Bake multiple objects in Max in one map

StJoris

I have about 30 floating lowpoly parts with hp geo that I want to bake to one map. Since max 9 or 2008 or something you can edit the uv map of multiple objects in one go which is really sweet as you can keep your objects seperate and not chunk together.

However the render to texture dialog seems to insist on baking them all to a seperate file which has me compositing 30 parts in PS and that's not very nice.

It seems like this would be easy but I have not found out yet, any clues?

kio

yeah ran into the same problem so no direct solution from me, but you could attach everything into one single mesh - or bake everything into 30 files and create a little copy past action in photoshop which moves everything automatically into one file?

renderhjs

just select all objects,- move it aside and merge it to 1 block, alternatively you can use this script
[php]try(
disableSceneRedraw()
for i in 1 to selection.count do
Try(ConvertTo Selection Editable_Poly)Catch()

baseObj = selection[1]
items = #()
for s in selection do append items s

for i in items do (
if (i != baseObj) then (
if (classof i == Editable_mesh) or (classof i == Editable_Poly) then
baseObj.EditablePoly.attach i baseObj
)
)
enableSceneRedraw()
completeRedraw()
)catch(enableSceneRedraw();
completeRedraw();)
[/php]
which will merge the selected objects into 1 poly. Once merged you can RTT without suffer.

Personally I have scripts such as this merge to 1 poly on a toolset so its kind of natural for me merging stuff on a copy basis to export, RTT, unwrap (in max 9),...

Mark Dygert

kio wrote: »

yeah ran into the same problem so no direct solution from me, but you could attach everything into one single mesh - or bake everything into 30 files and create a little copy past action in photoshop which moves everything automatically into one file?

^ +1

I save, merge into one object and bake. Then delete it, and merge in the individual pieces from the save I just created.

I wish it would work like everyone expects it to, probably just a check box: "one file or many". But we're dealing with the kings of half ass features and the keepers of artists broken dreams.

EarthQuake

you could just duplicate, merge and hide your separated objects, simple enough.

Mark Dygert

I used to do that, but if you make changes you end up deleting the merged and remaking it. So it just sits there, hidden in case you make changes to your bake settings.

Also depending on how dense the scene is and how big of an impact the floaters have doubling them up could really bog things down. If you forget they're doubled and do a unhide all, things could get ugly.

Also max seems to handle a bunch of separate objects better then one big object with a bunch of elements. I think it has to do with adaptive degradation and that it can't degrade elements but it can objects.

I keep floaters on their own layer, making them easy to select, isolate selected and attach by list (it displays only what is shown so it only lists the floaters). It's a pretty quick process and I know I'm getting the latest version of the floaters.

nrek

You can bake multiple floaters onto a single object without merging them all together. You need to add the projection modifier to the lowpoly object, then in the reference geo tab click pick and one by one select all the objects you want to be projected onto the low poly. Set up the cage like normal and then in the RTT window enable projection and have object level checked and sub object levels checked as well. Then when you render the texture it should read all those objects as if the were all merged together.

StJoris

Hey guys thanks for the suggestions, think Vig's idea is the least cumbersome workaround to this, gonna give that a go.

Thanks for that script renderhjs, See what you say about combining to 1 poly, used to do that too. But now with the better support for unwrapping multiple objects I tend to use seperate objects more, however they seemed to stop at unwrapping, hope they make that option for baking too.

Another way I was thinking about and also recommended again by Funkybunnies while discussing this is to batch load all the images in PS and repeat a normal map combine action, half the blue channel and overlay. I'm just somewhat skeptical if that's the proper way to combine it. This seems to do some extra steps. I will simply try all three, compare and post results back in this thread.

@nrek, think you misunderstood, it's not one piece of lowpoly and multiple floating hp, but multiple floating lowpoly "pieces" (in this case seperated so it doesn't interfere with other geo parts).