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Knald - Master Thread

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  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    @JunkieKong

    Thanks for the post!

    What bit depth/size are you exporting at?

    At first glance this looks like a bit depth issue due to the low curvature of the underlying surface. The flat side showing the error isn't 100% flat and the normal map doesn't have enough bit depth or resolution to accurately represent it without quantisation.

    Using 16bit normals, making sure that the HP/LP meshes are flat where they are supposed to be flat and UV splits on smoothing groups/hard edges are probably the best places to start in terms of a possible fix.

    If you try the above and are still having problems, please upload the meshes so I can take look. :)
  • JunkieKong
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    JunkieKong interpolator
    Bit depth was the first thing I considered, and even at 16 bit/4k was still getting the issue! Both high and low poly meshes are incredibly simple, which makes it even more surprising that this is the first time I've run into it.

    Anyway, I'll attach the model files if that helps.

  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    @JunkieKong Thanks for the files. I will test them today and get back to you ASAP
  • tmighty
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    tmighty polycounter lvl 5
    I'm so desperately waiting for the UDIM support. Doing it manually drives me crazy with so many models. :-(((
  • hansolocambo
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    hansolocambo polycounter lvl 8
    May I suggest something that I've needed many times :

    For the first bake, before adjusting the cage Push/Range values, I often remove AO from the Bake targets and reduce the Bake Width/Height. This way the first test bake is fast. When the result is clean,  I run the final bake with AO this time, and the desired resolution.

    So my request, if possible, would be to let the user cancel the bake in progress. If we did something wrong, we always have to wait for the bake to finish. And sometimes, force closing knald is just faster..

    Thanks for considering that. It would be a nice addition I think.

    Cheers
  • tmighty
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    tmighty polycounter lvl 5
    I just wanted to clarify that what I need is not only UDIM but the capability to handle multi-tile textures.
    Will that be possible with Knald?
  • mayamak
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    mayamak polycounter lvl 6
    mayamak said:
    Boonta said:
    is it possible to add " position" baking to sync up with substance painter workflow?
    Thanks for the suggestion!
    It's already on the list of things to add for a future update. :)
    @metalliandy
    I saw on Unity forum (De-Lighting Tool topic) this post of Cyril-Jover and it seems that Unity Technologies Team is using PositionMap baking feature in some beta version of Knald. Could I ask when you will release this version with Position baking? Is it possible to recive beta version of Knald for current customers? Our Nano Team would like to test new baking pipeline fully based on Knald and PositionMap is part of it. 
    @metalliandy is there any chanse for update with position map baking, how long can it take? I mentioned about this feature few months ago. Our studio is currently in deep production and without position map baker inside Knald whole baking and delighting pipeline is timeconsuming and burdensome. Live will be easier when position map baker will be implemented inside Knald, please make it happen :)
  • wilson66
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    wilson66 polycounter lvl 8
    Would love to see an update.

    I actually purchased Knald on  November 11th 2016. It was version 1.2.1 back then (and even had been for some time before I decided to purchase), and as it happens, this seems to be the exact version still current today. Would love to see any kind of progress here.
  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    Hey everyone!
    May I suggest something that I've needed many times :

    For the first bake, before adjusting the cage Push/Range values, I often remove AO from the Bake targets and reduce the Bake Width/Height. This way the first test bake is fast. When the result is clean,  I run the final bake with AO this time, and the desired resolution.

    So my request, if possible, would be to let the user cancel the bake in progress. If we did something wrong, we always have to wait for the bake to finish. And sometimes, force closing knald is just faster..

    Thanks for considering that. It would be a nice addition I think.

    Cheers
    This is something we want to add too. Thanks for the suggestion! :)
    mayamak said:
    @metalliandy is there any chanse for update with position map baking, how long can it take? I mentioned about this feature few months ago. Our studio is currently in deep production and without position map baker inside Knald whole baking and delighting pipeline is timeconsuming and burdensome. Live will be easier when position map baker will be implemented inside Knald, please make it happen :)

    Thanks for your patience with this. Hopefully it wont be long before we can get a beta out.
    wilson66 said:
    Would love to see an update.

    I actually purchased Knald on  November 11th 2016. It was version 1.2.1 back then (and even had been for some time before I decided to purchase), and as it happens, this seems to be the exact version still current today. Would love to see any kind of progress here.

    Thanks for the comment! UDIM is coming in the next release.
    FWIW, 1.1.2 was the current release on Nov 11th, 2016 & we have released 1.2.0 and 1.2.1 since then. ;)

     As I have mentioned previously, we try not to promise specific release dates or force ourselves to hit arbitrary deadlines as it potentially jeopardises stability, which in turn, reduces the quality of our software. We really don't want to release buggy software in order to get a faster release cycle.Of course this does mean that there are longer periods of time between updates, but it also means that people can use Knald with confidence, which is far more important.

    We are always actively working on Knald & try our best to release updates as frequently as possible, but we can only do so when we are confident they are ready for public consumption.
  • mayamak
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    mayamak polycounter lvl 6
    @metalliandy
    Could I ask also for one additional feature to add for export settings? It will be nice to export data to some xml file that is output from Height Baker Statistics > Min, Mid and Max, those from below secreen.


  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    mayamak said:
    @metalliandy
    Could I ask also for one additional feature to add for export settings? It will be nice to export data to some xml file that is output from Height Baker Statistics > Min, Mid and Max, those from below secreen.


    Sounds reasonable :)
    I will add it to the wish list.
  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    @yolik

    Sorry you are having problems! Could you answer the following questions please?

    1. What are your system specs (OS, CPU, GPU model, RAM & VRAM amounts etc.)?
    2. Are you baking with AA on/off?
    3. Does the bake complete at lower resolutions with AA on/off?
    4. Which GPU driver are you using?

    Please feel free to upload the meshes you are using to bake with and send a link to support@knaldtech.com so we can take a look. :)
  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    @yolik

    Thanks for the information!

    It may please you to know that Knald does actually support vertex colours in OBJ, but in the form of 4 hexadecimal values per vertex (most commonly exported from ZBrush). I will definitely add your request to our user wish list though. :)

    I should note however that OBJ generally isn't a great format for storing such things when using very high triangle counts. File sizes on disk can balloon very quickly with the same content stored as PLY using 25% of the file size on disk vs OBJ.

    Do you have an OBJ file with vertex colours that uses the method described on Wikipedia available for us to look at?

    I will check the files you sent today btw!
  • AFR
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    AFR null
    I'm really interested in using Knald for baking (particularly for photogrammetry retop etc), but I can't seem to find any documentation or information on baking diffuse/albedo maps? Can anyone advise if Knald can or will (in the future) support baking diffuse maps? 

    It seems very powerful and all the map options are fantastic, but missing diffuse seems like a huge oversight for a lot of workflows.
  • myclay
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    myclay greentooth
    you could use and bake vertexcolors from your highpoly (which can contain your albedo colours) to your lowpoly.
    Knald in its current state seems to be geared more in accelerating the baking workflow for surface maps
    (taking the highpolys surface into account), not for transferring textures between already textured objects.
    My recommendation for transferring image textures to other meshes would either be Marmosets baking option or Blender.

  • AFR
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    AFR null
    myclay said:
    you could use and bake vertexcolors from your highpoly (which can contain your albedo colours) to your lowpoly.
    Knald in its current state seems to be geared more in accelerating the baking workflow for surface maps
    (taking the highpolys surface into account), not for transferring textures between already textured objects.
    My recommendation for transferring image textures to other meshes would either be Marmosets baking option or Blender.

    Thanks for your reply, I will see if this will do the trick in the meantime. I've since heard back from the developer (hope I'm not spoiling any announcements here) that the upcoming release of Knald will allow diffuse/albedo baking. 
  • tmighty
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    tmighty polycounter lvl 5
    Hello!

    How can I bake the diffuse from the hi to the lo poly model? I don't see this option.

    Edit: I just saw that this question has been asked before. I hope this will be added soon. This is very much needed for photogrammetry.
  • Deadity
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    Deadity polycounter lvl 7

    Could you elaborate on why it is so hard for you guys to keep the certificates up to date on your documentation page?
  • Deadity
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    Deadity polycounter lvl 7
    myclay said:
    Knald in its current state seems to be geared more in accelerating the baking workflow for surface maps
    (taking the highpolys surface into account), not for transferring textures between already textured objects.

    This makes this program absolute garbage. What an absurd oversight.
  • hansolocambo
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    hansolocambo polycounter lvl 8
    tmighty said:

    How can I bake the diffuse from the hi to the lo poly model? I don't see this option.
    If your diffuse is vertex color (polypaint), you can bake it onto the low poly. If it's a "diffuse" (texture on a hi poly with UVs) then work your mesh in ZBrush to generate a polypaint from it (Tool / Subtool / Project / ProjectAll).
    Bake diffuse (vertex color) in Knald :
    - Go to the Baker's tab (Ctrl+B)
    - Bake Targets
    - Add Map : Vertex Colors
  • EGGO
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    EGGO polycounter lvl 13
    So is there any news on update? plz
  • wilson66
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    wilson66 polycounter lvl 8
    My advice is to get Marmoset Toolbag 3, instead of waiting for a Knald update that might or might not be released the day the cows come home, Knald hasn't been updated for several years (!). Toolbag is updated frequently, new bakers are added for free, and it can bake any maps that you will ever need right now, including diffuse texture map transfer from an object to another one of course.

    (And no, I have nothing to do with those developers, just adding my two cents.)
  • EGGO
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    EGGO polycounter lvl 13
    wilson66 said:
    My advice is to get Marmoset Toolbag 3, instead of waiting for a Knald update that might or might not be released the day the cows come home, Knald hasn't been updated for several years (!). Toolbag is updated frequently, new bakers are added for free, and it can bake any maps that you will ever need right now, including diffuse texture map transfer from an object to another one of course.

    (And no, I have nothing to do with those developers, just adding my two cents.)
    Yeah. I'm already there but still have a bit hope to get old good one Knald one day back)
  • hansolocambo
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    hansolocambo polycounter lvl 8
    wilson66 said:
    My advice is to get Marmoset Toolbag 3, instead of waiting for a Knald
    Well, I sadly did that. I've been tired of waiting for an update. Too bad because this offical thread was kind of alive, with good feedback from the dev. But nothing for way too long. I love Knald sure. But now I'm on Marmoset which does everything, greatly. Too bad. Knald was (is) super accurate, way faster to manage high polys. I guess there were not enough buyers to justify more updates. That's sad.
  • Kiwi-Hawk
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    Kiwi-Hawk polycounter lvl 6
    Kia ora

    Am I right hearing Knald as been dropped? I hope not, with mulit mesh and UDIM support this would be choice, also would be nice to to beable to load a substance sbsar as an Albedo option in the viewer
  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    Hey all,

    Knald has not been dropped.

    I try not to keep posting the same information over and over but as I have mentioned previously, we are always actively working on Knald & try our best to release updates as frequently as possible, but we can only do so when we are confident they are ready for public consumption.
    The reason we do not promise specific release dates or force ourselves to hit arbitrary deadlines is because rushing development and deployment potentially jeopardises stability and delays disappoint users if we were to fail to hit previously set deadlines. We really don't want to release buggy software in order to get a faster release cycle.
    This does mean that there are longer periods of time between updates, but it also means that people can use Knald with confidence, which is far more important. Quality is our main aim with Knald. :)

    FWIW, there is a private beta currently being used internally by various studios throughout our industry and we are working with them to refine the new features and functionality we have added before they are made available to the general public.
    The next Knald update is definitely coming and will be released into beta as soon as we feel it is ready for everyone to see.
  • Kiwi-Hawk
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    Kiwi-Hawk polycounter lvl 6
    Thank you for the reply, sorry was not trying to be offencive, I was just trying to dispel what I had heard

    Do you think being able to select a Substance sbsar file as the Albedo in preview mode is a worth while option to have?
  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    No offence taken @Kiwi-Hawk :)
    I will add your suggestion to the user wish list!
  • musashidan
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    musashidan high dynamic range
    @metalliandy hey mate, can Knald bake UDIMS? Saw some posts on here that said no, but recently read a vfx interview on texturingxyz and the artist praised Knald highly. The artist in question was using cutting-edge methods/workflow creating high end characters so I'd be surprised if he wasn't baking serious UDIM sets.


  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    @musashidan Hey! UDIMs are not available in the current build, but it is something we 100% want to add. :)
  • musashidan
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    musashidan high dynamic range
    @musashidan Hey! UDIMs are not available in the current build, but it is something we 100% want to add. :)
    Good to know. I'm using TB at the moment for baking, but I've been considering Knald primarily for its supposed top quality displacement to AO/cavity maps.

    Still, wouldn't be too big a deal feeding the udim disp maps one at a time through Knald.

    Thanks.
  • mayamak
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    mayamak polycounter lvl 6
    There isn't currently a public beta, but we are hoping to make one available soon. Stay tuned :)
    Any news on this? :)
  • Wonderstone
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    Wonderstone polycounter lvl 5
    I have a problem with a baking curvature map.

    When I bake decimated high poly object to low, it happens annoying spots on the baked map. For example;

    Actually, this one is not a very good example because there is a lot of skin pore details but I'm not talking about them, the problem is little different dots everywhere, some of them look like triangles. Is it totally normal for decimated objects?

    Thanks.
  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    I have a problem with a baking curvature map.

    When I bake decimated high poly object to low, it happens annoying spots on the baked map. For example;

    Actually, this one is not a very good example because there is a lot of skin pore details but I'm not talking about them, the problem is little different dots everywhere, some of them look like triangles. Is it totally normal for decimated objects?

    Thanks.
    Hi!

    Without seeing a screenshot (the image isnt loading above) or the meshes, it's hard to say with absolute certainty, but I expect this is indeed down to the use of decimation. The baked curvature in Knald is generated directly from the High Poly mesh (true curvature), so it's likely that artefacts are already in the high poly mesh and Knald is picking them up.

    Generally decimation doesn't do a very good job at ensuring all the faces are of a uniform size and in the areas that show the problems there are often small, thin triangles, either in isolation, or that form a ledge with a single vertex in the centre. Concave faces and situations where one of the vertices of a triangle is placed in such a way that it causes the face to overlap itself are also prevalent. These issues cause the vertex/face normals to point in an odd direction in comparison the the rest of the mesh, which in turn causes shading/rendering issues on the high poly.

    It is these issues that I expect are being picked up by Knald and baked into the curvature map & unfortunately these errors are very common with decimated meshes. If I am correct the issue would also be in the normal map too (albeit very faint most of the time).

    Ironically, all these problems would be a simple fix to do by hand if there were not so many of them. A simple smooth/relax on the offending vertices is all that is needed, but without a reliable method of selecting the offending verticies in Max/Maya/Blender etc., it can be a laborious process. You could try a low strength smooth/relax on the entire mesh before baking, which will fix the issue, or a low strength uniform polish/smooth or Smooth deformation pass in ZBrush.

    If you don't want to go through the process of correcting the erroneous faces, I would suggest not decimating at all or using less aggressive decimation until the issue is not present.

    I hope that all makes sense :)

  • Wonderstone
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    Wonderstone polycounter lvl 5
    I have a problem with a baking curvature map.

    When I bake decimated high poly object to low, it happens annoying spots on the baked map. For example;

    Actually, this one is not a very good example because there is a lot of skin pore details but I'm not talking about them, the problem is little different dots everywhere, some of them look like triangles. Is it totally normal for decimated objects?

    Thanks.
    Hi!

    Without seeing a screenshot (the image isnt loading above) or the meshes, it's hard to say with absolute certainty, but I expect this is indeed down to the use of decimation. The baked curvature in Knald is generated directly from the High Poly mesh (true curvature), so it's likely that artefacts are already in the high poly mesh and Knald is picking them up.

    Generally decimation doesn't do a very good job at ensuring all the faces are of a uniform size and in the areas that show the problems there are often small, thin triangles, either in isolation, or that form a ledge with a single vertex in the centre. Concave faces and situations where one of the vertices of a triangle is placed in such a way that it causes the face to overlap itself are also prevalent. These issues cause the vertex/face normals to point in an odd direction in comparison the the rest of the mesh, which in turn causes shading/rendering issues on the high poly.

    It is these issues that I expect are being picked up by Knald and baked into the curvature map & unfortunately these errors are very common with decimated meshes. If I am correct the issue would also be in the normal map too (albeit very faint most of the time).

    Ironically, all these problems would be a simple fix to do by hand if there were not so many of them. A simple smooth/relax on the offending vertices is all that is needed, but without a reliable method of selecting the offending verticies in Max/Maya/Blender etc., it can be a laborious process. You could try a low strength smooth/relax on the entire mesh before baking, which will fix the issue, or a low strength uniform polish/smooth or Smooth deformation pass in ZBrush.

    If you don't want to go through the process of correcting the erroneous faces, I would suggest not decimating at all or using less aggressive decimation until the issue is not present.

    I hope that all makes sense :)

    Thank you for information :)
  • EGGO
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    EGGO polycounter lvl 13
    @metalliandy  Any news on newest release, please)
  • |Buddy|
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    |Buddy| polycounter lvl 11
    @metalliandy  - I'm getting regular crashes on the latest Nvidia driver. Knald really needs an update, it's been few years.
  • wilson66
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    wilson66 polycounter lvl 8
    |Buddy| said:
    @metalliandy  - I'm getting regular crashes on the latest Nvidia driver. Knald really needs an update, it's been few years.
    It was version 1.2.1 when I purchased it in 2016, and it is version 1.2.1 now end of 2019. I remember checking back every few days after purchase for updates...
  • bmobius6
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    bmobius6 polycounter lvl 7
    I gotta say, I absolutely adored Knald when it was first released. Every feature addition up through 1.2.1 made the app feel like it was really growing.

    That was 2016.

    Now we're in 2020 and it doesn't seem like Knald is growing anymore. Applications such as the Substance suite, Mixer, Marmoset Toolbag, and others are giving artists a lot more options for the same or less money. Heck, even Blender 2.8+ is outstripping Knald and it's 100% free. Looking at MT3 specifically, I'm seeing close to 30 different map types that the app can bake from high poly to low poly. That's insane when you compare it to Knald with it's 11 map types. Granted it's roughly $100 more, but it goes on sale frequently, has a built in real-time renderer, can do basic keyframe animation, and more.

    I'm afraid Knald's time has passed. There's been no updates since 2016 and it feels like the devs have gone silent. I mean, we haven't heard from metalliandy since June of last year. It actually feels like Knald has been abandoned, which is sad. There was a time I would have recommended Knald to any 3D artist that would listen however that's simply no longer the case.

    I wish the developers all the best, but it's time for us to move on.
  • mazz423
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    mazz423 polycounter lvl 9
    UPDATE
    Scratch that everyone, Andy has responded and all is working now! Appears my first support mail got caught in their spam filter for some reason. If anyone else is experiencing the same issue using 'save link as' on the download button should fix it.

    -

    Hello everyone,

    This feels like a bit of a theme for me now as the last thread I made was related to issues with support on topogun. Well now I'm having similar issues with Knald and knaldtech support.

    To summarise I currently have an issue where I'm unable to download the installers for knald from their licence manager or from any of their on site links, when clicking on them nothing happens, no download starts. Emailed knald support over a week a go and am yet to receive a response, and I doubt I will...

    Mainly made this thready to potentially warn people and I'm curious if anyone else is experiencing the same issue? This might be old news and I missed some announcement that Knald was being discontinued. Seeing as you still appear to be able to purchase licences it seems pretty poor that the download links don't seem to work.

    Is a shame as there was still some things I liked to use it for, I wish I would learn to backup installers between computer upgrades.
  • Kiwi-Hawk
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    Kiwi-Hawk polycounter lvl 6
    No holding my breath, I don't know what I did but loading a bump/height map I managed to flip upside down, now I can get them back to correct side up even after uninstalling and reinstalling, there nothing in the Doc's either
  • Hardstone_DTX

    Hello everyone , how can i solve this problem? My Graphics Card Driver is latest version

  • Eric Chadwick

    @Hardstone_DTX what device is this card installed in?

    If it's a laptop, it could be using the onboard GPU instead of the dedicated RTX GPU.

    Also, did you try this, from the first post?

    Feedback and Support

    We strive to make Knald the best that it can be, so please feel free to keep offering us your suggestions & giving us your valuable feedback on things such as bug reports and anything else that you feel could be improved within Knald.

    You can also email us at support@knaldtech.com with any questions that you may have.

  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor

    @Hardstone_DTX

    Isn't this the old bug if you update your video driver after Knald is installed it won't start again. I could be wrong, but if that's the case the fix here is to install the video driver again and the trick is you need to click on advanced during installation and choose clean install to fix this bug.

  • frmdbl
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    frmdbl polycounter

    Is Knald dead?


    I can't activate it on another machine, can't reset and I didn't get a reply to my email.

  • iam717
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    iam717 interpolator

    I never understood the pressing on the normals that this application did when i played with it, then when trying to mix and match baker files i got very strange restuls, when checking all of them against eachother to see which was "best" or gave the results i wanted. I do like all the other settings like controlling the AO easier making an insanely details curve. Good things but that pressing normals, i also didn't read any docs or this thread. :) maybe someone could explain it, i will also read this thread and look for a doc that brings up my pressing concern, Hope they are doing all right with everything otherwise.

    @Hardstone_DTX onboard GPU instead of the dedicated RTX GPU.

    This was it for me, had to figure it out just verifying the info incase anyone comes around, just fyi if you funnel your monitor through the ON BOARD, when applications using GFX crash, no blue screen, though you have about 1-2 minutes to act and reset the pc, before freezing occurs, in win10 for anyone wanting to avoid gpu crashes. In invidia profiler or whatever, run the applications through the GFX card there also.

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