I'm using 3ds Max 9. All I did is to set the renderer to Mentalray and chose Normalmap and AO map from a list in the render-to-texture dialog. By the way I've just seen that baking a normalmap in mentalray gives me the same odd missed rays (red spots). Does it have something to do with this:…
What renderer are you using, maya software or mentalray? In mentalray try production quality filter width 2 and make sure to turn your texture node to mip map instead of quadratic. You can turn the filter width down to get a sharper render and also turn down the max sample levels.
Here is the link to the maya software render normal map shader, I believe you have to install his toolbox or something http://www.carboneros.com/mel.htm Here is the link to the mentalray render normal map shader, it is simply a shader network import into your scene and render in Mentalray…