Bake Diffuse from HP to LP in Max

PredatorGSR

I have a high poly mesh that I have assigned a bunch of different colored shaders (different diffuse colors) so that I can bake it to the low poly that has UV's and use it as a selection mask in Photoshop. I know how to do this in Maya with the Transfer Maps tool, but I'm not sure how to do it in Max.

Could someone explain how to achieve this in Max 2009?

Thanks.

Rang3r1

Bake a complete map.

Most people don't realize this trick to quickly render diffuse to start on their bases.

EarthQuake

bake a diffuse/color map to get just color, complete will bake all lighting etc if thats what you want

PredatorGSR

But how exactly do I do that. I'm new to Max so I don't know where to start...

EarthQuake

Check google or Max's help files for render to texture. Theres massive amounts of info on this if you look.

Rang3r1

Pm me if you need help. And yes, EQ is right, just a diffuse map, I must have had a brain fart, if you want a lighted AO, then bake a complete map.

Ghostscape

Yeah, look up Render to texture in Max, its the Max equivalent of Transfer Maps.

You'll want to add a projection modifier to your low-poly, add the high poly stuff as reference geometry (note: open up your groups first or else it won't see your grouped stuff in the selection list. Likewise, drop an edit-poly modifier on top of any splines or else they don't always show up correctly either). Push and adjust your cage as needed (baking with the cage is like using the "geometry normals" method in Maya, IIRC. Baking without the Cage is like using the "surface normals" method).

Press 0 with your low poly selected, make sure the [use projection modifer] button is checked, under setup you can change render settings and missed ray color, etc.

You can add maps down below, I usually bake out a Diffuse, Normal, and Lighting map, dropping a skylight into my scene and turning on the light tracer (go to render->advanced lighting->light tracer to turn it on). You could also switch your renderer to Mental Ray so you can bake AO.

but uyeah theres a ton of info.

Don't ever bake a complete map for fucks sake, you can get any specific info you want out of the various maps, the Complete map is just an amalgamation of all of them. You can bake lightning/normal/diffuse all at once and not have to futz around with changing amterials to white to get a "complete map AO" or setting the materials to fullbright to get a "complete map color" or whatever.

Complete map killed my dog

Also make sure you set up your paths for each of the maps as the render window shows you a complete map which is pretty much useless

PredatorGSR

Great thanks, yea the big issue I was having is that the selection list couldn't see my HP group, so I got stuck on that. Thanks for taking the time to explain the steps.

kdm3d

yeah... cant bake through groups... when will they fix that? ugh...

Shogun3d

kdm3d wrote: »

yeah... cant bake through groups... when will they fix that? ugh...

yeah, however on a plus note, you can export out groups in .obj to xnormals. Works like a champ.

Ghostscape

you can bake "through" groups, you just have to open up the groups (select everything in your scene, and keep going to Groups->Open until you can't any more), add everything, and then close the groups up.

The really annoying thing is that in 2009/2010 (one of these) they added the ability to add renderable splines to the projection modifier...but didn't add them projecting unless you drop an edit poly modifier on them...which you used to have to do anyways.