you're baking a flat. My plan was to make one map for all the floors, one for all the ceilings, one for the walls, another one for windows and the final one for all the furniture. I want the floors, walls and ceilings to be especially detailed, thats why I'm thinking of doing it this way.

but if my train of thought is correct then for each of those "objects" I'd be then left with 3 maps per object, one diffuse, the RAW GI and the RAW Light. so thats 5*2=10 large maps (I'm not counting diffuse since they are smaller and tiled anyways). 6 of those map will definetly be in the range between 1024*1024 to 2048*2048. Now assuming I really have 6 2048*2048 maps, wont that have severe impact on performance?

In your sibenik cathedral you only had 1 RAW light map and 1 RAW GI map each at 2048*2048. I'm sure this doesnt impact performance too much but if you have six of them, it might.

what do you think?

thanks and till tuesday!
cheers,
y

[n6]

Re: uhh one more

hey, just to get another in before I go away...

I was wondering about something last night. Lets assume you're baking a flat. My plan was to make one map for all the floors, one for all the ceilings, one for the walls, another one for windows and the final one for all the furniture. I want the floors, walls and ceilings to be especially detailed, thats why I'm thinking of doing it this way.

but if my train of thought is correct then for each of those "objects" I'd be then left with 3 maps per object, one diffuse, the RAW GI and the RAW Light. so thats 5*2=10 large maps (I'm not counting diffuse since they are smaller and tiled anyways). 6 of those map will definetly be in the range between 1024*1024 to 2048*2048. Now assuming I really have 6 2048*2048 maps, wont that have severe impact on performance?

In your sibenik cathedral you only had 1 RAW light map and 1 RAW GI map each at 2048*2048. I'm sure this doesnt impact performance too much but if you have six of them, it might.

what do you think?

thanks and till tuesday!
cheers,
y

well... first : this way, it would require you to do the job at least 3 time... but if you want extra top quality thats the way to go.
second : yes you would have a load of textures... and it would fill up the video card memory. So the perf would depend on the total aviable video memory (32Mb to 512Mb).
What you should do if Quest support this kind of textures is to convert all your maps into DDS format that use less video memory since it is stored compressed.

[schmyvol_eye]

I dont do my the compositing of RawGI and RawLighting channel in Photoshop, but in the realtime 3D engine.
It must be different in Quest3D I suppose but with BSContact VRML multiteturing it looks like this :

"MODULATE" "MODULATE2X" "ADD"

the first MODULATE is the base texture material the MODULATE2X multiply the base texture with the RawGI and the ADD well... adds the RawLighting to the previous result.

Heya,

I've tried what you said I should do in Quest, but the result I got was not what it should have been (way too bright). The result of blending the maps together the way you described left me with a really burnt out map. I tried a couple of different settings but to no avail.

Could you possibly post an image of what your RAW GI and RAW Light map looked like after saving them from Vray? I've got a feeling that I'm doing something wrong in max, not in quest. What render settings and GI method did you use? and what color space were you working in? this would be really helpful!

thanks a mill!

[n6]

Regarding the lightmap : look in the first page of this trhread, I have allready posted it. For the RawLighting its perfectly black 95% of the map and near perfectly white where the sun rays hit the visible surfaces.

If its too bright you may have a gama problem between max and your RT engine.
The best thing is to save your datas into vrimg file format, then extract the RawGI channel as exr file, open it into Photoshop and adjust you gamma value to (probably) 2.2 and also maybe the exposure a bit down.

[schmyvol_eye]

If its too bright you may have a gama problem between max and your RT engine.
The best thing is to save your datas into vrimg file format, then extract the RawGI channel as exr file, open it into Photoshop and adjust you gamma value to (probably) 2.2 and also maybe the exposure a bit down.

thanks n6, you're being extremely helpful!

but since I'm new to the vrimg format and to exr, is there a tutorial on how to extract the exr files from an vrimg file? and is there an option to adjust the gamma value of an image in PS by a number, like 2.2?

thanks once more!

[n6]

Go to the download section and get the vray img converter. Then launch it in a DOS windows : it will give you all the instructions.
There is also somewhere in the forum a post than talk about the converter.

Only Photoshop CS2 would read 32bit EXR images, then in it you can ajust the image exposure and gamma.
But HDRSHOP can do the same I think.

[schmyvol_eye]

sweet mate!

okeedokeee, last question, then I'll stop bugging you

what color space were you working in? linear or exponential? or doesnt this matter for the final result?

thanks!

[n6]

linear