Cant get simple extrudes to bake

HomeGrownHeroz

I've been working on a Tardis model from Doctor who and cant seem to progress around a baking issue im having. The model is essentially just a box with some extrusions here and there and yet whenever I bake it in either Maya or xNormal the extrusions simply do not come through in the bake. I've tried with cages, ray distance calculators in xNormal, envelopes. I've set the mesh up as an explosion as well and yet still issues. Has anyone got any suggestions on what I assume (and hope) is me being a complete fool





I've baked plenty of times before whilst doing character stuff and generally get alright results so I'm abit stumped atm because I'd have thought the simpler geometry would prove more straightforward?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

MrNinjutsu

Go into tools and use ray distance calculator for like 10-15 seconds, copy the results and then try to bake. As perna said, you'll get less desirable results if the angle is exactly 90 degrees.

HomeGrownHeroz

@perna

Thanks for reply. I did read something about this last night and understand what you mean. Is there a way to accomplish what I'm wanting to do then? Because I have modelled the high poly to exactly how it is supposed to look. The tardis does have those perfect 90 degree angles which I don't really want to have modelled onto the low poly as it be excessive in tri counts. Is this where a height map comes into it?

@MrNinjustu

I generally use the ray distance calculator but in this instance didn't prove much help

WarrenM

Yeah, just to reiterate so the lightbulb clicks on. Normal maps do NOT record depth. At all. All they record is changes in surface direction. That's IT. So if a surface is parallel to the projection, it won't be seen.

Once you understand that concept, it's a snap.