Bake rounded edge shader to normal maps

[KarlAkimor]

Modo can do this with a rounded edge shader. His rendered allows making sharp edges to render smooth and in addition it allows baking it to the normal maps. No need of beveling, subdivisions etc.

Vray has also another rounded edge shader.

This would be a huge help in game production assets and would eliminate a large amount spend in geometry for achieving the same.

[RGhost77]

Please make it on OSL.

[Kranos_Orphydian]

Im a simple man I see KarlAkimor ideas, I vote up

[millenia3d]

We used to have one with Mental Ray but that's gone now 😕 I think Max was one of the first apps to actually have it, too.

[musashidan77]

Unfortunately, this would be useless without the devs incorporating Mikk tangent space. MikkT is now industry standard across all the other apps. Max/Maya are now the only 2 programs using hacky and legacy tangent basis.

I have and idea posted up about MikkT. Vote for it everyone who loves baking normal maps.....:)

[KarlAkimor]

I'm sure Mikk is desirable in this tutorial for modo for baking soft edges shader they don't mention Mikk.  It seems it can be done without it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHkbCQQykAg

[musashidan77]

Yes, of course it can be done. It's been done for the last 20-odd years! 🙂 My point is that Mikk tangent basis is the first time in history that a single tangent basis has become uniform across all(except Max/Maya) programs. Allowing for painless and predictable tangent normal map baking.

I really don't understand why it hasn't been added to Max already. It's open-source and would surely be easy enough  for somebody to just add it as another option in Preference Settings>Normal Bump Mode.

[KarlAkimor]

Well, consistency of normals between programs is a nightmare and anything that could help is great.

[musashidan77]

Well, it USED to be a nightmare. Not any more. Because Mikk tangent space has been adopted across the entire gaming industry as the tangent basis standard, Normal Maps are now completely predictable. This is due to all vertex normals been calculated from the same basis and gives us a synced workflow. Something that we've never had before.

Unfortunately Max(and Maya) are the only 2 programs that are still stuck with their own native tangent basis, which brings us back to the old-school hacking guesswork.

[SharoozAsghar]

As a game artist I think I speak for a lot of 3D artist to implement a better rounded Edge or smooth edge shader for max just like in Modo. As Modo allows you to create complex shapes without having to worry about topology. I've been wanting to use a quick and easy rounded edge shader for max for years that isn't buggy and easy to use. Please consider that suggestion as many people in the game artist industry want it.

Thanks

[SharoozAsghar]

My most desired max feature 😞

[monster.blues]

Duplicate idea, this other one has several votes.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-ideas/bake-rounded-edge-shader-to-normal-maps/idi-p/7894686

[nguyenvanlinh080991]

Tính năng tối đa mong muốn nhất của tôi

[mbreidt]

AFAIK Foundry acquired a license of the patent that protects the rounded edge shader, which is owned by Nvidia/mental ray... But yes, a rounded edge shader on it's own would be very useful for quickly turning low-res geometry into something visually more pleasing, and being able to bake it would be even more useful.

[KarlAkimor]

I doubt about that kind of patent. I have never seen anything similar enforced in 3d software.

Obviously what they can protect is the code itself but not the feature.

[musashidan77]

Yes, it is patented. We had an in-depth discussion about it on the Max beta forums. Still not sure how it works exactly. As of now these are the programs/renderers that support it:

Vray

Mental Ray

Octane

Modo

Blender

Corona

The original code was written by 'Master' Zap Anderson

[KarlAkimor]

The fact that is patented doesn't mean it can be enforced. I'm talking about the feature, not the code.

I don't think there is a single precedent of this in 3d software, that would be rather terrible.

In games for example there are some resources used in finding out if some of the graphics have an owner and are under copyright but never if the features are under patents. 

[musashidan77]

Yes, it is a strange one alright. Every 3D software adopts features from other ones so It would be a precedent alright. Here's a snippet from the conversation:

I believe the patent is mostly about the fast and noiseless way to compute the rounded edges; there are some simple sampling techniques (just shoot random rays in many directions and average, very similar to AO) but these are slow/noisy AFAICT. For Blender, I found this: https://developer.blender.org/D2803

Edit: I believe this is the main beef - which references a 2013 Siggraph sketch from some Arnold guys.

[brentscannell]

I understand this is now available in Arnold, but we're still looking at how to consume this in a texture baking process. Moving this to "under review" for the time being, stay tuned!

[musashidan77]

Available in Arnold, but broken, as per my thread on beta. That's on the
Arnold team, though. Mads brought it to them months back when I spotted it.