Normal map and AO bakins settings in 3ds max 2012

Hooch

Hello.
Can you share all your AO and normal map baking setting from 3ds max?
My settings are horrible and I can't find any good ones.

Can you post screenshots of all the rendering tabs?

Will Faucher

There aren't any magic specific settings for a normal and AO bake. They are all dependant on so many different things. Each mesh will require a different setup each time.

Hooch

This is what I get after 1 hour render (I have i7 2600K @ 5GHz).



Also, how to get "blue" background?

Will Faucher

I'd try baking in Xnormal instead. Something is indeed very wrong. You can use a cage in xNormal as well, and it's free. Give that a shot.

Hooch

Prophecies wrote: »

I'd try baking in Xnormal instead. Something is indeed very wrong. You can use a cage in xNormal as well, and it's free. Give that a shot.

I know how to use xNormal.
But I wan't to use mental ray.

Once I rendered sth that looked better.

I just don't know what setting to use for it to look good.
Just share your settings.

r_fletch_r

Mental ray isnt a good renderer for rendering Normal maps. XNormal or Max Scanline are far better solutions. Both are a great deal faster and give cleaner less aliased results. Im sure you could get nice results with MR if you tweaked the shit out of it but to be frank there are eaiser ways.

A good strategy is to use MR or XN for AO maps and Max scanline for Normals.
Use your renderers to their strengths.


So far as AO goes default settings with 64 AO samples should get you a decent map. depending on what your doing with it ofcourse.

GeeDave

Hooch wrote: »

Also, how to get "blue" background?

It's worth noting, the preview that renders on-screen is not the version you use. That will render with the default background colour (set in the Environment window), but the version that saves in the directory you specify is the one you want.

Oh... yeah, and you have to set the colour manually. I always thought blank normal maps were 128,128,255 (RGB)... but photoshop is telling me it's 127,127,255... *shrugs*

RE: The bad normal map itself, have you tried switching to Scanline as suggested? It'd be interesting to see what changes in this instance.

Hooch

GeeDave wrote: »

It's worth noting, the preview that renders on-screen is not the version you use. That will render with the default background colour (set in the Environment window), but the version that saves in the directory you specify is the one you want.

Oh... yeah, and you have to set the colour manually. I always thought blank normal maps were 128,128,255 (RGB)... but photoshop is telling me it's 127,127,255... *shrugs*

RE: The bad normal map itself, have you tried switching to Scanline as suggested? It'd be interesting to see what changes in this instance.

I'll try max scanline in a minute
I have this background set to that blueish color but it is still black in output files.

I'll use MR for AO only from now on.

GeeDave

If it's still black in the output files then you need to read my post again. You're probably just changing your global environment colour, as opposed to the element background in the RTT window. Either they've changed the functionality in 2012 or you're not quite following correctly.

Hooch

GeeDave wrote: »

If it's still black in the output files then you need to read my post again. You're probably just changing your global environment colour, as opposed to the element background in the RTT window. Either they've changed the functionality in 2012 or you're not quite following correctly.

Now it works fine.

While using MR for NM generanion I was getting that black backgroud.

With max scanline it is working very nice and very quick, 5 seconds to render 4k Normal map.

Now I move on to AO.

Thanks for all help.

r_fletch_r

Just a quick not make sure you turn on the hammersly supersampler in your render options. its slower but the quality increase is well worth it.

Hooch

r_fletch_r wrote: »

Just a quick not make sure you turn on the hammersly supersampler in your render options. its slower but the quality increase is well worth it.

I'll rerender it just now. Thanks for it.
I'm using Mitchell filter. Is it good, or are there any better ones?

Hooch

I used that Hammersly supersampler on highest quality. Render time wasn't really longer (10 seconds / 2k). Is there any way to make this map look better or is this all I can get?

Ace-Angel

Use RTTAssist, or read up here: http://www.laurenscorijn.com/articles/ambient-occlusion-baking

You need to really bump up the settings for MR baking, a 64-128 is the minimum for a good bake. 128-256 for a useable bake.

Hooch

Ace-Angel wrote: »

Use RTTAssist, or read up here: http://www.laurenscorijn.com/articles/ambient-occlusion-baking

You need to really bump up the settings for MR baking, a 64-128 is the minimum for a good bake. 128-256 for a useable bake.

Thanks for that link. I just finished with normal map.

BTW.
I installed that RTTAssist.
How to open it. Where it is in max?

onionhead_o

please delete this post