AO artifacting. Please help.

GIS3000

Hi there guys,

I'm currently using the skylight + Lightmap + Light-tracer method in 3Ds Max 2012 to bake AO from a sub-D model to a low res game model.

The trouble is that the output looks as if the Low Rez model was casting a shadow onto the high Rez model!

The funny thing is that as I keep messing around with the settings, I eventually get it to output the AO map that I want. But I can't seem to see why or how.

What I need is to ensure that the Sub-D model gets and AO without interference from the Low Rez model, have it baked into the Low Rez model.

Any ideas? Thanks! I'm new to AO baking. BTW, the normal maps bake out perfectly.

Regards
GIS3000

MrNinjutsu

GIS3000 wrote: »

Hi there guys,

I'm currently using the skylight + Lightmap + Light-tracer method in 3Ds Max 2012 to bake AO from a sub-D model to a low res game model.

The trouble is that the output looks as if the Low Rez model was casting a shadow onto the high Rez model!

The funny thing is that as I keep messing around with the settings, I eventually get it to output the AO map that I want. But I can't seem to see why or how.

What I need is to ensure that the Sub-D model gets and AO without interference from the Low Rez model, have it baked into the Low Rez model.

Any ideas? Thanks! I'm new to AO baking. BTW, the normal maps bake out perfectly.

Regards
GIS3000

Can you take a screenshot of your settings?

GIS3000

Hi there,

Here they are, 3 of them. The one on the left shows the High rez and the Low rez models. Middle shows the settings for the skylight and lighttracer plugin.
On the large image, you can see the resulting output. Notice the black patches are where the low rez and high rez model intersect.

http://imageshack.us/g/341/lowhigh.jpg/


This is the out put image.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/855/box002lightingmap.png/

BTW, any good tutorials regarding this? Most of the tutorials just seem to cover baking the low rez mesh's AO and not from a High Rez model's AO to a low rez model.

thanks!

Alberto Rdrgz

Try disabling the Cage. I usually don't use the cage to be honest. Also, try tweaking your normals with 'edit normals' modifier.

hope that helps.

EDIT:

try your LP without chamfered edges!

GIS3000

Thanks for the help guys!

Hi Alberto! I tried your advice, but none of that worked....... In fact, unchecking the cage just gave me red zones.

But I think i found a solution. The low poly objects must be given a default material. And that's it! Weird!

thanks again!