Maya normal map baking question

Gheromo

Hey guys, does Maya have something like 3dsmax's material ID baking for normal maps or perhaps there is a workaround for it to save time instead of baking piece by piece and then comping them in photoshop? Thanks

p.s. -perhaps similar feature in xnormal? sorry if it was answered before, couldnt find threads about it.

throttlekitty

I don't know about material ID business, but I typically have my models arranged in groups for easy selection. The Transfer Maps dialogue accepts multiple source and target meshes, do them all as one, no need for comping.

Gheromo

The Transfer Maps dialogue accepts multiple source and target meshes, do them all as one, no need for comping.

could you please explain in detail?

throttlekitty

In Transfer maps, under Target meshes, you have "Add Selected". Select all the objects you want to include in the normal map bake, and press that button. Same for Source Meshes if applicable.

Edit: forgot to mention that Xnormal is pretty much the same, you can add multiple models for high/low poly. I find it much easier to combine everything into single models when going that route.

EarthQuake

keyframe and explode(move a set amount away) each object(in high and low) to avoid any raytrace intersecting. Then add all of your low/high as suggested above.

Bal

Yeah I set keyframes as well to explode the objects.
On a related note, anyone know if there's a way for transfer maps to take into account smooth preview, so as not to have to convert all the meshes to real smoothed meshes when baking?

Grimm_Wrecking

nvm - was looking at wrong thing - sorry hah.

passerby

Bal wrote: »

Yeah I set keyframes as well to explode the objects.
On a related note, anyone know if there's a way for transfer maps to take into account smooth preview, so as not to have to convert all the meshes to real smoothed meshes when baking?

subdiv proxies?

dproeder

EarthQuake wrote: »

keyframe and explode(move a set amount away) each object(in high and low) to avoid any raytrace intersecting. Then add all of your low/high as suggested above.

Any tips on how to get nice clean bakes when you have intersecting/floating geometry being baked into a single low poly mesh? Intersections are killing me. Right now I just try to get the low poly mesh to encompass the high poly completely and bake on the inside of the cage only.

Bal

passerby, well yeah but that's just as much of a hassle in my opinion, I'd rather Maya detect stuff that is in smooth preview and use it as is, same thing for exports would be nice as well.

passerby

Bal wrote: »

passerby, well yeah but that's just as much of a hassle in my opinion, I'd rather Maya detect stuff that is in smooth preview and use it as is, same thing for exports would be nice as well.

ya i hear ya, max and blender get around this because it;s a modifier, but modo i believe will bake using the preview, and gives the option when exporting something with the subdivion preview to apply it first.

the same interaction in maya would be nice.

EarthQuake

dproeder wrote: »

Any tips on how to get nice clean bakes when you have intersecting/floating geometry being baked into a single low poly mesh? Intersections are killing me. Right now I just try to get the low poly mesh to encompass the high poly completely and bake on the inside of the cage only.

Not sure exactly what you're asking, exploding should help with intersections. If its a solid lowpoly mesh, you shouldn't have intersections?

Can you post some images of the problem area?

EarthQuake

Bal wrote: »

On a related note, anyone know if there's a way for transfer maps to take into account smooth preview, so as not to have to convert all the meshes to real smoothed meshes when baking?

Sorry I dont know there, it is a massive pain though.

I use the mesh smooth command, but this has a major flaw, if you don't delete your history your bakes can take a REALLY long time. So I would always save out a "clean" scene, then delete history, bake, and then revert back to that clean scene if I need to make any edits/as the final scene(so you don't lose the pre-subdivided mesh).

dproeder

EarthQuake wrote: »

Not sure exactly what you're asking, exploding should help with intersections. If its a solid lowpoly mesh, you shouldn't have intersections?

Can you post some images of the problem area?

High poly Source Meshes:


Low poly Target Mesh:


Normal Map Artifacting Results:

EarthQuake

Well, this is less of a "bake artifact" and more of just.... thats how you modeled it, isnt it? What does the high look like from that angle?

dproeder

Ah yes it is. The place where the distortion shows up isn't very clean on my high poly. Time to tighten up.



But ultimately I was just wondering if my baking process is the best way to go about it. On your highpoly source mesh, its ok to have intersecting geometry like I have pictured above as long as its clean and you bake from only inside of the cage? It worked on the gear area shown above pretty well, its just picky at certain corner and border edges even when I have hard edges separated on my UV maps.