Faogen 3 - per-vertex and texture AO baking

ryhor

Once upon a time there was a tool for baking ambient occlusion, Faogen. Somewhere in 2008 it's development stopped.

But finally, it is back with new version. Faogen 3 is a complete rewrite with use of modern GPUs for faster baking with better quality.

Right now it's only a pre-release version, which didn't include all planned features. But per-vertex and texture AO baking is already fully functional.

This update is free for all previous users of Faogen. And for new users there is 50% discount during pre-release test period.

Get it here: www.faogen.com

I'm a developer of Faogen. And if you have any questions about it I will be glad to answer.

Grimmstrom

Excellent, I've been using Faogen 2 for the last couple of years and I love it. Look forward to trying this out

Xoliul

Hey i really liked this ages ago, was going to post in this thread "isn't this dead?" But apparently it's not

I really missed not being able to use the normalmap on the lowpoly when baking. Has that been added? Also it was pretty annoying that the padding took longer than the baking itself...

ryhor

Normalmap isn't supported yet. I'm going to experiment with it later, but right now there is already very much to do before final v3 release.

Edge padding now is done entirely on GPU. And it is so fast, that there is no need to manually define its radius, padding is fully automatic

haiddasalami

Hey ryhor. This is cool and we have been playing with it. The result from what I am seeing in FAOgen is not the same as Max. I see you are using the FBX 2014.2.1 SDK but cant find a plugin for that (going to try and see if I can build one). Was just wondering if that has been tested. Also is FBX the only one that supports vertex colours? Also a background color option would be awesome. Quite bright :P

ryhor

Hi haiddasalami, right now I can only test with 3dsmax 2009, and it imports FBX from Faogen just fine. It didn't display vertex AO from the start for the imported scene, but if you set up a material with vertex color or just enable "Vertex Channel Display" in Object Properties then it will look the same way as in Faogen.

Vertex AO can be exported to OBJ as texture coordinate, and you can copy it to vertex color channel later in 3dsmax with Tools -> Channel Info... dialog. But for direct saving to vertex color FBX is preferable option. Collada DAE saves vertex colors also, but in Faogen it is implemented through same FBX SDK so it won't provide any benefits over FBX.

Background color configuration will be added, just a little bit later.

MM

been using faogen2 for a long time. such a great tool.

kind of you to provide free upgrade, thanks a lot!

will test it out soon. what is the upgrade process ?
uninstall previous version, install new version with current serial number ?

ryhor

You can keep previous version installed. Both old and new are able to work at the same time.

haiddasalami

ryhor wrote: »

Hi haiddasalami, right now I can only test with 3dsmax 2009, and it imports FBX from Faogen just fine. It didn't display vertex AO from the start for the imported scene, but if you set up a material with vertex color or just enable "Vertex Channel Display" in Object Properties then it will look the same way as in Faogen.

Vertex AO can be exported to OBJ as texture coordinate, and you can copy it to vertex color channel later in 3dsmax with Tools -> Channel Info... dialog. But for direct saving to vertex color FBX is preferable option. Collada DAE saves vertex colors also, but in Faogen it is implemented through same FBX SDK so it won't provide any benefits over FBX.

Background color configuration will be added, just a little bit later.

Awesome thanks. Will experiment a bit more and maybe on an older copy of Max. BTW it does not seem to preserve multi sub materials/material ids when imported back in

Stromberg90

Xoliul wrote: »

Hey i really liked this ages ago, was going to post in this thread "isn't this dead?" But apparently it's not

I really missed not being able to use the normalmap on the lowpoly when baking. Has that been added? Also it was pretty annoying that the padding took longer than the baking itself...

Second this, having the option to use the normal map is pretty key to compete with Knald.

Lamont

Oh yes!! An update!!

Pedro Amorim

Xoliul wrote: »

Hey i really liked this ages ago, was going to post in this thread "isn't this dead?" But apparently it's not

I really missed not being able to use the normalmap on the lowpoly when baking. Has that been added? Also it was pretty annoying that the padding took longer than the baking itself...

Yep! This!

Would be awesome to get an AO tool that takes in considereation the normal map so we can get them nice soft edges

ryhor

haiddasalami wrote: »

Also a background color option would be awesome. Quite bright :P

Latest build just added few bugfixes and an UI color configuration.

oXYnary

Third callout for baking from normal maps on the low poly (with understanding of an alpha texture). Also, cavity maps???

shogunato

exellent new thank you

ryhor

New build version is table enough to reach general release status. Also, this build adds maxscript for automation per-vertex AO baking in 3dsmax.
Latest version is available at http://www.faogen.com/

Now it's time to end pre-release test program and focus on adding new functionality to Faogen: highpoly to lowpoly AO baking and reconstruction of highpoly from normalmap.