AO map troubles in 3ds

NuggetOG

Hey guys,

This is my first post on the forum. I am currently a student studying games design and I am having a problem baking out an ambient occlusion map for a brick pillar that I have modelled.
The problem I am having is when I project my hi res model onto my low res model, the low res model shows through as black blobs on the AO map. I have read somewhere that hiding the faces of the low res mesh can solve this problem but I have tried that and it didnt work. Has anyone got any suggestions that could help me fix this?
I am using 3ds max 9 if that helps, thanks:)

sir-knight

select low res mesh right click low res mesh... uncheck renderable... render AO?

NuggetOG

Hey dude thanks for your reply, i had another play around with the settings and i found out that it was just the way in which i was hiding the faces.
I had to hide the faces, by going Editable poly - selection - polygon - hide. Then i had to deselect Editable poly and go back up to Projection and then hit render. I must of had Editable poly still selected. duh
Thanks anyway:)

butt_sahib

or you could go into the low poly polygonal selection mode, select all, and hide selected>bake. works both ways

sprunghunt

I've seen this before - you must be using mentalray - because this doesn't happen with max's regular scanline renderer.

you need to put a push modifier on your lowpoly and adjust it so that your lowpoly is completely behind the bricks and not intersecting at all. For some reason mental ray will only project rays outwards. The black areas are bits of the hipoly that are behind the lowpoly.

Of course you could just use the default renderer and a skylight to do this and you wouldn't need a push modifier

solar

You don't have to use push....if it is indeed mental ray your using, simply go into the face sub object mode, select all the faces of the low poly model and click hide faces (not hide object). Click back on your projection modifier and your cage should appear around the now invisible low poly model. Hit bake and your done.

diZzyWalnut

Hi,
I think that here You will find all what You need to create your "Shade Map" under 3DSMAX :

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CreatingShadeMaps.html

diZzyWalnut

Hi ,

here's all what You need to create Your "Shade Map " under 3DS MAX :

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CreatingShadeMaps.html

NuggetOG

solar: yeh thats what i did and it worked, the cage was still around the low poly and it worked fine.

diZzyWalnut: Thats an awsome tutorial cheers, i will give that a go and compare the results. The detail from the armour seems to pop out, it looks awsome.:thumbup: