Bake to Texture and Procedural Clouds

[ChrisR]

In testing a "bake to texture" workflow with procedural clouds in Vray 6, it appears that the clouds are not recognized when texture baking. Did I overlook a setting or are these two things not compatible at this point?

Attached are some quick images - these are excerpts from a larger scene, simplified for testing. I can also upload this scene if needed.

Thank you.

[hermit.crab]

Maybe a cloud's shadow is overlapping with the object's shadow? Baking seems to work properly on a fresh scene. Yes, attach the scene so we can take a look.

[ChrisR]

Attached is an archive of the scene. The cloud shadows are turned off, but a cloud is blocking the sun in the render on the far left. I'm looking to replicate that look for the baked texture, but keep getting the harsh shadow.

Thank you!

[hermit.crab]

Indeed, a cloud was blocking the sun. Well, you can always adjust the clouds until you get a mix between the harsh and soft shadows. Something could be done in post as well, however, the result wouldn't be physically accurate and may look odd.

[ChrisR]

Yes, the cloud blocking the sun is intentional. It was requested by the client for a 360 view to create a diffuse lighting condition while also having blue sky in other areas of the panorama.

I am trying to match that same look with baked textures, but I get harsh shadows in my baked texture even with the clouds turned on. It appears that "bake to texture" does not recognize procedural clouds. My question is: How do I set up the bake to texture to match the results of the
still rendering when using procedural clouds?

[^Lele^]

You may need to render an HDR dome of the clear environment, and use that instead of the procedural sun and sky.
Notice you will need 32bpc to ensure you can store the sun data correctly (likely, even if occluded.).
Attached, render with sun and sky, render of the dome (render it unexposed! it's displayed as exposed for the sake of viewing it in here.) and render with the dome instead of sun and sky (sorry for the slight camera change, i was sloppy.).

procedural sun and sky:

Rendered panorama:
Scene rendered without sun and sky:

[ChrisR]

Awesome! Worked like a charm.Thank you so much!