Renderhjs' textools (http://www.renderhjs.net/textools/) have buttons for quick AO baking with both mental ray and Light tracer. Not that many settings available, but it's practical for someone like me who makes tons of quick and small props. xNormal is quite good as well, but it doesn't support multiple UV channels...
Texel (texture pixel) density is best kept consistent as much as possible. So having a 1:1 pixel density means the 1:1 with each uv element/shell in relation to each other. Textools allows you to select all your uv pieces and do it with the press of a button (Normalize).
When you subdivide your plane turn off Smoothing the "Smt" button next to Divide. You can also crease the edges of your plane, the default Plane3D in does this, but the corners will still round off a little. Either way it prevents the open edges from shrinking in size as you subdivide it.
ah i was looking for that string :) toolMode.transformCenter() now i will make a nice macro that will automatically with one button change to screen and off center. at least i will try.. haven't done this for quite a while :) Thanks Eric :) update2: Here it is. simple but it works! drag this to your toolbar :)…
Nope, Just post your final submission and JERC says he'll take care of it from there. He did suggest posting your final submission in your first post as well using the edit button, but I don't think its absolutely necessary. Good Luck! I'm rooting for you! :)
Sos for the late answer, glad you made it. Custom Nodes are for you to plug your custom HLSL code into, but I see no reason for you to do it for texture offsetting. What I meant with a "float2" is a vector of 2. You can create one by holding down the "2" button and leftclicking into the editor.
ya like the other 2 said i think the enter page is useless. and if you want more input on the webpage i think the image viewer should have back and forward buttons. also i think your cinder block prop needs a lot of work in both the texture and the edges of it
On a serious note I did get one honest piece of advice from a uni tutor, "Don't bother specialising as a modeller, one day people will just be able to hit a button and have a pre-made character created" :/ I thought there's already something like that available, its called Poser...
You probably switched your scaling mode. Look at the top toolbar, beside the drop down that lets you select the coordinate system. If you click and hold on that button, you can change to different scaling methods. You likely have something wrong selected for what you want to do...
Thanks guys. I was wondering why it looked off. Using xnormal for the first time and had some mixed results. Being new to xNormal, is flipping the g Channel just the click of a button or drop down menu? I'll derp around and see if i cant find it. Thanks again for feedback. :)