Bake Normal Map into AO

PhilipK

Hey again,

So this has been bothering me a bit as I just can't seem to get it to work, should be a simple problem really though, I've done it before in MAX.

I'm using Maya 2012 atm and I want to bake out a lowpoly AO, BUT I want to include normal map information into the AO bake. Basically because I often have a lot of normal map edges on trims and stuff, and I want those to be included when the AO is baked so you won't get a sharp seam there because of the Lowpoly AO map.

I don't want to smooth the edges on the AO bake as that'd just give a big gradient instead, I want it sharp still.


Supposedly XNormal should be able to do this:



But when I check those settings in the image above nothing happens, it just bakes out the AO as usual without the added normal map info on it.

So here's a super simple image explaining a bit what I want, I want an AO bake kind of like the crappy fixed image I did at the bottom:



Anyone know how I could achieve this easily?

(to make things more interesting I want to use UV1 for the normal map and spit out the AO with the normal info included on it to UV2 - this already works fine with XNormal for example, except the normal info isn't there..)
I've tried doing this just in Maya too without any result


Thanks,

Philip



EDIT: Crap, sorry it's in the wrong forum section! Please move this to the technical discussion

JoshVanZuylen

You can bake normal maps in photoshop using NDo2. Though its results vary on a model-texture basis.

When rendering in xnormals, inside the list of things you can render is an option. It's either AO or Ambient Occultion. This needs a model though.
There is also an option to render normal maps into AO's in he tools window I believe.

PhilipK

Hey, thanks for the reply. Yeah Any type of texture AO like that isn't really what I'm looking for.

I really just want it to get into the mix of my lowpoly AO bake as it'd remove the sharp edges.
As you said it seems like there is an option for it in XNormal, just doesn't seem like it works for me

sltrOlsson

Have you looked in to Knald? Unfortunately it doesn't handle UV borders that well. Could be forth checking out though!

PhilipK

Yes I have, it's actually what I rendered this lowpoly AO with I love knald!
It can ALMOST do this, it can include normal info to the AO bake, but sadly it doesn't take the model's face normals into account when it adds it, so it's just like adding an AO from nDo on top of your model in PS

I actually want the normal map to basically erase and add AO depending on concave and convex edges (almost like adding a cavity map, but not quite). I basically want the AO to come out as if it was baked with beveled edges even tho it doesn't have that (since the normal map already takes care of that),

disanski

If I am understanding this correctly, I think you can do this in 3ds max. Apply your normal map to the low poly mesh and render your AO. That should take care of it. I use to do this when I was rendering AO from very high polygon count mesh. Not sure if this is possible in Maya or Xnormal.

edit: - looks like I did not read the first sentence and you already know this.

Noors

I'm not sure AO algo can do that ? I'd use GI with white material and environement.

Pedro Amorim

This is something I've been wondering about for some time now.
I think I rememeber reading on Laurens Corjin webiste that you can use vray to do this. But I have never been able to test it out.

Basically apply the nmap to the model and bake out a lowpoly AO.
Might be worth investigating.
Subscriving this thread for further reading.

Isaiah Sherman

After you lay out your UVs, dupe the mesh, subdivide it, then bake the AO map from the subdivided mesh, then take the bake and put it on the low poly object.

Is that what you mean?

almighty_gir

wouldn't a quicker way be to bake AO down to your highpoly in zbrush (just do one of their ultra fast and messy uv maps for the highpoly), and then bake that down as a base colour from polypaint in xnormal?

Pedro Amorim

That's cool. But sometimes when you do an exploded bake, you need to make the lowAO afterwards to get the self oclusion of all the parts together.

PhilipK

Thanks for the replies, been testing out some more stuff but not with the result I want yet.
Will continue to try and find a good method for this.

I will definitely try out GI instead, saw on another forum someone mentioned making a sphere with a gradient map on to get the normal map info from there, I suppose something like skylight light tracer render in Max almost.

PogoP

Hey Philip, just found this thread. Did you ever make any progress on this, and find a way to do it? I've been looking to do stuff like this after baking an exploded mesh! Seems like something that would be super handy.

Boyordo

If I may sneak in a question to you guys who can do what philipk is asking about, but in max, how do you do that? I have tried using vray for this but i just don't get a properly lit ao result. The normal gets in there but its lit from a angle and thus doesn't look right

cman2k

Can Substance Designer not do this? You can bake an AO map using your lowpoly and normal map. Not sure if it's exactly what you are looking for.