Baking Errors When Using the Cage and Material ID Separation
polycounter lvl 10
So I've been trying to get this thing to bake since last night. No matter what I seem to do it gives me flat errors on almost half the model every bake.
At this point I don't know what could be wrong
-I've built and rebuilt the cage multiple times, and it always appears to be completely covering the high at all points
-I've checked and double checked the material IDs each pieces has a unique ID compared to those touching it and the high poly has corresponding IDs (I'm using Material IDs to separate close pieces rather than exploding, as per the 3Dmotive tutorial on Normal making)
What's the strangest thing it was originally ignoring those pieces completely but now it renders tiny areas of them and then the rest is an error.
There's nothing in the cage to suggest this amount of widespread error, at least not that I can see.
EDIT * I should probably add that there's definitely nothing inverted or overlapped in the 1,1 UV space either* EDIT
This particular bake is using Mental ray, but I've had near identical results using the default renderer as well
Shots with the cage on, shown with shaded turned on
Shots of the high and low poly without cage
What gets rendered out, the error log (for lack of a better term)
And the resulting Normal map
Help would be very appreciated, sooner rather than later as my deadline to have this thing baked is fast approaching... I probably should have posted this sooner but I figured it was something I could figure out myself, but that's looking like it's not the case.
I can post a Dropbox download of the max file if you, like me can't find the problem in these screenshots.
At this point I don't know what could be wrong
-I've built and rebuilt the cage multiple times, and it always appears to be completely covering the high at all points
-I've checked and double checked the material IDs each pieces has a unique ID compared to those touching it and the high poly has corresponding IDs (I'm using Material IDs to separate close pieces rather than exploding, as per the 3Dmotive tutorial on Normal making)
What's the strangest thing it was originally ignoring those pieces completely but now it renders tiny areas of them and then the rest is an error.
There's nothing in the cage to suggest this amount of widespread error, at least not that I can see.
EDIT * I should probably add that there's definitely nothing inverted or overlapped in the 1,1 UV space either* EDIT
This particular bake is using Mental ray, but I've had near identical results using the default renderer as well
Shots with the cage on, shown with shaded turned on
Shots of the high and low poly without cage
What gets rendered out, the error log (for lack of a better term)
And the resulting Normal map
Help would be very appreciated, sooner rather than later as my deadline to have this thing baked is fast approaching... I probably should have posted this sooner but I figured it was something I could figure out myself, but that's looking like it's not the case.
I can post a Dropbox download of the max file if you, like me can't find the problem in these screenshots.
Replies
If this wasn't the issue, post the max file.
Unstoppablex the material ID separation eliminates cage overlap much the same way exploding the mesh does
The good news is I got it to work, the bad news is I have no idea why it worked that time and not before as I don't think I actually changed anything. But at this point I'm not going to question it.
Still some errors for sure, but nothing I can't clean up.
For those interested I'm posting progress on this thing in this thread here
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=96117