Baking Environment Info Into Diffuse Map

KonataNX

Hi, I know very early before about this technique, but I totally forgot how to do it~ ><
Let's say I have a object and completely unwrapped~ And I set up a cube map~
What I want to do is to project the cube map color info into the diffuse map of the object to make a fake reflection info~
So~ Please teach me this~ I'm using 3dsMax 2011~ Really appreciated~

r_fletch_r

You dont bake reflections into the diffuse texture. you apply them in realtime via a shader. The reason being, reflections are based on the angle you view an object from. the same point on a model will look totally different from different angles.

If you still want to do it you can create a blend map in the Render to texture dialog. in the blend map it will allow you to set which render elements you want to bake into the map. turn of everything except reflection. you can then combine it with your diffuse in photoshop.

Mark Dygert

I don't think he's trying to bake reflection into the diffuse of his object, but into a cube map that he will use as a reflection map on his object?

http://wiki.polycount.com/CubeMap?action=show&redirect=Cube+Map
Eric put this up on the wiki it covers baking a cubemap in 3dsmax if that's what you're after, I've used the method outlined in the wiki so if you hit any snags let me know.

EarthQuake

What I want to do is to project the cube map color info into the diffuse map of the object to make a fake reflection info~

You might be able to apply your cubemap reflection as a standard material, and then bake a "complete map", however as this is a viewpoint dependent effect, it may not work at all.

Xoliul

It won't work, I'm sure. I looked into it for a previous project, best you could get is a view independent bake of an adjusted dot product of the surface normal and an upward pointing vector (even that I'm not sure it'd look right). Anything slightly more complex will just require you to paint it by hand, which yes, is difficult and won't work out properly without lots of practice and trial and error.

KonataNX

Well I put a sample here, this is from Final Fantasy Crisis Core - Golden Bahamut~
I really pay attention on the diffuse and find out that the reflection values is fixed~
Which means the reflection is combined onto the diffuse map as a fake reflection~
So I start thinking how they can do that amazing~
My 1st intuition is maybe they bake the reflection value from somewhere into diffuse map~
Or they just paint it by hand!? o.o
I can't find a screenshot so I linked the video here~
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMVII4YiCyQ&quot;]Sample - Golden Bahamut[/ame]

r_fletch_r

looks hand painted to me.
I had a think about this and there is a way you could do it with some added work.
You could render shots of the character and re project the renders back onto the character with camera mapping.
To be honest though it would be a very involved process

Xenobond

EarthQuake wrote: »

You might be able to apply your cubemap reflection as a standard material, and then bake a "complete map", however as this is a viewpoint dependent effect, it may not work at all.

Depending on the size of the model and how it's going to be used/seen you could create several RTTs from different viewpoints and mix them together in the photoshops. Might at least get a base to start working from.

r_fletch_r

How would that work. so far as i understood RTT doesnt really use a camera as we would be used to conceptualising it.

Xenobond

From what I've experienced it seems to project from your active viewport window.

r_fletch_r

your right, sorry about that i had tried this before with Arch & design and it didnt work. standard/Raytrace does it fine tho