[3ds Max] Render to Texture is broken

jkelly206

Had no response on Autodesk forums.

For some reason, Render to Texture is just completely broken for all versions of Max I currently have installed (2016, 2018 & 2019.) It did previously work when 2016 was the only version on my machine.

I can see the "CompleteMap" like result that's in the preview window but every texture outputs as pure black - with the exception of Normal maps coming out with the correct background colour but nothing else.

Are there any solutions or workarounds here? 

I'd prefer to avoid external applications so that my workflow remains fast and contained.

poopipe

Which renderer are you using? 

jkelly206

poopipe said:

Which renderer are you using? 

Default Scanline. I believe right up until the latest version, it was the only renderer that was supported in RTT - with Arnold supposedly being supported now. I've never used Arnold but I tried switching to it for RTT and 3ds Max just spat out an error and crashed.

musashidan

You must be the last remaining game artist using Max to bake NMs in this age of mikkt  

Sorry, no solution as I haven't used RTT in many years......but....Max 2020 is only around the corner....who knows what it will bring? Enough said. 

jkelly206

musashidan said:

You must be the last remaining game artist using Max to bake NMs in this age of mikkt  

Sorry, no solution as I haven't used RTT in many years......but....Max 2020 is only around the corner....who knows what it will bring? Enough said. 

It's not just for baking normals. I was wanting to use RTT to bake all kinds of maps and turn tiled textures on a mesh into a single flattened map. It would make sense if you could see the project but I can't go into details.

Noren

So this happens with any newly set up file in any version of Max you have installed, even if you simplify it as much as possible? E. g. using two primitives and no materials at all and new texture file names in a root directory somewhere, "render to files only" checked so no shell materials are created?

poopipe

I was going to suggest switching to scanline as this is clearly some sort of horrible bug.  I can't test it for myself atm but would be happy to once I get to a computer. 

Arnold will probably have a separate set of commands for RTT - it does in maya.  If it's anything like in maya you'll probably have to knock up a little script to make it useful as they really half arsed it in 2018.

Mental ray used to work but that's gone so no help I guess.   

monster

Can you save as a 32-bit map and see if there is an alpha channel where the geo should be?
Did you reset xform on all the objects involved? (You'll have to delete and apply a new projection modifier.)

Without inspecting the file it would be hard to debug.

Thanez

I've had something similar happen to me before I switched to marmo for my bakes. The only thing that helped was to hide all the highpoly actors in the 'reference geo' list and unhide them again.

musashidan said:

Max 2020 is only around the corner....who knows what it will bring? Enough said. 

Hopefully, a third exposed boolean compound object

poopipe

i checked - works fine for me on 2019.  as musashidan says it's probably something to do with your specific file

I had a quick check in the maxscript docs and there's an example rtt script here ...

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/MAXScript-Help/files/GUID-61344DFE-8DA6-4E19-A184-BFD9ED093EFF-htm.html

judging by the code you should be able to bake with the framebuffer (vfb) enabled from script - this will help you debug as it'll give you the raw bake output rather than what's written to a file. 

jkelly206

Thanks guys! Project is delivering today so I'll have to run through all the suggestions at a later date to see if anything works. I'll be sure to get back on what works though!

Eric Chadwick

What materials and map types are you using? Looks like materials incompatible with Scanline.

jkelly206

Eric Chadwick said:

What materials and map types are you using? Looks like materials incompatible with Scanline.

Standard materials with simple bitmaps in the Diffuse Color slot. 

Thanez

In a deadline pinch I would download toolbag trial and get the project done that way. A fix for this situation can be a learning experience at a later hour. 

Eric Chadwick

That's odd.

We are using Render To Texture here a ton, Max 2018, and it works well. We're baking both in V-Ray, and separately in Scanline.

You have Shell Materials turned on. Are those set up correctly for rebaking? We always turn that off (Render to files only), so the original materials are unaffected.

Eric Chadwick

You're baking to UV1. I bet that's your problem. Typically you set all your tiling textures to UV1, and create a second UV set in channel 2, with no overlaps, all laid out inside the UV square. Why are you baking this in UV1?

poopipe

You'd still get something if you bake to the first channel - unless there's no uvs in which case it'd look wrong in the viewport anyway.

I'm going with busted scene


Edit.. 

Unless the target uvs aren't in 0-1 space  ..  Good point 

Sage

Eric beat me to it. Make sure your uvs are in 0 to 1 space as well. I just did a test and it seems to work.

I attached the test scene. It's just cylinders baking to a plane.

Eric Chadwick

Yeah probably a big messy uv1, great for tiling, not for baking. This can definitely cause blank maps.

jkelly206

Eric Chadwick said:

Yeah probably a big messy uv1, great for tiling, not for baking. This can definitely cause blank maps.

No, the target UV is unwrapped in 0-1 space with no overlapping UVs. I can save the completemap that's in the preview window and it lines up fine, it's just the files actually generated by RTT that are pure black. 

jkelly206

Sage said:

Eric beat me to it. Make sure your uvs are in 0 to 1 space as well. I just did a test and it seems to work.

I attached the test scene. It's just cylinders baking to a plane.

Doesn't work. I still just get a blank normal.

Eric Chadwick

Ok cool. So then it's either your Projection settings (cage distance, raycast distance, etc.), or your material setup.

Eric Chadwick

What hardware are you using? If it's a laptop, what GPU, etc?

jkelly206

Eric Chadwick said:

Ok cool. So then it's either your Projection settings (cage distance, raycast distance, etc.), or your material setup.

I don't think it's projection settings as I tested Sage's scene and still got the same issues.

Eric Chadwick

Hmm, strange then. All I can say is it works here for us, across multiple machines. It's not without its share of little bugs and issues, but it generally works predictably for us. 

Since it doesn't work for you, I'd recommend integrating a solid baker into your pipeline, like Toolbag.

jkelly206

Eric Chadwick said:

Hmm, strange then. All I can say is it works here for us, across multiple machines. It's not without its share of little bugs and issues, but it generally works predictably for us. 

Since it doesn't work for you, I'd recommend integrating a solid baker into your pipeline, like Toolbag.

I'd love to but it's incredibly difficult to get purchases approved. I'll look at doing a clean install of Max in the near future - and I'll do a basic install and leave out all the extra plugins and such that the wider studio uses.

Eric Chadwick

Xnormal is free, still works well.