3ds max custom render elements

GordonHalfman

I'm learning about the render elements options in 3ds max which can do things like output images with Z depth information or material IDs.

Is it possible to extend this functionality in any way? I'm trying to replicate this technique for creating pre-rendered 2.5D game assets with depth and lighting information:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q6ISVaM5Ww&feature=BFa&list=UU2v17nExfu7pg7eGSRJ2rxw"]XNA RPG 2.5D Game Engine - Updated WIP - YouTube[/ame]

The concept is to create a texture which contains per-pixel data for the surface normals and the Z coordinate of the object in world coordinates. This is quite similar to some of the render elements options on the face of it, but is there any way to extend it to do what I want?

Thanks for any advice.

Kurt Russell Fan Club

There's no reason you couldn't use the same process you'd use for baking this information from a highpoly to a lowpoly. Only here, your lowpoly would be a plane.

If you wanted to make a normal texture and depth texture for a tree:
* Create your tree highpoly
* Create your lowpoly object (a plane)
* Select plane and render to texture, adding the tree object(s) to its projection mapping list
* Add a height map and normals map
* Set up your cage if you need to
* Bake!