Renderer taking way too long for a basic normal map

Chase

Over the past few weeks I've noticed 3ds Max's Scanline has taken an enormous amount of time to bake. We're talking a 2048 map to take upwards of an hour to render. This has just come out of the blue. I'm pretty sure it's a memory thing, but I'm not completely certain. Any ideas or fixes I can do because like I said this wasn't the case a few weeks ago. I haven't run a test on another model to see if maybe it's just this particular mesh giving me trouble so I'll do that in the mean time. My scene in Max is really low in polys too.

tynew

Are you rendering a normal map with a skylight in the scene?

Chase

I am in fact. Though I just rendered an AO map and its taking just as long. 30 min and only half of it's rendered


Edit: just rain other tests. It's happening with any mesh I bake with or without a skylight. Now I'm at a loss

.Wiki

Have you thought about using xNormal for your Normalmap and AO bakes? Its much faster and gives good results.

joeriv

Have you got any extra maps that it is rendering out and you forgot to turn off?
Are these times with or without supersampling/hammersley on?

besides that (really weird problem, so might as well ask), any problems running games?
Or if you haven't played any games recently, have you taken a look at your temps/cpu clock to see if the thing isn't overheating/underclocking.

Chase

I do have xnormal but ive never used it so i dont really no where to begin. I could look up some tutorials but would really like to figure out this random issue. I have other meshes loaded in the same scene that are separate bakes but those maps wouldn't matter I'd think right? These times are with supper sampling enabled. How do I check my cpu clock?

.Wiki

Have you tried it with a empty scene and just one model and not multiple ones? Maybe those other models are also considered within the AO calculation even if they dont distribute to your baked map.

Chase

Ok just tried that and it was much faster. I find this rather odd though because I've had scenes with MUCH higher tri counts and they baked just fine. Weird, but thanks for the help guys!

Jet_Pilot

Don't use MR for generating normal maps.
Also you don't need ANY lights for generating AO if you use regular Mental Ray.

Fingus

I don't use scanline. But in my experience the polycount and compliexity of the highpoly can have a big impact on your baking time, and with a high sampling/antialiasing setting the render time will grow exponentially. How dense is your highpoly, and what settings are you using?

Chase

I have Global Super Sampler enabled with 10 samples and filter size set to Area and 1.5. For Light Tracer I have the samples set to 500, filter size 2, and bounces to 1. I've also had the Light Tracer set to default settings of 250 samples, .5 filter size, and 1 bounce. Doesn't seem like anything too drastic. The bake times any scene are just outrageous still. I spoke too soon when I thought I fixed it