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MightyBake Tool Announce

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  • Son Kim
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    Son Kim triangle
    Thanks Axi5,

    I'd never guess the term dilation would mean edge padding. @Rob, may I suggest changing it to "edge padding" so it won't confuses the masses?

    So if envelope isn't a cage, How does one select a cage mesh to be used?

    I'm testing MightyBake for UE4 and so far I got a black tangent space normal map, object space comes out fine. I'd love buy a personal license if everything works out, because features like not having to triangulate my mesh is really appealing!
  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor
    Son Kim, envelope is the cage, it's Maya terminology. And just like Maya your envelope does not need to match your polycount, uv layout, or physical shape of your low poly model. I've baked some meshes with just cubes as the envelope and gotten correct results.

    Dilation is a programmer term I think, I've heard it lots at work when talking about edge padding.

    Are you exporting tangents and binormals in your low .fbx file, and are you using the supplied Maya shelf to export your low. I've seen a couple guys at work get tripped up on this.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    Son Kim - I will look closely at the 4.7 tangent space changes. It may take a few weeks to follow up afterwards, but our intention is to stay aligned. We may provide two options for before the change and after the change.

    Our envelope can be anything you want. There is no restriction. You can scale up your mesh if you want or you can simply provide a few blocking planes. You can think of our envelope as a mesh that blocks the searching. This way, you can provide us with any mesh and it still works. There is no requirement that the topology match the low poly cage.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    Axi5 - can you post any screenshots of your max experiments? Which engine are you exporting to? Are you viewing the maps back in Max?
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    Son Kim & Malcolm - If you are seeing black tangent basis maps, please let me know how you got them. Let me know which export path you used and I'll try to post a warning if it detects that case.

    Regarding dilation - I can change it to edge padding if that's more intuitive. It's really more 'shell padding' than 'edge padding' I think, but that might be too technical.
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    mightybake wrote: »
    Son Kim - I will look closely at the 4.7 tangent space changes. It may take a few weeks to follow up afterwards, but our intention is to stay aligned. We may provide two options for before the change and after the change.

    Our envelope can be anything you want. There is no restriction. You can scale up your mesh if you want or you can simply provide a few blocking planes. You can think of our envelope as a mesh that blocks the searching. This way, you can provide us with any mesh and it still works. There is no requirement that the topology match the low poly cage.

    whaaa :o

    i need time to test this

    but how do you handle smoothinggroups then?
  • gloriousczar
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    gloriousczar polycounter lvl 6
    Hey I just picked this up at home and when I try to install the shelf for Maya, nothing happens. I installed Mightybake on both my C and E drive and I looked in the program files to try and find a custom maya shelf file or something that I could install manually I couldn't find anything. I have Maya 2014 and 2015 (they are both student versions) on my computer, I'm not sure if that makes a difference.

    @Neox - Yea I've tried it and it is awesome, I used a really primitive cube to bake a big cylindrical mesh to test it and the results are really good. I hate how finicky xNormal is with its cage.

    I also second the request to add a function to smooth your mesh in mightybake, so instead of smoothing you high poly and exporting 3134354 tris and waiting for the fbx to export out of Maya, you could export your pre smoothed high poly a lot faster, set the subdivision level you want and let Mightybake smooth + bake it in one go. I'm not sure if that's beyond the scope of the tool, but it would be a pretty sweet feature.
  • Son Kim
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    Son Kim triangle
    @malcom, I'm using Modo which doesn't export tangents and binormals. My mesh has 1 smoothing group and 1 UV island. I assume MightlyBake is sync to UE4,so with my setup it should bake fine.

    @mightybake, I'm not sure why the tangent space normal map came out black but the object space was perfectly fine(I think it might be my FBX file?). I sent an email through your support page, it contains a download link with my FBX file. "Edge Padding" is something i'm used to seeing coming from Modo/ Xnormal and I think most baking app use that term also.

    I attached an image of the settings I used.
  • Farfarer
    How does it cast rays out without a 1:1 cage? What's the logic behind it?

    How are we able to direct the rays?
  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor
    Son Kim, ah sorry, don't know anything about Modo thought you were using Maya.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    gloriousczar - regarding the maya tools, are using windows or mac? Which OS Version are you using? and lastly, if you have changed the path to your maya preferences folder or default environment let me know. I assume the default shelf locations for the maya installs.

    http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/Maya/files/PC-Save-preferences-htm.html.

    I think it should be fine that they are the student version. I wonder if it has a different preferences path.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    @Son Kim - If you are using modo for the low-poly, it may have some odd behaviour. I haven't verified that it works. Great to hear that the object normals come out though. That likely means that the missing tangents and binormals are not being generated automatically. I will test and fix that soon and post when I do.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    @gloriousczar - I will add mesh high-poly mesh smoothing to the feature request list.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    @Farfarer - It currently uses the maya philosophy of ray control. The user can choose to use the vertex normals of the low-poly mesh to set the direction, or choose 'geometric normals' which tells mightybake to use smoothed normals re-calculated from the geometry. If people feel this isn't enough control, I could look into adding more options.
  • Axi5
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    Axi5 interpolator
    Okay I explored it a bit more today, it took me a few attempts to get a good bake, spent about 30 minutes altogether so it's not going to be too thorough.

    I made a simple cube with a chamfer, all set to smoothing group 1, so there are no hard edges. Then I made a high poly as well, at first the high poly was exactly the same size as the LP, when nothing showed up in the tangent space map in mightybake I decided to make it bigger to see if that was the issue. It still didn't give me a tangent space so I gave up.

    I was right with the FBX export options they made a big difference:

    0d91300aef32c3e1c8a5e5114cf4c905.png

    Just for fair comparison, I did the same test in XNormal below, the OS maps didn't budge depending on axis. The Z-up map from MightyBake matched XNormals world space, so I think there must be some kind of mis-match between Max's export and MightyBake but it's beyond me.

    33cde3eee6c1c01eb3904c96d30167b5.png

    I included my UV's which you can compare to the Z-Up bake, I'm really not sure what's going on there it's baffling.

    Good news is that when saved down to an 8bit depth tga, the Y-up ONM map looks pretty good in Marmoset:
    http://i.gyazo.com/2ea67e031644e5f2c239d7adb006f6b9.mp4

    Some weird lighting going on around the corner but I think that's my UV's fault not mightybake.

    I tried using handplane on the Y-up ONM from an earlier bake and the result was pretty bad but I can't call that a large issue because handplane doesn't have an input for mightybake.

    Also, I was wrong about the dilation only doing part of the image before. It was just MightyBake's viewer, sometimes it only shows a bit of the image being dilated but the actual file is fine.

    And MightyBake options, Envelope input was from a much older test model so ignore it:
    c9b09fc97afddd066f210cf6bd26abf0.png

    I'd love to use MightyBake when the tangent map and object space axis issues are fixed for Max, I really don't know what could be causing the latter issue, perhaps I was doing something wrong because the FBX should be the same as Maya's surely.

    Also is there any possibility of adding 8bit tga format as well? I know we can fiddle around with 16bit a lot more but if we're just doing quick tests like what I was doing, tiff isn't a great format and Marmoset hates it.

    edit: clarifying.

    Further edit:

    Forgot to answer your questions specifically MightyBake. I'm using Unreal 4 as my target, trying to preview in Marmoset and Unreal 4, due to lack of a tangent space map though I couldn't really test it in Unreal.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    @Axi5 Thanks so much for doing the tests! I'll see what I can do about checking the FBX files from max. If you're willing to post your exported FBX files (high/low/env) somewhere, I would love to check them out.

    Which 8-bit format would be most helpful? If I added 8-bit tiff support, would that be enough?
  • Axi5
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    Axi5 interpolator
    @mightybake I messaged you a link to the files :)

    I personally use TGA for testing purposes, Marmoset works nice with it, not sure about any compression details on normal maps with it though.
  • Son Kim
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    Son Kim triangle
    mightybake wrote: »
    @Son Kim - If you are using modo for the low-poly, it may have some odd behaviour. I haven't verified that it works. Great to hear that the object normals come out though. That likely means that the missing tangents and binormals are not being generated automatically. I will test and fix that soon and post when I do.

    This is yet another reason why I value MightyBake, you're really fast with addressing issue. I just replied to your email, forgot to mention everything was modeled in Modo.

    As far as 8-bit format, I prefer PNG myself. I usually convert the 16-bit tiff to 8-bit uncompress PNG.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    @Son Kim Which version of Modo are you using. I have 701.
  • Son Kim
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    Son Kim triangle
    I'm still on Modo 601, but the files I sent you are FBX 2013 I had a friend convert it for me. I can also provide FBX 2006-2015 version of the files(if you really need it).

    What version of FBX does MightyBake support?
  • Son Kim
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    Son Kim triangle
    So I tested 2 other FBX by nervouschimp and the tangent space normal map come out black also.

    This thread has the FBX files(I believe they are also FBX 2013):

    http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/discussion/topic.aspx?f=83&t=91170

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27648883/AdamsNormalTortureTest.zip

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27648883/AdamsTortureTest-2.zip
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    Hi Folks,
    I've added 8-bit and 16-bit TiF & PNG's into the next version of MB. I'm in the process of adding exr support. I'll see if I can get a first pass of the modo / max issues people are having and then cut a version before working on some deeper features. Thanks for all the feedback, keep it coming.

    Rob
  • Axi5
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    Axi5 interpolator
    mightybake wrote: »
    Hi Folks,
    I've added 8-bit and 16-bit TiF & PNG's into the next version of MB. I'm in the process of adding exr support. I'll see if I can get a first pass of the modo / max issues people are having and then cut a version before working on some deeper features. Thanks for all the feedback, keep it coming.

    Rob

    OOO. EXR would be great with displacement maps! Any possibilities of that in the future?
  • billymcguffin
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    billymcguffin polycounter lvl 11
    I would love curvature maps (dual tone like xnormal, preferably)!
  • gloriousczar
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    gloriousczar polycounter lvl 6
    Hey I have Windows 7, I checked my preferences path, and for some reason the path is E:\SAMSUNG Documents\Documents\maya\2015-x64 (I have no idea why). dDo had a material manager script for maya that they just included in the download so you could just go into the program files or wherever and grab the mel script. Could you do something like that for people like me who have a different default path?

    Again thanks a lot, your response time on the forum here is awesome.

    7eDmLEP.jpg
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    @billymcguffin curvature maps - It's on the feature roadmap. I'm doing some reading on the various techniques. I'll see if I can add it shortly.

    @Axi5 Just wrapped adding exr support, i'm working on adding an option for displacement maps. I had height maps already, but I'll do auto normalization for displacement maps.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    @gloriousczar I'll add a 'manual' maya installation that lets you specify the path to your shelf directory
  • Son Kim
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    Son Kim triangle
    @mightybake thanks for adding PNG, its really nice of you! Once the Modo issue are address I can expect to see a new demo? I'd like to buy a license asap.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    MightyBake 1.3.6 has been released for both windows & mac. You can find it on our downloads page here:

    http://www.mightybake.com/demo/

    Summary:
    - Bug Fixes
    - Added PNG & EXR as export formats
    - Fixed auto-generation of tangents for exports from MAX & Modo. (*note - support is not 100% yet for these packages, I will continue to update this over time) . Please post any information about bakes that don't work for you.

    Enjoy! If you have trouble, please mail support@mightybake.com.

    Rob
  • Son Kim
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    Son Kim triangle
    Good news is i'm not getting black bakes anymore. But the tangent space normal map aren't sync with UE 4.6.1.
  • Axi5
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    Axi5 interpolator
    Son Kim wrote: »
    Good news is i'm not getting black bakes anymore. But the tangent space normal map aren't sync with UE 4.6.1.

    That might be an issue that smoothing splits, UV splits and padding can solve SK! Try that and see if it works :)
  • Farfarer
    4.7 is going to be using MikkTSpace anyway. I'd just stick with had until you update then everything will work perfectly :)
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    wow this looks good and it works on a mac! bonus!
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    MightyBake 1.3.7 has been released for both windows & mac. You can find it on our downloads page here:

    http://www.mightybake.com/demo/

    Summary:
    - Height maps & displacement maps have been added - this includes EXR support for both.
    - A manual option to install the Maya shelf has been added

    Next release soon - Rounded edge normal map baking


    Enjoy! If you have trouble, please mail support@mightybake.com.

    Rob
  • Millenia
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    Millenia polycount sponsor
    Rounded edge baking sounds like a pretty standout feature, if you can implement one that works better than Max's I'd probably buy this for that alone! I'm quite liking the arbitrary cage feature, too.
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    Hey Guys,

    I just installed it and the maya export tools and sadly when i hit the envelope, set up a name and export it, Maya crashes.

    i tried naming it envelope and envelope.fbx both with the same result.

    Your documentation overall is pretty limited to be honest. Which settings do you use on Maya export for instance?

    Do you export Smoothinggroups? Split per vertex normals? Tangents and Binormals, we found out you have to triangulate. Why do we have to figure it out by running the tool? Why isn't that documented?

    Some feedback, i'll just add more:

    - if i select a highpoly, and then a lowpoly, it always starts at the folder mightybake was installed to, not the one i just used to pick my file

    -could you please add a more flexible demo mode? like 30 days and no limits?
    i'll set up my files now so i can get similar outputs as i would have with 4k maps. but realy the 19 testbakes can be easily reached by just testing. before you even have a usable result.

    - i got 5 bakes left. My suggestion would be to drop the amount of bakes and maybe make it amount of days instead. You can keep the 1k limitation, i can understand it. maybe add some watermark or something that doesn't entirely destroy the bake but makes it unusable in anything but a testcase
  • jasong
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    jasong polycounter lvl 10
    I second what Neox has suggested about a more flexible demo as I would like to test it out some more before buying. The program crashed several times when I was trying it out and troubleshooting it used up a lot of my trial bakes.
  • Son Kim
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    Son Kim triangle
    I third what Neox suggested. I'm not sure I can evaluate it properly - I'm already at 4 bake left. Maybe a 15 day trail would be more useful.

    Looking forward to next release. Round Edge baking sounds good, I'm curious how this is going to be implemented.

    @Farfarer, yeah you are probably right I'll definitely be subbing again ounce UE4.7 is release in a couple of week. hopefully this means the end of my normal map problem being a Modo/Xnormal user.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    @Neox - Thanks for the feedback! I will change the demo period in the next release to be 30 days rather than number of bakes. It will ignore any bakes you have made in a the past and start counting from when you run the new version.

    @Neox - I'm sorry about the documentation, I agree it needs work. If there were key questions you would like answered, past the ones you mentioned, let me know and I will prioritize them being written.

    @Neox - If you wouldn't mind, could you tell me which version of maya and what platform you were using? You shouldn't have to worry about options, the export scripts take care of it. If you feel comfortable putting the files up on a dropbox and sending the link, I can figure out why they crashed. My apologies, It shouldn't be crashing.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    @jasong - Did it crash on load or during baking?
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    Hi folks,

    We just found a bug with Scale & displacement maps. We are working on a fix. Sorry for any inconvenience.

    Rob
  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor
    For those using Maya I posted a quick start guide to get correct bakes for UE4, I posted it on the first page of this thread which has probably been lost with all the replies now, took a lot of testing to get it all sorted so hopefully that helps people on here.
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    mightybake wrote: »
    @Neox - Thanks for the feedback! I will change the demo period in the next release to be 30 days rather than number of bakes. It will ignore any bakes you have made in a the past and start counting from when you run the new version.

    @Neox - I'm sorry about the documentation, I agree it needs work. If there were key questions you would like answered, past the ones you mentioned, let me know and I will prioritize them being written.

    @Neox - If you wouldn't mind, could you tell me which version of maya and what platform you were using? You shouldn't have to worry about options, the export scripts take care of it. If you feel comfortable putting the files up on a dropbox and sending the link, I can figure out why they crashed. My apologies, It shouldn't be crashing.

    Maya 2014 64bit on Windows 7

    my system specs are:

    I7-3930K @320Ghz
    64Gig Ram
    Nvidia geforce GTX 770
  • jasong
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    jasong polycounter lvl 10
    mightybake wrote: »
    @jasong - Did it crash on load or during baking?

    It was crashing when trying to bake because I had an OBJ in the Hi-Poly slot instead of an FBX. Once I switched to FBX it worked perfectly.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    @jasong OBJ should work, if you wouldn't mind sending me the file I can debug it.
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    @mightybake, hey man, thanks for this. i will try some more once i get to the next asset that needs to be baked with maya. I really would love to replace maya in our baking pipeline, it is SO SLOOOOOOW and cumbersome

    that said, we constantly run into issues with the clownmaps(from maya from xnormal, from whatever), it is either horribly ugly thanks to aliasing or the selection is bad thanks to anti aliasing.
    Would it be possible to render out each material ID into it's own layer in exr or tif or individual files? This way we would have perfect masks which would make the whole process a LOT easier and faster for everyone involved.
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    @Neox - Sure, that sounds totally doable. Is naming the maps according to material name acceptable? - BTW - It will take a lot of memory for large maps with lots of materials.

    Btw - In mightybake, you can already specify 1x1 so there is no anti-aliasing done. It preserves hard boundaries between materials that way. It should have no corruption (i.e. material ID blending)
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    our clients want the masks nice and antaliased, so right now, we bake one map, extract and clean up each masked layer.
    naming is totally fine as this can be used in preparation. i think memory is not so much of a concern to us, but that might be just me
  • mightybake
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    mightybake polycounter lvl 5
    @neox - Based on your request, I'm in the process adding a layer separated clown map that will support anti-aliasing per channel (this will likely add to 1 when summed). This will mean it will keep each map in memory during baking. Out of curiosity, how many materials do your objects typically have?
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    mightybake wrote: »
    @neox - Based on your request, I'm in the process adding a layer separated clown map that will support anti-aliasing per channel (this will likely add to 1 when summed). This will mean it will keep each map in memory during baking. Out of curiosity, how many materials do your objects typically have?

    no more than ten i would say, usually way less. but i guess a temp folder with pngs (or something) that get comped together would lower the need of having all of it in memory until it is done?
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