Cages and Texture Sets

DustyShinigami

Hi

j just have a quick question concerning cages for baking and texture sets. When having multiple texture sets for baking in Substance, can you use multiple cages for different parts of a mesh on a single texture sheet/set? Or does it have to be one whole cage to cover everything? I’ve been experimenting, and couldn’t get individual cages to work. So one for baking the head, one for the arm, one for an accessory… All on a single texture set. Just wondered if it was possible and if it’s just me doing something wrong.

Thanks

poopipe

The cage is determined by the target mesh so you can only ever have one per target mesh

 

Why not use bake by name?

DustyShinigami

Thanks for the reply. I was using bake by name previously, but I've been experimenting with cages. I much prefer the bake results.

You say you can only ever have one per target mesh, but I've managed to use two with a single target mesh. However, the cages and low poly use two separate texture sets/sheets. I just figured, so long as the texture set is there, along with the target mesh, you could bake each piece one at a time...? By switching them in and out?

Thanks

poopipe

In that case you're using the same cage to bake two texture sets.  
the cage is derived from the mesh, what part of the mesh gets gets baked is determined by the texture set. 

the end result is as you say though

there's no good reason why you can't bake using a cage and  by name at the same time - if it's not supported by painter I'd suggest  complaining to allegorithmic because that's a bit silly

(haven't baked with a cage in years, haven't baked anything in painter for a couple of years)

DustyShinigami

I see. As to baking with a cage and by mesh name - I think you can. Unless I'm approaching it wrong. Do you mean that you should be able to use a cage AND have all the sub-meshes of the low and high poly separate, so they bake by name as well, for extra precision...? If that's the case, I haven't tried that.

gnoop

I am usually too lazy to make cages  or tweak ray distances.     I usually project UV and vertex normals  from  lod02 onto whatever extra floating  or extruded geometry lod01 may has  if it's necessary ( often not)  and just render  exr  object space normal map from surface shading. 

Then re-bake it again into 8 bit tangent space for lod02 in  Substance Designer ( works in any 3d package too) .   For SD you just need the object space with Y (green color) up.

  While it's somewhat ancient style but still is the  most trouble-less way of doing so IMO.

it's just your hipoly  or remeshed dynamesh  better be having UV already before you start detailing .   You can always project UV  back again from low poly origin if something went wrong.  All major 3d packages   can do it  with a bit of manual fix around seams.   

I use cages only when I want a specific ray projection angle in some specific corners.