[Maya] Map baking - Custom search envelop error

Spudnik

Hey guys,

I'm trying to bake out a pointlight map in Maya and when I go to specify a custom search envelope, I get the error

// Error: Please select exactly one mesh to use as an envelope //

Which I have. One lowpoly mesh to bake to, one mesh that acts as my cage (same vertex count etc. - just the lowpoly with vertecies translated outwards along their normal) and multiple highpoly meshes I'm baking from. Any idea what's the issue is here?

Alternatively, are there some better methods for baking point light maps?

Thanks!

throttlekitty

Try disconnecting the cage from the low poly. (If you created it via Transfer Maps)

passerby

delete all the cages and remake them via transfer maps or by hand.

the cages should all be children of your low poly meshes in the outliner

Spudnik

I still feel like I'm McGuyver'ing this but if I do

1) Select bake target geo, hit "add selected" in Transfer Maps
2) Make cage geo a child of the bake target geo.
3) In the TransferMaps window under Traget meshes switch the 'Display' to 'Envelope'
4) It creats a new geo as a child of the bake target geo that has my cage geo as a child in turn so it looks like:

bakeGeo
___cageGeo
___BakeGeoShapeEnvelope (<- creaed by Maya)
______cageGeo

It seems to work, but it still seems like a brute force approach to something that should be easier O.o

Bartalon

I don't think the cage needs to be a child of your target mesh, unless it was done so automatically by Maya.

This was my hierarchy when I did a test bake for normals and point lighting and received no errors (and a solid bake):

TargetMesh
TargetMeshCage
__TargetMeshCageEnvelope  <-- Created by Maya
SourceMesh

I'm not sure why Maya appends an extra child mesh but adjusting the Search Envelope slider moves the user-created cage as you would expect, without there being a duplicate envelope.