Need Render to Texture Help

SyaPed

I'm trying to use Max's Render to Texture to bake some lighting from a highpoly model into a lowpoly. But I can't stop the highpoly from interfering with the rendering of the map (see pic).

Baking Problem

What do I need to change to fix this?

tremulant

ur site aint loadin for me brotha...

SyaPed

Hmm crappa. How 'bout now?

osman

try to hide your low poly or make it not renderable

Jesse Moody

hmmm could be that you are baking a shadows map. I take it you are trying to make an AO map. Instead of selecting a shadows map (element) select a lighting map instead. That should fix things since you are actually baking the lighting from the high to the low much like you would with a normal map.

Shadow maps are different types of maps and not what you are trying to use.

SyaPed

Thanks for the suggestions guys but neither worked. However switching on the Light Tracer in render settings fixed it. Don't know why.

snap.crackle.pop

Just a quicky here:

Why do you keep you projection cage so far from your mesh ? im asking because i have no idea if its better to have it near it or a bit retracted. Is this a better method ?

thanks

Ryno

Could you post the actual saved file that renders? Not the preview, which many times is totally unaccurate?

SuperOstrich

What Ryno said. Ignore the image that Max puts up on screen as a preview. It is totally wrong most of the time. Open up the auto-saved image. When I first started using RTT years ago, I spent the better part of a whole day at work trying to figure out why my lightmap wasn't rendering properly, then discovered it was perfectly fine when I opened up the saved image instead of looking at the preview.

SyaPed

snap.crackle.pop - I'm not sure if it's better to have it near or far either, I was just experimenting when I took the screenshot.

Ryno,SuperOstrich - The saved image was coming up with the same clipping errors. But it's okay now as LightTracer seems to have fixed it. Do you guys usually turn LightTracer on?

Ryno

What was your light setup like beforehand? And yes, I'll use LightTracer, or Skylight with Shadows on (reads alpha), occasionally radiosity, or V-Ray dirt maps to get the occlusion.

SuperOstrich

I still don't know why lightracer would fix clipping issues like that. But for the record, yes, I usually render my ao maps with a skylight and lightracer active. Sometimes I'll use radiosity to see which one turns out better.

SyaPed

Ryno - I was just using a Skylight with shadows on. But you sometimes bake from hi to lo with just Skylight and shadows? With no problems? ...this is strange ...

Mark Dygert

[ QUOTE ]
What Ryno said. Ignore the image that Max puts up on screen as a preview. It is totally wrong most of the time. Open up the auto-saved image. When I first started using RTT years ago, I spent the better part of a whole day at work trying to figure out why my lightmap wasn't rendering properly, then discovered it was perfectly fine when I opened up the saved image instead of looking at the preview.

[/ QUOTE ]
HAHAHAHA I did the same thing the first few times.
I have a normal map render preset that turns off the "render frame window" that way I don't get freaked out by what I see in the preview window and start tweaking things.

Ryno

Ah, my bad. No, haven't baked from high to low with skylight shadows. Just straight up occlusion renders on the low. I think from high to low I usually did LightTracer.