Render AO to texture

# 1 01-02-2012 , 08:55 AM

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Ok, I have looked and followed a couple of tuts off the net...and I cant get it to work. I want to bake an AO to a texture to export to a game...as the engine doesnt support AO at this time...anyone got a good tut that works in Maya 2011???

cheers bullet

P.S I will keep trying LOL...I dont go idle

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"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

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# 2 01-02-2012 , 09:02 AM

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The AO setting in the colour menu drop down box doesn't do the best job in the world, better to use a custom Shader.. try this tut and see if it helps you https://www.game-artist.net/forums/sp...hemist101.html

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# 3 01-02-2012 , 09:29 AM

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use mental ray.
assign a new material (lambert)
create a texture bake set
rendering > lighting/shading > assign new bake set > texture bake set
have a look at the attributes for the texture bake set. at the top you can change light and colour to occlusion. before you increase the settings see if that works.
go to same menu batch bake mental ray

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# 4 01-02-2012 , 09:33 AM

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thanks guys.....will try them out when I get home. Used that one jsprogg....I assumed I then just aplly that combined as one texture file? thats the bit that had me stumped...wasnt sure.

cheers dom, I did that but it baked in like 0.2 secs...and I couldnt find the file....I must have missed something out LOL.

cheers bullet

bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

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# 5 01-02-2012 , 09:36 AM

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I assumed I then just aplly that combined as one texture file?

Originally Posted by

yes once you have the file combined in PS you can apply it to the material like any other texture file.

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# 6 01-02-2012 , 10:21 AM

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Dont I need to bake this to the UV layout jsprogg?? as thats what I have in PS...sorry for being a dummy mate LOL....baking is new to me. I will Google how to bake AO to UV then just in case....I assume this is the way.

cheers bullet

bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

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# 7 01-02-2012 , 10:37 AM

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baking out the AO texture

First make sure you have specified a project folder. To do this select File> Project > Set, and select a file. This file is where your baked texture will automatically be saved. If you forget to set a project folder the bake will be saved in your default projects file in your My Documents folder.

- Make sure that you have UV mapped your model.
- Make sure you check the face normals of your model are facing the right way or the bake will produce a black picture
- Make sure you have softened the edges of your model and created hard edges where needed
- Save a copy of your scene at this stage as Maya can crash while baking to texture
- Now choose the rendering menu set and select Lighting/Shading > Batch Bake (Mental Ray) > Options box

user added image

make sure you set the x and y res to the same size as your objects color texture file

- Select your object in the viewport and hit the 'Convert and Close' button to start baking the occlusion. When you do this Maya will not respond to any clicking, sometimes the screen will go blank and it generally looks like it has crashed but don't worry it will come back eventually. This can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours depending on how complex the scene is.

- Once the bake is completed open the project file that you specified earlier.

- In that folder select RenderData > MentalRay > Lightmap > select your baked texture file and open this with Photoshop.
- Drag the Occlusion bake on top of your model's color texture layer(s)(not the UV snapshot) and select Multiply as the layer blending mode. You may also want to apply a slight Gaussian blur to your occlusion layer, especially if it being used on an organic surface.

Finally save the composite file then go to Maya and create a material, open the attribute editor and in the color attribute map a file node and then add your composite image. Add the material to the object.

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Last edited by jsprogg; 01-02-2012 at 10:43 AM.

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# 8 01-02-2012 , 10:40 AM

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Normally saved to projectname,renderdata,metalray,lightmaps......... .....dave

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# 9 01-02-2012 , 10:42 AM

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got it guys......f*****g sweet...thank you all!!!!!! I did that jsprogg but it wouldnt work....so I combined the mesh and did it that way and it worked...LOL you posted as I was re reading that page mate LOL.....

cheers bullet

bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

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Render AO to texture

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