Vig: Maya has a "batch bake (mental ray)" option, and you can choose to bake occlusion to a map, or directly to the vertex colors of the selected mesh, which is quite nice. You get the same result using Eric's method in Max, but it is a few extra steps.
The latests versions of xNormal(3.14 or above) can bake the AO to a map or also to vertex colors. The xNormal default software renderer only renders maps. The GPU AO tool can render ao maps or per-vertex ao. If you want to bake it to vertex colors you need to look for the "Simple GPU AO Tool section". If you press the…
I have a selection of buildings which i wish to bake some AO into using the vertex information rather than baking the occlusion into the textures as they do not have their own unique UV coordinates. It appears that the only way to do this in max 8 is to bake your vertex illumination using a radiosity solution in the…