help - max's 'render to texture'

aw gawd, got a tut on this somewhere.

PM at about 8pm GMT and I'll send it your way.

That wont help because the rendered skin will still use the auto unwrapped lay out then

It doesnt unwrap if i select use excisting channel. Im using max 7.

Maybe try to collapse the model, or make a cube and attach it to the cube-> delete cube trough edit poly:element

Tricks max.

Try in a new scene ? If it works there..

Hello all..

I'm new ot this forum. Pretty cool stuff going on. I am a 3d modeller in the gaming profession myself, and I am also a Max user (at work anyway.. at home .. I am slowly turning to the XSI side).. anyway, this thread caught my attention.

I don't know if it's too late to post with regards to this topic, but here goes anyway.. If you look at capone_adam's screenshot segment, you will notice that there is the faded Sub-Objects, and that it has that Use Automatic Unwrap as the selected 'radio' checkbox.. Even though he has Use exisiting channel as his main option enabled.

The boys at Discreet .. (oops..sorry.. Autodesk Multiledia & Entertainment) have pretty much screwed up the render-to-texture dialogue box (man, I really hate that interface with a passion). The trick here is that there is an option further down (I don't have Max 7 currently installed on this computer, but if you scroll down the render-to-texture panel, near the bottom, there is a complete section regarding Automatic Unwrap, which is totally seperate from the area that capone_adam has on display in his screencap. You have to make sure that this section isn't enabled.. otherwise, no matter what mapping channels you use, try as you might, you will run into the problem capone is having.

Again, sorry I can't post a screenshot of what im talking about.. but trust me on this one. Once you scroll further down in the render-to-texture interface and find this extra section on Automatic unwraps and you disable it, your mesh will render the way you unwrapped it. I got caught more than once with my pants down on this one folks. You can thank the idiots who work on Duke street here in Montreal for really making the interface for this render-to-texture thing a pretty crappy one.

Cheers,

NRG

awesome first post.

that guy works with me

and me.

can someone tell me what baking a texture really does? I'm confused

you can set up lighting in max, and have the shadows "baked" directly onto the model's skin. really nice trick for nifty lighting ingame.

so it takes the rendered data from the renderer in max and adjustes the rasterized image accordingly?

yep, well what i've done in the past at least is render out just the lighting data so it can be layered up in PS.

sweeet thats awesome.

For some models youre better off backing seperate lightmaps instead of baking those lightmaps on top of the (diffuse) texture. That increases memory load + more blurry textures if the mesh doesnt use a unique skin

Hey capone... I am noticing that in your screenshot you have map channel 3.. is this the channel you use?

Personaly, I only stick with map channel 1.. eliminates alot of problems it seems..

As for my previous post, I have to apologize for the mix up..(this is what happens when a) you post something without the actual application up and running, and b) its late and you are tired and as a result, you are not thinking straight...) so once again, my bad. Sorry to all.

One thing I just tried was setting projection to enabled..(this is in the Projection Mapping section... You can leave the dropdown menu next to it set to No Projection Modifier.. in fact.. its probably best to make sure its set to no projection).. in anycase, when I enable projection, the bottom set of radio checkboxs becomes enabled (Mapping Co-ordinates section.. the use automatic unwrap and the use exisiting map channel becomes enabled for selction). Select the use exisiting map channel..

But as for the issue of using a map channel other than 1, this may cause confusion. Me personaly, I stick with only map channel 1.. I render all the different maps I need using map channel 1, bring each render into photoshop and adjust my psd (which is mapped on my mesh) from there.

Try this out and let me know if it works. But if you keep your mesh mapping channel on 1 and only use map channel 1, this should eliminate problems with regards to other map channels that may have pre-automatic mapping..

Sorry about my first post.

Cheers,

NRG

Not sure if you've solved your problem yet and I'm not exactly sure what your problem is. You want a flat UV map with the rendered texture and maybe baked lighting?

Select your object and open the render to texture window.

Be sure to check the "Use existing map channel" if you already have a UV map on your model and also double check that you are using the right map channel. Usually it's map channel 1, you seam to have chose channel 3 in your screenshots, which is the standard for automatic unwraps.

In the 'Output' window click add, select "Complete Map" from the list and click 'Add element', below type the size you want rendered out, 1024 for example. (Be sure you have selected your object as this list is individual for each object)

If you chose to create an automatic unwrap of the object you will want to tamper with the settings below depending on your model, if your not, forget that window.

Save the file as you usually can't cancel the render to texture process if you made some mistake. Click render and wait then save your map.

If you want soft lighting add a skylight and the lighttracer lighting with some added ray samples.

Hope this helps, there may be slight differences in the names of things, didn't have max in front of me when typing.

Quote from kleinluka

that guy works with me

Kinda makes you look good, doesn't it? :wink: