Need help - AO questions
Hello I have a few questions regarding AO maps, firstly I seem to be getting a random black dot after baking in Maya, I'm not sure why?
Secondly, I tried to bake an AO map out with some UVs going outside the 0-1 area because I want it to tile a bit and not keep it inside the box, however when baking it doesn't add any information to that area.
So when baking AO maps can you not have anything outside the 0-1 box if you want unique shading detail on it?
Finally, the top and the bottom of the table have unique shading information baked on it, however I want it to share the same wood texture space because the wood is exactly the same on both parts, so usually I would just overlap it and have better resolution than it is now, however because I want shading information separate for the top and bottom do they have to have their own space? is that the case with AO maps?
Thanks in advance, I'm pretty new to this
Secondly, I tried to bake an AO map out with some UVs going outside the 0-1 area because I want it to tile a bit and not keep it inside the box, however when baking it doesn't add any information to that area.
So when baking AO maps can you not have anything outside the 0-1 box if you want unique shading detail on it?
Finally, the top and the bottom of the table have unique shading information baked on it, however I want it to share the same wood texture space because the wood is exactly the same on both parts, so usually I would just overlap it and have better resolution than it is now, however because I want shading information separate for the top and bottom do they have to have their own space? is that the case with AO maps?
Thanks in advance, I'm pretty new to this
Replies
If you want to share the same texture across several UV islands, offset them +1 or -1 in U or V, that way the UV island inside 0-1 will bake down the details, and the ones outside will be excluded from the bake, but will still tile ontop of that detail.
for your last question, depending on where you are going to use the AO textures, you can use a 2nd UV set for the AO.
This way you can have your diffuse on 1st UV channel with overlapping UVs and shared texture detail and your AO on 2nd UV channel with all unique unwrap.
This obviously wont work if you want to overlay it in PS since then both sides will get the same shading.
You also have the option of baking your AO to the vertex colour, that way bypassing overlapping UVs all together.
Thanks for the help, I'll look into vertex colour method