Need help UVW unwrapping and my AO bake

MaroonMak

Hey guys! I am completely new to the forums and pretty new to the world of modelling. I am currently working on my first model in 3DSMax 2012, and I have this weird problem around the edge of my texture. I think it is easier to understand with pictures, so here you go:

Thanks in advance!
One last thing, is it possible to make all the AO bakes one one texture, because I currently have about 8 different AO bakes, several without a lot in them. Sorry if this is too basic of a question for this forum, I couldn't really find a lot of forums on modelling.

Kurt Russell Fan Club

You need to increase your edge padding when you bake your AO.

To bake more things to one texture, merge all your objects that should use the same AO texture sheet. If you need them to be separate objects for some reason, just make a copy of them all and merge those.

MaroonMak

Thanks!
How should i go around increasing my edge padding in 3DSMAX 2011?

Kurt Russell Fan Club

It's in the render to texture dialog. Select an object and press '0' and it's right there.

Butthair

Edge padding is the excess bleed after the edges of the UV island. If your bg is black, the black is going to bleed in.

You can tell there isn't padding because of the bleed and most likely the texture you have only colors to the very edge of the UV's - it's redundant I know but hear me out. If you are baking in 3dsMax, there is the option to add edge padding - but this is only for baking, it won't do it do an already made texture.

In photoshop, you can make a copy of your final diffuse or normal or what have you, and add a subtle gaussian blur followed by stacking the layers.

Go to http://www.cgtextures.com/, then Tutorials, scroll all the way to the bottom, the tutorial is called "Alpha mask background trick". Although it is only talking about using it for something with an alpha mask, I generally do this on all my texture at the very end. In the last part, he explains a more complex version dealing with lots of color change and solving it. Feel free to check out some of the other tutorials, they are very helpful and I consider them invaluable to have learned them myself.