If you have the uvs of let's say 3 same elements overlapped, select the uv of 2 elements and offset them of 1 unit in the unwrap and let only the one you want to bake in the 0-1 square.
As far as I know there isn't an option to push the UV's forward or back. There is a UW mode to the editor but I can't find out what it does and moving the pieces around doesn't seem to do much of anything. If U is horiz and V is vertical W is... depth? Or its just some mode that allows you to work in one way UW is only editing U and VW is only editing V? I don't know... the max help file is very unhelpful and there isn't any documentation I can find online... BUT maybe W is depth and its the answer you're looking for (my gut says no btw).
Aside from that... Are you using2 meshes (target/source) projection mapping? Because that won't matter which UV pieces are in front or behind, it will always render from the surface, unless the ray depth is too shallow or the cage doesn't include everything.
The only time it should render like your saying is if you're not using projection mapping and trying to rendering to a single mesh.
"There is a UW mode to the editor but I can't find out what it does and moving the pieces around doesn't seem to do much of anything."
That´s the way it should work and has worked for me in the past.
uvw is just the same as xyz basically. The "camera" looks from the top, so if you have overlapping uvs the ones higher on the w axis will render on top of the lower ones.
Doesn´t matter if you render a projection btw. because we are talking about uv space here. So which of the uv´s get rendered on top is one topic and what gets projected to those uvs is a different one.
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If you have the uvs of let's say 3 same elements overlapped, select the uv of 2 elements and offset them of 1 unit in the unwrap and let only the one you want to bake in the 0-1 square.
but what i mean is suppose i have a rivet on a a surface and i want the rivet to bake correctly over the surface
it needs to be on top
i usually make 2 bakes and edit in photoshop
thought i can save time if theres a n option to set which parts of the UV be on top
thanx for the help man
Aside from that... Are you using2 meshes (target/source) projection mapping? Because that won't matter which UV pieces are in front or behind, it will always render from the surface, unless the ray depth is too shallow or the cage doesn't include everything.
The only time it should render like your saying is if you're not using projection mapping and trying to rendering to a single mesh.
That´s the way it should work and has worked for me in the past.
uvw is just the same as xyz basically. The "camera" looks from the top, so if you have overlapping uvs the ones higher on the w axis will render on top of the lower ones.
Doesn´t matter if you render a projection btw. because we are talking about uv space here. So which of the uv´s get rendered on top is one topic and what gets projected to those uvs is a different one.