3ds Max 2014 unable to render to texture

ThinkLogical

So I have been trying to bake out the normals of a high-poly model onto a low poly model. With my first try, render to texture was able to bake out the normals, but the quality came out too pixelated, even for a 2048x2048 map. Due to this, I made some adjustments between playing with the projection options and adjusting the cage a bit. However, now, it seems that I cannot render to texture my model anymore. I have my settings as "save to file" and "keep original material", but yet, after clicking on render, the render status bar only appears for a second. Then it says that the render is complete with a duration of 0:00, and it doesn't even create the file. I have doubled and tripled checked to make sure that my UV's are mapped, which they are. I even tried baking out the normals of a different model, and oddly, that bake out correctly. So it seems to be this one particular model, but what could it be? It is driving me bald headed.:poly105:

ThinkLogical

I am not sure exactly what happened, but I went back to a previous version and things seem to be working fine now. However, I am wondering if anyone can help me out with fixing the ray misses in my texture bake. I have my cage projection at decent distance, but some of the areas are still being missed as you can see in the image below, which are rendered in red.

Mark Dygert

You might want to try switching it use a cage and then check the cage for penetrations and tweak the points as necessary.

ThinkLogical

I think some of the problems I am having has to do with bad topology or because I cannot get behind the geometry that is in the way in order to make adjustments to the cage. However, the top roof of the trailer, which I have made note of in the image below, has a pretty decent amount of space, approximately 1/4 inch, between the cage and the geometry. Also is there a way to hide specific geometry so that I can get to the other parts of the geometry more easily. I tried stepping down the modifier stack to the editable poly, but I keep getting a warning that this could lead to undesirable results.

Noors

It's hard to tell without seeing the model. Did you reset Xform everything ?
As for hidding poly, you can split the high and low into different parts and project apart,
or imo better solution, assign corresponding material ID's between high and low parts and use "hit only matching ID" in the RTT projection option. So faces on low with ID x, will only get the projection from the faces with ID x in the high.

ThinkLogical

So are you saying that I should reset the xform? I would of never of thought this could reflect on projection, but now that I think of it, it does make sense. As for separate material IDs, both meshes have multiple IDs, but I cannot match the IDs between the two meshes because the higher detailed mesh has higher detail in the center face loops. However, breaking up the mesh is an idea. Thinks for the tips...