Extract textures from selected objects in 3dsmax?

melviso

I have been wondering if there is a way to extract textures from an object or its materials in 3dsmax for further painting in Photoshop.

Say for example u assign a diffuse texture to an object and adjust the texture tiling to fit the object, is there a way to extract the diffuse texture again and save it out like a uvmap to edit in photoshop. This will be cool as one can add scratches, peels and break the tiling for a more realistic look.

huffer

Yup, you can render to texture a completemap, with or without shadows, highlights or ambient occlusion (you can make the material 100 self illuminated to get just the color information saved out).

Obscura

You need to bake a diffuse map , so it will bake out only the colors from your diffuse textures then, and not any lighting.

melviso

Thanks guys.Problem is I am using Corona. Corona does not support this and since I am using Corona materials. I doubt if the other renderers will work since 3dsmax render to texture does not support it.
Is there a plugin that can do this without changing the renderer.Corona does not support bake maps or I am guessing I have to create a arch and design material with the texture plugged in and bake with mental ray.

Obscura

Standard material with the scanline renderer would work fine and I think that would bake faster. You will need a second uv channel with no overlappings to bake to that btw.

melviso

Thanks Obscura. I tried the standard material with scanline renderer for diffuse map only but it rendered out with a huge black patch. I tried it with a sphere,when I used a cube.It rendered out completely black.

Obscura

Did you used the second uv channel which has not overlapped uvs?
Could you write down step by step what you did? Because it should work.

You can try this:
Duplicate your mesh, and add a push modifier. Write a small number into the push amount, something like 0,1 or less (depending on the scale). Now hit 0 or open up the rtt manually. Enable the projection, and select your original mesh (so this will work like when you are baking from a highpoly to a lowpoly). Adjust the case, and bake a diffuse map now.

melviso

Thanks Obscura. It is showing now but the problem now is some uv shells are darker while some are missing the textures (completely black).

It seems render to texture doesn't work with overlapping uvs like u pointed out.I forgot to unwarp the model without any overalaps.

Obscura

Yes. It doesn't work with overlapped uvs because of an obvious reason if you think on it Just make a second uv channel and pack the uvs so they won't overlap. Then try again, just don't forget to set the target channel to 2. Then it will came out fine. Oh and don't believe to the preview, it never shows correctly that it should.

melviso

Seriously Obscura. Thank you. It works now. I didn't know the preview window was a mirage. I checked the saved texture and it was fine. I have also found it works with overlapping uvs too, u can even transfer textures from uv 2 to uv1 when rendering to texture.

Obscura

Yes it can work but not correctly. I mean if you have overlapped uvs then things will be baked on top of each other. So you won't be able to do adjustments on specific parts. -> "This will be cool as one can add scratches, peels and break the tiling for a more realistic look." This is why the second uv with no overlapping is recommended in this case, so you will get back every part (no overlapping) and you can paint on any part without putting it to other parts too.

melviso

Exactly. Thanks man.