3DSMax AO baking glitch

PolyHertz

I'm running into some issues baking AO in max (2009 x64) that I've never seen before. First I did a bake using a standard material applied to the high and baked to a single face, this was the result:

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc244/PolyHertz/lowAmbientOcclusion_MR_.jpg

As you can see part of it look like they never finished rendering, just quitting mid-way. Tried again with the same type of results. Then I gave the high MR AO material instead, and got this:

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc244/PolyHertz/lowambientocclusion_mr_copy.jpg

Total output corruption. Ideas?

PhilipK

Hmm very strange... Are you getting similar errors if baking a normal map?
I can't say I've seen anything like this before... At least as far as I remember.

PolyHertz

Nope, normal maps (via scanline) come out just fine. I almost want to think its a hardware issue, but only max is giving me problems so..hmm..

Moosey_G

The same thing is happening to me :O. It would be nice to see a solution!

divi

does it look the same if you bake it again?
try increasing the bucket size so it uses more ram and less cpu. is final gather turned off? those splotchy areas look like what final gather spits out. its not really necessary for ao and should speed up your rendering quite a bit.

r_fletch_r

Thats interesting, Its missing buckets on the AO map. I used to get similar errors when rendering in MR, A restart allways fixed them for me.

PolyHertz

Not using final gather actually. Tried restarting and doubling bucket width (in the 'renderer' tab) but doesn't seem to have improved it.

Also, here's a pic of the preview output I get, maybe it'll help shed some more light on the cause:

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc244/PolyHertz/aopreview.png

LosPescados

I got the same error as you did in the first link , also on my normal map (MR). I took the scene and tried rendering it at work and still the same error so I guess it isn't hardware related.
I'm using max2010 x32(laptop) and 2010 x64 (work)

PolyHertz

Seems if "use cage" is off the problem wont happen, though obviously lose a lot of control without cage support.

Will just use light tracer instead of MR I guess, it's not worth the headache.

LosPescados

Maybe try recreating the cage ? By simply exporting and importing it again into a new projection modifier?

mvelasquez

Looks like you have to hide your lowpoly faces(within e.poly) when baking. I've always had to do that when using MR to avoid stuff like this.

Visceral

I dont bake in max at all, my recomendation would be to use xNormal for the baking.

[HP]

Yeah, go with light tracer or just use xnormal. it's a AO map, you wont notice that much difference, and you will end up editing it on PS anyway.