Sorry, I missed your post as we posted at similar times. It looks as if your UVs are still overlapping which will cause errors in the bake. It's probably good practice for you to fight through this as you will gain more experience in Blender, which can be quite tricky to learn.
I feel that I still need some help. I think I know now how to do it theoretically, but my UVs look so much different than the ones in your video that I feel like I have to do like a 100 steps to do it as you did it. May I send you my model by mail so that you can have a look? Perhaps its totally easy, and I'm just stuck, perhaps it's just one settings that is off for me.
In your video and screenshots I can see the "UV Vertex" pane. How would I show that? I did hit "N" to bring up a pane, but the "UV Vertex" section is missing for me.
Any update with position map baker? Currently our studio is in advanced production stage and it would be great if there will be opportunity to speed up process of baking using only Knald. Currently we need to bake position map separately so it's making extra task on pipeline.
I wanted to inquire about the Knald freelance license. The license is also mentioned as being non commercial. So can I sell products created using the freelance licence. Also if I wanted to upgrade to a studio license is there a transition fee that I could pay (2 people)
Any update with position map baker? Currently our studio is in advanced production stage and it would be great if there will be opportunity to speed up process of baking using only Knald. Currently we need to bake position map separately so it's making extra task on pipeline.
We don't have a public release for this yet unfortunately. Hopefully it wont be too long. Sorry!
I wanted to inquire about the Knald freelance license. The license is also mentioned as being non commercial. So can I sell products created using the freelance licence. Also if I wanted to upgrade to a studio license is there a transition fee that I could pay (2 people)
The Freelancer license absolutely allows for commercial use (regardless
of revenue). It is designed for freelance and/or non-commercial use.
The EULA is a little more complex in terms of legal wording but
essentially the only stipulation for the Freelancer license is that to
be eligible for it you have to be an individual, or a single person
company and that person has to be the licensee. Other than that you can
use it for whatever you want pretty much.
We also do offer an upgrade from Freelancer to the Studio license where you essentially pay the difference and we will convert your current license. When you want to upgrade send us an email at support@knaldtech.com and we will talk it through with you.
Can I ask for an amazing feature which will make Knald even more greater then it is now? I don't how it technically could be done but if it is possible - that'll be a winner of bakers I think)))) So the feature we need (exept of position pass and AO groupping): Round Edge Shader for highpoly. Cheers, EGGO.
Is it possible to export maps without an alpha channel? Having to go into photoshop and remove them manually so I don't see seams in Substance can get a bit tedious when you're exporting several maps.
Can I send some meshes over to figure out what's going on here? I have a bug crop up every-so-often where my cage is not matching up with what I have in 3ds Max's viewport.
Max highpoly/cage:
Knald highpoly/cage:
I've tried exporting as OBJ and FBX and this happens.
Importing the FBX files into Marmoset shows what I would expect (what I have in Max).
And to test, I whacked it into xNormal quickly and it bakes correctly:
Can I ask for an amazing feature which will make Knald even more greater then it is now? I don't how it technically could be done but if it is possible - that'll be a winner of bakers I think)))) So the feature we need (exept of position pass and AO groupping): Round Edge Shader for highpoly. Cheers, EGGO.
Thanks for the suggestion & sorry for the late reply! It's on the user wishlist!
Is it possible to export maps without an alpha channel? Having to go into photoshop and remove them manually so I don't see seams in Substance can get a bit tedious when you're exporting several maps.
Not currently, but I will talk to the team to see if this would be possible.
Can I send some meshes over to figure out what's going on here? I have a bug crop up every-so-often where my cage is not matching up with what I have in 3ds Max's viewport.
Thanks for the post! Could you please try changing the "Ray Distribution" dropdown in the bake options to "unadjusted" and see if that helps? You will need to rebake for this setting to take effect once changed.
That totally worked, thanks for the quick reply. I've just checked the Knald FAQ; and I'm a little confused as to why this was needed in this scenario... I've been using Knald for all these other assets and it worked great without changing this. Any more info to help me understand this?
It's likely that you just didn't notice before as the change is probably quite subtle most of the time.
Aligned forces the cages vertex positions to be aligned with the soft normal, whereas unadjusted retains the absolute vertex positions found within the cage file. Using the soft normal can result in a more even distribution of rays, which is why it is set to default, but sometimes it can cause issues similar to what you were getting on thin geometry.
All in all it's only a setting you need to change if you are either having issues with the bake or for some reason require the exact vertex positions found within the cage file.
Hope Knald will get some updates soon. I'm skipping last two project without Knald by using latest MT (mostly because of a lot of AO groupping I should deal with) but didn't want to completely switch out. Give me some hope metalliandy plz)
Will there be UDIM support? I'm currently doing it by hand which is really time-taking and which could easily be done by my computer. I'm really hoping that the update will support it. Thank you.
I upload this file in google drive please check because it gives me only one specific mesh though I have more inside like 9 low poly and 11 high poly but when I baked it gives me only "ONE" they are all in the same UV 0-1. I don't want to work in obj please.
Hi @royor Unfortunately Knald doesn't currently support multiple meshes within a single FBX yet, so unfortunately obj is your only option for now. We hope to address this soon.
I upload this file in google drive please check because it gives me only one specific mesh though I have more inside like 9 low poly and 11 high poly [...]
If you want to bake an fbx with multiple _high onto an fbx with multiple _low, use the "by mesh name" baking function of Substance Painter. But if it sounds exciting at first, truth is baking in parts and with the truly amazing inner-outer (cage-range) cage of Knald, you'll get better results. Or at least you SEE what you'll get before clicking "bake". Whereas in Painter sure you get clean results, but it's pure randomness as you don't see shit. No cage there, only values from 0.01 to 1. So it bakes fast, by mesh names, but you have to rebake many times before getting what you want. Anyway. Export your different tools into different fbx or objs. Eventually work your smoothing groups in Max or hard/smooth edges in Maya to get better results on hard surface objects, and then bake them one by one with proper inner-outer cage values in Knald. Import all that in Painter and you're good to go.
Hi @royor Unfortunately Knald doesn't currently support multiple meshes within a single FBX yet, so unfortunately obj is your only option for now. We hope to address this soon.
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thank you now I know what I need to do, this baking tool is really fast compared to substance painter, baking 4K with max AA is really fast in my charcoal laptop and I hope it will be on your list that baking inside one fbx with multiple mesh inside is a nice to have feature.
I upload this file in google drive please check because it gives me only one specific mesh though I have more inside like 9 low poly and 11 high poly [...]
If you want to bake an fbx with multiple _high onto an fbx with multiple _low, use the "by mesh name" baking function of Substance Painter. But if it sounds exciting at first, truth is baking in parts and with the truly amazing inner-outer (cage-range) cage of Knald, you'll get better results. Or at least you SEE what you'll get before clicking "bake". Whereas in Painter sure you get clean results, but it's pure randomness as you don't see shit. No cage there, only values from 0.01 to 1. So it bakes fast, by mesh names, but you have to rebake many times before getting what you want. Anyway. Export your different tools into different fbx or objs. Eventually work your smoothing groups in Max or hard/smooth edges in Maya to get better results on hard surface objects, and then bake them one by one with proper inner-outer cage values in Knald. Import all that in Painter and you're good to go.
I wanted to use Knald because its really fast I tried with simple geometry and compared both knald win the most.
baking in painter is like always a trial and error and it takes a lot of time before its done baking. i use blender.
A bake Mat ID from ZBrush polygorups has been an idea around since 2015. Now it's May 2018 and I begin to lose hope.
It is a MUST have option. Substance does it and you cannot imagine the incredible amount of time and precision when painting that you earn from having an ID Map. I love baking with Knald but not being able to have an ID map is an issue as I still have to bake in Substance for that. Honestly what I'm doing recently : I define the Push/Range for the cage in Knald. And when I have proper values, I go in Substance, copy those values (1.423% becomes 0.1423 in Substance for example) and I bake everything from there. That's too bad right.
Please consider this option. It's not just a little thing. ID Maps is what makes the PBR or hand painting process MUCH easier.
Hi @royor Unfortunately Knald doesn't currently support multiple meshes within a single FBX yet, so unfortunately obj is your only option for now. We hope to address this soon.
0 Links
how about Single OBJ with multiple mesh inside? I still didn't try this. it will be a big plus on your list if working inside one single fbx with multiple mesh inside. nonetheless its really faster compared to painter and I have more control over the cage just like in marmoset toolbag.
thank you at least I know I need all to separate. ill give it a go again.
I upload this file in google drive please check because it gives me only one specific mesh though I have more inside like 9 low poly and 11 high poly [...]
If you want to bake an fbx with multiple _high onto an fbx with multiple _low, use the "by mesh name" baking function of Substance Painter. But if it sounds exciting at first, truth is baking in parts and with the truly amazing inner-outer (cage-range) cage of Knald, you'll get better results. Or at least you SEE what you'll get before clicking "bake". Whereas in Painter sure you get clean results, but it's pure randomness as you don't see shit. No cage there, only values from 0.01 to 1. So it bakes fast, by mesh names, but you have to rebake many times before getting what you want. Anyway. Export your different tools into different fbx or objs. Eventually work your smoothing groups in Max or hard/smooth edges in Maya to get better results on hard surface objects, and then bake them one by one with proper inner-outer cage values in Knald. Import all that in Painter and you're good to go.
I use SP in baking with this that is why I tried one of my model inside Knald for test but as said by metal it isn't support at this time.
painter is all random when it comes to baking, I use blender in modeling and smoothing groups. I have view the youtube of Knald and its really faster comapred to painter i have less gradient into some smooth area.
Hi @royor Unfortunately Knald doesn't currently support multiple meshes within a single FBX yet, so unfortunately obj is your only option for now. We hope to address this soon.
0 Links
how about Single OBJ with multiple mesh inside? I still didn't try this. it will be a big plus on your list if working inside one single fbx with multiple mesh inside. nonetheless its really faster compared to painter and I have more control over the cage just like in marmoset toolbag.
thank you at least I know I need all to separate. ill give it a go again.
I upload this file in google drive please check because it gives me only one specific mesh though I have more inside like 9 low poly and 11 high poly [...]
If you want to bake an fbx with multiple _high onto an fbx with multiple _low, use the "by mesh name" baking function of Substance Painter. But if it sounds exciting at first, truth is baking in parts and with the truly amazing inner-outer (cage-range) cage of Knald, you'll get better results. Or at least you SEE what you'll get before clicking "bake". Whereas in Painter sure you get clean results, but it's pure randomness as you don't see shit. No cage there, only values from 0.01 to 1. So it bakes fast, by mesh names, but you have to rebake many times before getting what you want. Anyway. Export your different tools into different fbx or objs. Eventually work your smoothing groups in Max or hard/smooth edges in Maya to get better results on hard surface objects, and then bake them one by one with proper inner-outer cage values in Knald. Import all that in Painter and you're good to go.
I use SP in baking with this that is why I tried one of my model inside Knald for test but as said by metal it isn't support at this time.
painter is all random when it comes to baking, I use blender in modeling and smoothing groups. I have view the youtube of Knald and its really faster comapred to painter i have less gradient into some smooth area.
Substance Painter feels really random when baking (we can't see the inner/outer cage like Knald). And on some pieces it just doesn't work and project some parts on others even when I use the cage values from Knald. I tried baking the ButtStock part of the gun thereafter with Substance and it was literally impossible without cutting the buttstock in 3 pieces because of nonsensical ray projections of some areas onto very distant others. I bake with Knald and as always : PERFECTION. The mesh is 4500 polys and feels like the 13million ZbRush Sculpt.
The only real pb of Knald in my opinion is the lack of one option : Baking ID Maps from ZBRush's polygroup information. This is the only real advantage of Substance Painter's baker. Because their widely advertised "bake by mesh name" is useless : each part of an object needs its own cage values. And their "by mesh name" bakes everything with the same cage values. It sounds good, but but when it comes to practice, it's not really usable and you spend more time in Substance "estimating" than precisely doing the job. Thanks Knald for that : so much better !
A bake Mat ID from ZBrush polygorups has been an idea around since 2015. Now it's May 2018 and I begin to lose hope.
It is a MUST have option. Substance does it and you cannot imagine the incredible amount of time and precision when painting that you earn from having an ID Map. I love baking with Knald but not being able to have an ID map is an issue as I still have to bake in Substance for that. Honestly what I'm doing recently : I define the Push/Range for the cage in Knald. And when I have proper values, I go in Substance, copy those values (1.423% becomes 0.1423 in Substance for example) and I bake everything from there. That's too bad right.
Please consider this option. It's not just a little thing. ID Maps is what makes the PBR or hand painting process MUCH easier.
Thanks
Prove me wrong but you actually can bake ID maps from Zbrush: First, fill all your subtools\polygroups\etc which needs to have IDMap with color (polypaint for polygroups function in ZB for example) and export. Use Vertex Color map type at Bake Targets to bake ID Map in Knald.
Yet sometimes there're problems with seams in SP after Knald but it can be fixed by deleting alpha channel in Photoshop. That could be great to somehow to be made automatically in Knald... Or may be I just don't know where to find this magic button)
We've had reports that some people are unable to run Knald correctly with the 397.31 & 397.64 NVIDIA drivers due to OpenCL issues with the drivers. If you've been affected, please install the 391.35 drivers which should resolve the issue until NVIDIA can release a fix.
In regards to ID maps from ZBrush, yes, it is possible. You can either split the polygroups into separate subtools and export them separately with subtool master and import into Knald as multiple HP meshes & bake regular matid, or you can assign polypaint to each subtool and bake vertex colours in Knald.
@tmighty It really depends what you mean. Technically a normal map is a bump map, as are derivative & height maps (normal & derivative both contain directional data whereas height does not), but assuming you mean the greyscale textures that contain high frequency data I would probably suggest that you run the normal map via the integrator with a low number of iterations (1 or 2 should be good but settings may depend on the normal map).
You can run normal map through the integrator by either manually loading a saved texture or by baking a normal map and hitting the "Update Integrator" button that is found under the Pre Process/Bake button within the Bake Settings group.
As a secondary option image AO might work well too, but ofc, it depends on your content.
Some more detail as to what you expect would be great. If you are a little more specific then I can probably help you out some more.
Thanks. I just found that out that I can also use Normal maps instead of Bump Maps so the bump map question has been "solved" in such that I don't need it anymore.
I wanted to process some flowers, but it results in strange maps. Usually, I don't have any problems with Knald, but these don't come out right, I think. Would you mind having a look? I have uploaded the files here. This is what I'm seeing:
@tmighty Yes, it seems that the UVs are overlapping for each rose petal and you have lots of intersecting geometry where the front and back of each walls of each petal are very thin. Making each petal slightly thicker will help with the bake for sure.
@EGGO Thanks, I didn't notice that. I used ZBrush' Decimator with the option "Keep UVs". I thought that would do it. Currently I have no idea how to keep nice UVs while decimating.
So far I've only did the other way around: I started with a lo poly model, created UVs, then I subdivided it which of course kept the UVs. But I go the rose model from a website, and it was a hi poly UVed model. Can you suggest what I should do?
Thanks. I will check that, but for now I've tried the following: I used a different rose that had multiple subdivs. I exported the highest and the lowest subdiv.
But the results are still strange. Could anybody have a look again?
Been away from Knald for a while. Last time I tried using it, I couldn't because it interferes with vertex data when you import your mesh, even going so far as to weld vertices. This makes it unusable for everything except the most basic character baking. Has this changed, or is this still the case? It really sucks because XNormal has a bad interface and can also be a lot slower. Its a really bizarre choice on the part of the developer as it seems they went out of their way to interfere with the data being passed in.
Been away from Knald for a while. Last time I tried using it, I couldn't because it interferes with vertex data when you import your mesh, even going so far as to weld vertices. This makes it unusable for everything except the most basic character baking. Has this changed, or is this still the case? It really sucks because XNormal has a bad interface and can also be a lot slower. Its a really bizarre choice on the part of the developer as it seems they went out of their way to interfere with the data being passed in.
Knald will always respect the vertex normals if they are present in the
high and low poly files. It will, however, smooth the vertex normals if there is no
vertex normal data present within the mesh file on import as generally this is preferable to most people than having a completely faceted mesh.
This essentially means that a cube with 6 physically separated
quads/12 triangles and 24 vertices will become a cube with 12
triangles with 8 vertices if there is no vertex normal data present within the mesh. Providing the vertex normal data on
export from your 3d application will always stop this happening on the
high and low poly, so if you need a mesh with splits specifically then vertex normal data must be exported with the file, rather than exporting with no vertex normal data.
When no cage is given by the artist, Knald will use the smooth normal for the ray shooting direction as opposed to the imported normal on the LP. We do this because allowing for splits in the shooting direction results in discontinuities in the capture which are generally not desirable.
However, we do understand that there are cases where this may not be the desired outcome, so we will see if it's possible to allow users to use hard edges/splits in the cage file so users can bake this way if they wish.
Knald has been my baker of choice for a while now, and today I kept getting some errors in the normal that were driving me crazy until I realised it was only happening when baking with AA enabled - is this supposed to happen? As you can see it is causing really distinct banding in areas, maybe I'm doing something wrong here. Ideally I would like to use AA without this happening!
Replies
Also if I wanted to upgrade to a studio license is there a transition fee that I could pay (2 people)
The Freelancer license absolutely allows for commercial use (regardless of revenue). It is designed for freelance and/or non-commercial use.
The EULA is a little more complex in terms of legal wording but essentially the only stipulation for the Freelancer license is that to be eligible for it you have to be an individual, or a single person company and that person has to be the licensee. Other than that you can use it for whatever you want pretty much.
We also do offer an upgrade from Freelancer to the Studio license where you essentially pay the difference and we will convert your current license. When you want to upgrade send us an email at support@knaldtech.com and we will talk it through with you.
I don't how it technically could be done but if it is possible - that'll be a winner of bakers I think))))
So the feature we need (exept of position pass and AO groupping): Round Edge Shader for highpoly.
Cheers, EGGO.
Max highpoly/cage:
Knald highpoly/cage:
I've tried exporting as OBJ and FBX and this happens.
Importing the FBX files into Marmoset shows what I would expect (what I have in Max).
And to test, I whacked it into xNormal quickly and it bakes correctly:
Not currently, but I will talk to the team to see if this would be possible.
Thanks for the post! Could you please try changing the "Ray Distribution" dropdown in the bake options to "unadjusted" and see if that helps? You will need to rebake for this setting to take effect once changed.
It's likely that you just didn't notice before as the change is probably quite subtle most of the time.
Aligned forces the cages vertex positions to be aligned with the soft normal, whereas unadjusted retains the absolute vertex positions found within the cage file. Using the soft normal can result in a more even distribution of rays, which is why it is set to default, but sometimes it can cause issues similar to what you were getting on thin geometry.
All in all it's only a setting you need to change if you are either having issues with the bake or for some reason require the exact vertex positions found within the cage file.
Hope that helps!
If you have any other problems be sure to let me know!
We are currently working on an update and with any luck (and lots of hard work
As soon as the beta is out everyone will know about it!
@tmighty UDIM is indeed on the todo list
thank you metal.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vLTzotSb79i9fdOb3XnAljhAMT4RBtnB
If you want to bake an fbx with multiple _high onto an fbx with multiple _low, use the "by mesh name" baking function of Substance Painter.
But if it sounds exciting at first, truth is baking in parts and with the truly amazing inner-outer (cage-range) cage of Knald, you'll get better results. Or at least you SEE what you'll get before clicking "bake". Whereas in Painter sure you get clean results, but it's pure randomness as you don't see shit. No cage there, only values from 0.01 to 1. So it bakes fast, by mesh names, but you have to rebake many times before getting what you want.
Anyway. Export your different tools into different fbx or objs. Eventually work your smoothing groups in Max or hard/smooth edges in Maya to get better results on hard surface objects, and then bake them one by one with proper inner-outer cage values in Knald. Import all that in Painter and you're good to go.
thank you now I know what I need to do, this baking tool is really fast compared to substance painter, baking 4K with max AA is really fast in my charcoal laptop and I hope it will be on your list that baking inside one fbx with multiple mesh inside is a nice to have feature.
baking in painter is like always a trial and error and it takes a lot of time before its done baking. i use blender.
thank you at least I know I need all to separate. ill give it a go again.
I use SP in baking with this that is why I tried one of my model inside Knald for test but as said by metal it isn't support at this time.
painter is all random when it comes to baking, I use blender in modeling and smoothing groups. I have view the youtube of Knald and its really faster comapred to painter i have less gradient into some smooth area.
thank you at least I know I need all to separate. ill give it a go again.
I use SP in baking with this that is why I tried one of my model inside Knald for test but as said by metal it isn't support at this time.
painter is all random when it comes to baking, I use blender in modeling and smoothing groups. I have view the youtube of Knald and its really faster comapred to painter i have less gradient into some smooth area.
Yet sometimes there're problems with seams in SP after Knald but it can be fixed by deleting alpha channel in Photoshop. That could be great to somehow to be made automatically in Knald... Or may be I just don't know where to find this magic button)
Hope that helps!
You can run normal map through the integrator by either manually loading a saved texture or by baking a normal map and hitting the "Update Integrator" button that is found under the Pre Process/Bake button within the Bake Settings group.
As a secondary option image AO might work well too, but ofc, it depends on your content.
Some more detail as to what you expect would be great. If you are a little more specific then I can probably help you out some more.
Hope that helps!
I wanted to process some flowers, but it results in strange maps.
Usually, I don't have any problems with Knald, but these don't come out right, I think.
Would you mind having a look?
I have uploaded the files here.
This is what I'm seeing:
I would do something similar to the following:
I used a different rose that had multiple subdivs.
I exported the highest and the lowest subdiv.
But the results are still strange.
Could anybody have a look again?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/givy8rnvvnxfget/rosesztl.zip?dl=0
Step 1+ 2 would be in Knald, and step 3 to 9 would be in Blender, right?
Thanks for the post!
Knald will always respect the vertex normals if they are present in the high and low poly files. It will, however, smooth the vertex normals if there is no vertex normal data present within the mesh file on import as generally this is preferable to most people than having a completely faceted mesh.
This essentially means that a cube with 6 physically separated quads/12 triangles and 24 vertices will become a cube with 12 triangles with 8 vertices if there is no vertex normal data present within the mesh. Providing the vertex normal data on export from your 3d application will always stop this happening on the high and low poly, so if you need a mesh with splits specifically then vertex normal data must be exported with the file, rather than exporting with no vertex normal data.
When no cage is given by the artist, Knald will use the smooth normal for the ray shooting direction as opposed to the imported normal on the LP. We do this because allowing for splits in the shooting direction results in discontinuities in the capture which are generally not desirable.
However, we do understand that there are cases where this may not be the desired outcome, so we will see if it's possible to allow users to use hard edges/splits in the cage file so users can bake this way if they wish.
Hope that helps!
As you can see it is causing really distinct banding in areas, maybe I'm doing something wrong here.
Ideally I would like to use AA without this happening!