Max not baking out top few pixels of maps

AtlusZMH

Hey PC!

I am having a problem with max not baking out the top like.. 10th of my normal map.

Here are some screenshots





I've re-done the cage, made sure the UVs are in the 0-1 space, and made sure its lined up correctly in PS.

I've never encountered this before, so I am at a loss!

Any ideas what it could be?

Thanks!

S_ource

Tryed to reset x form?

EarthQuake

Do you have a random quad mapped to that section of the uv layout? That would cause it.

AtlusZMH

Here's a shot of the wires.. shoulda had it in the original post



nothing overlapping and resetting xforms didn't work..

Just baked out maps for another asset with no problems, so I dont think its max itself..

S_ource

Try make a new scene and merge your old scene/save file into it, dont think it will work but could be worth a try.

poopipe

does it still happen if you use an autounwrap ?

AtlusZMH

New Scene didn't help.

Doing a quick unwrap and repack did allow that top section to be rendered though... but how do I fix it without losing the unwrap I have already? X.x I hope i'm not sol..

AtlusZMH

So i found a "fix"

I ended up just rotating the UVs and my textures 90 degrees.

seems to have fixed the issue just fine! except the 90 degree turn lol

Ruz

could try saving out the uv's then reloading them on to an obj of the model. ie export then import.
Try attaching the model to a box then deleting the box.

Xoliul

Also just a remark: those UV's are a bit wonky and distorted here and there for a vehicle. You want to keep the UV's as straight as you can, some parts look like they're been unwrapped as for a character.
Also, not sure if you split smoothing groups at UV seams ? I yes, then I hope your engine supports this tangent base correctly (and doesnt compress them too much) or this asset will end up looking a lot less than optimal.

AtlusZMH

This is my first vehicle model, so the unwrap probably isnt optimal. Do you know of any examples of car UV layouts that I could look over?

I'll admit UVing is not my strong point. When I try to straighten out shells it only seems to make a lot of distortions on the results

Xoliul

As a rule of thumb, you never want to use something that does slight overall distortion, like Pelt or Relax. At least not on straight, mechanical parts, it's unavoidable for some parts (like 1930's car wheel arches).
I always unwrap vehicles with just Planar Projection, Flatten/Unwrap and some Cylindrical mapping, plus Stitch. I never touch Relax or Pelt except for those very rare parts.
You're gonna have a bunch of straight lines on your car, and you want to keep those straight in your UV's, to avoid aliased stepping in the textures.
Also makes it easier to texture with graphical elements, no need to account for wonky distortion.

Also, I'm seeing some more issues:
-overlap your wheel front textures, no point in having 2 unique ones unless you REALLY need to.
-Overlap you tire tread texture in blocks, like split a 24 side cylinder in 6 4-poly length blocks, and have the pattern repeat.
-Inside of the wheel arches is one of the least relevant parts of the car Overlap and scale down.
-If the windows are gonna be transparent, you MUST put them on a separate sheet, the asset is unusable in a game otherwise, as the whole mesh would require transparency sorting.

Here's a model I did years ago, it's not up to par texture-wise, but the UV's still hold true:

http://www.laurenscorijn.com/portfolio/cougar-ss

AtlusZMH

Thanks a lot for your crits. I'll go back and re-do this for sure.. I've googled a bunch of car UV maps and they all look similar to your layout also

I'll probably have to go back and re-work some of the low-poly as well with these fixes in mind. I have a thread going for the scene this is going to be used in, I'll update it with the fixes and link it here as well if you are interested in looking at it.