multiple meshes > 1 map baking in max?

capone

I have 3 Low poly and 3 High poly pieces. Am selecting all LP each with individual projection mapping but rendering results in 3 separate maps. Is there some setting in bake to textures to force it into one map? Otherwise my only options are to...

1) put them together in photoshop (fine but annoying for testing)
2) attach all the LP pieces into one piece (less control over projection)

Neox

afaik max doesn't offer this feature, you could do what you said or maybe xnormal might be an option for you, as it offers the functionality you are seeking

BradleyWascher

Select your LP meshes together, apply a edit poly modifier, to the selection, adjust your uvw so no over lapping, bake, then delete the edit poly modifier off the stake.

capone

Thanks, good idea but it doesn't appear to make a difference. With this method I appear to be losing my projections? It still bakes 3 maps too. I have also tried it with 'edit poly' mod instead of 'poly select'.

EarthQuake

BradleyWascher wrote: »

Select your LP meshes together, apply a edit poly modifier, to the selection, adjust your uvw so no over lapping, bake, then delete the edit poly modifier off the stake.

A. This is a workflow for getting around mirroring problems, nothing to do with what he's asking
B. Just offset your mirrored uvs by exactly 1 unit, no need to mess with adding or removing any modifiers.


Max does not support multiple low meshes when baking, you will have to combine them all into 1 mesh before you bake. You can keyframe by element and explode to avoid intersecting errors. IE: keyframe 0 = normal, keyframe 10 = exploded.

r_fletch_r

*merge the lowpoly objects
*put an editpoly on top of the merged stack
*Grab what used to be the individual objects and move them apart using the editable poly modifier. (you can turn this on and off to toggle the exploded mesh)
*Key the position of you highpoly objects at frame 0
*move to frame 1 and move move your hp objects to match your exploded low poly. key the positions.

This avoids lots of the problems you get from just merging and baking. it also allows you to easy return your model to its non exploded state.

capone

Cool tip fletch, just done it and can see how it could be helpful but it still doesn't allow multiple baking into 1 map. So only solution is either attach them all temporarily in max and bake or put all the bakes together in Photoshop, seems daft that you have to do that every time. I usually do about 10-30 test bakes until I get a mesh bake that is good.

r_fletch_r

capone wrote: »

Cool tip fletch, just done it and can see how it could be helpful but it still doesn't allow multiple baking into 1 map.

Yes it does.

If you want a quick way to composite normal bakes then create a composite map and overlay them ontop of each other with that. once all the maps are in the slots you can render them as 1 by right clicking the material swatch and clicking 'render map'. each slot will update as you re render the maps.

SpeCter

Not sure if i got it right, but isn´t RTTAssist exactly what he needs?
You can select multiple LP´s and HP´s and it combines the normals together(if the uv mapping is made right for that)