Maya: Baking material color to a Color ID map?

SaintDaveUK · Feb 2016

I use Maya LT 2016 and Quixel 2.0.

Once I have applied different coloured materials to my object, how do I bake these colours to a map (as mentioned in the Quixel Manual)?

My usual workflow is:

use Hypershade to manually Select Objects With Material
manually change their vertex colour with the Paint Vertex Color Tool
repeat for each material
bake the vertex colours to a Color ID map in xNormal

There must be a simpler way to transfer this color information to a map, while retaining the colours from the original material. Right now the DDO Swatch is useless with this workflow.

Thanks

VictorB · Mar 2016

Damn, I am actually trying to figure this out myself. I am used to Substance allowing us to make Color ID maps from Material IDs that we made inside Maya LT, way easier than trying to bake out of Turtle...

VictorB · Mar 2016

Alright, so I ended up figuring it out, but I wish there WERE an easier (faster) way. Just like in Susbtance, I wish I could just bake a Color ID map from Material IDs.

But, this is how I did it from Maya LT 2016.

Made new materials and changed colors (important because Quixel only gives you hex/color info)
Went to shading
Opened up Texture Baking Settings under Texture Baking
Made sure Bake was selected up top
Selected Baking tab
Target and Source target I made the same
Changed Texture Bake Settings Resolution (width/height in pixels)
Went down to Shader Outputs, unchecked Full Shading
Checked Albedo
Closed the window
Clicked on Texture Baking tab up top
Clicked on Bake
Viola - Color ID map made

Simply put, Substance's Color ID map baker is way more efficient (less steps for lazy people like me!)

VictorB · Mar 2016

Oh and it took me a second to figure out how the heck to use it inside dDo. You click on the little squares on the right of your root Material (so you may have to click the < arrow) and change it to the color you want.

VictorB · Mar 2016

I did hope that using the dDo swatch would have done this automatically. But I guess not?

SaintDaveUK · Mar 2016

Figured out a pretty painless workflow!

First I made a simple 'swatch' in Photoshop. Just a grid of colours that I want to use.

Here is an example high poly model:

UV map models and faces to different materials on the swatch:

Your high poly should look something like this and is ready to 'bake texture' in XNormal!

Maya: Baking material color to a Color ID map?

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