Baking workflow improvement

Felixb

Hi guys,

I'm currently working on a tank and it's all going well, but I spending a whole lot of hours on the baking process that I think I can speed up a lot.
The question is how do I do this.

This is my current process:
* High poly modelling (maya)
* Creating the low poly (maya)
* Exporting Hi/Lo/Cage
* Baking (xNormal)
* Export UV layout from low poly (maya)
* Copy the baked objects from every normal map that I bake (for my tank I baked I think at least 50 pieces if not more)
and place them into one normal map.
* Combine all the lowpoly pieces into one object (maya)

I can't really seem to find a tutorial or anything that explains or shows how to bake big projects like for example my tank.

Is there anyone who can point me out their workflow or link me to a tutorial that explains how to do this most efficiently?

Thanks a million,

Felix

huffer

That's the workflow, all you can do is plan all the steps to save time - group non-intersecting low poly pieces together so you can bake everything in one go, or explode the mesh in one scene just for baking, etc. That is all up to you.

Why do you need to export the UV layout? You can also speed things up with froyok's normal map baker for maya.

Felixb

I use the UV-layout so I can select the UV-shells and expand the selection in order to copy everything. This way I don't copy too much and I won't have anything overlaying eachother in the combined normal map.

What does froyok's normal map baker do exactly? I couldnt find anything about it on google.

LRoy

You can use things like airborne's photoshop scripts to combine the seperate normal maps into one PSD file for you.

Also batch baking may be something you could look into.

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125244

huffer

You can use it to batch bake using xnormal: http://www.froyok.fr/blog/2012-10-maya-froxnormal-0-6-an-xnormal-batcherexporter-for-maya

You could also bake tga's with alpha maps, and make a quick action in photoshop to create a selection from alpha channel and apply as mask to get your baked part clean.

throttlekitty

Felixb wrote: »

I use the UV-layout so I can select the UV-shells and expand the selection in order to copy everything. This way I don't copy too much and I won't have anything overlaying eachother in the combined normal map.

Baking different material colors into a single map is also a huge timesaver for selections in 2d.

AlecMoody

Don't do it in 50 bakes, adjust your workflow, your cage, or your lowpoly model explode so that you can do it in one pass.

This tank is a single projection, no combining normals maps:
http://www.alecmoody.com/10/index.html

The way you are working now is slower and it makes revisions a nightmare. If this was for a client and you got a model revision or a UV revision you would need to go back and figure out how to rebake the huge number of maps you are making and then you would need to redo all the work to combine them.

RobeOmega

How long does it take you guys to make a typical cage?

JedTheKrampus

I usually just make my cage in Xnormal's 3D viewer by adjusting the global cage extrusion. So, however long it takes to load all the models, plus about thirty seconds or so.

AlecMoody

JedTheKrampus wrote: »

I usually just make my cage in Xnormal's 3D viewer by adjusting the global cage extrusion. So, however long it takes to load all the models, plus about thirty seconds or so.

Same here. The main thing is to prep your models so making the cage isn't a nightmare. If necessary explode things.

Felixb

LRoy:
Thank you, I'll definitelly give that tool a go, it sounds very useful

huffer:
Thanks a lot for the link! Going to look into it right away!

throttlekitty:
I saw this in a video once I think, but it was in max. I'll have a look at it soon.

AlecMoody:
Thanks for the reply! First of all, your tank is the reason why I started this project. Everything about this screamed awesomeness! Big inspiration!

Honestly I'm a very messy person when it comes to 3d, I try to be as tidy as possible but the further I'm into a project the messier it gets. By exploding everything I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to get everything back in the right position correctly.
But it sound like I could have saved many many hours by doing that.

I tried the built in cage from xNormal quickly but I wasn't able to get an cage that worked for me quickly. I should spend a little more time figuring that out.

Thanks again for helping me out!

Robeomega:
I create my cage by moving the verts outwards by normal direction, takes me about 5 seconds.

JedTheKrampus:
Like mentioned above, I really need to spend more time checking that feature out, since my cages are nothing more than moving verts by normal direction.

[ EDIT ]
So I tested the built in cage from xNormal some more but it gives me a lot of errors. I tested it on a few models without good results (even very easy models)

It gave me results like this:
http://gyazo.com/c754570db00367e3f3d68ef980984091

Whenever I'm in the 3D Viewer and I adjusted the cage, do I have to save it somewhere or just press close? Because it gave me the same result when I changed the cage size.

iconoplast

Felixb wrote: »

By exploding everything I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to get everything back in the right position correctly.

Do it as a keyframe animation, then you can go back to frame 0 and it's back in the original position.

Felixb

Yeah thats what I had in mind to, thanks.
I'm going to give that a go

beefaroni

I forget who it was but there have been multiple med-senior level people that have said that extra geo to ensure simple to create cage is worth it over manually adjusting verts of a cage. Hopefully they see this and chime in

throttlekitty

Robeomega wrote: »

How long does it take you guys to make a typical cage?

A minute or two in Maya. Starting from Transfer maps, set the envelope at the correct size, unparent it from the base model, clear history and export for xNormal.

FelixL

If you're in 3dsMax, you can make the cage with the projection modifier.
Apply an edit mesh on your geo, then projection on top, and adjust as needed. Then, export the mesh as .SBM (xnormal file format) and choose the lowpoly preset. In xnormal, activate "use cage" on the lowpoly mesh settings and it will use the one from 3dsMax.

Generally, cages are only worth using when the polygon budget is tight, as it does create additional work.