Dark and undefined Render to texture problem..

[Anonymous]

First time posting here, been trying to fight this one on my own with the countless video guides and attempts..

I have been trying to get a nice clean complete map and or normal map for my 3d model wheel. My first 3d model fully created.

Hardware / software

3DS Max 2018 (shares 250gb SSD with photoshop 2018)

WIndows 10 Home Edition

PC: Custom built.

Gigabyte Mobo: AB350 Gaming 3

Ryzen 5 2400g

Gigabyte 1050 ti Windforce

Ram: Corsair 3200

PSU Corsair 750 .

I have been learning 3ds max for the last year.. I am able to modify premade models, and use them in some of my online gaming, but never made my own custom model, so never needed to create maps (ambient, diffuse, normal, etc..)

After a few attempts I have made my own custom complete wheel and tire model.

'

Current model 1 layer, with sub elements (tread, sidewalls, main rim, face, lugnuts, etc..)

File attached for download and troubleshooting .Max format. Low Poly and High poly is included.

I have been fighting 3ds max for over a wheel and countless tutorials on how to get a good clean map created and havent had any luck.

I have tried using multiple different settings, scanline, projection, arnold, quicksilver..

Many with HORRID results and then of course after multiple attempts, different videos with trial and errors, crashes, not responding with end processes, and even 1 uninstall / reinstall to the point of buggy startups,

I found this video tutorial.. High to Low poly baking Intro

that has gotten me close to what I am trying to achieve. Just not to what I need.

The following image is one of the default Normal Map textures  (ANM.DDS game format) that is used in World of Tanks which is what I am using as a baseline result that I am trying to achieve or AT LEAST close to the same result..

My end result after countless tries and failures... this result was after following the above video tutorial linked above and probably the only decent result i got...

as you can see there are countless dark shadows, black outlines, many of the details are not even visible or very blurred. The only part of the rendering that turned out right was the main tread face of the wheel..

I have tried breaking down the wheel model via detach (no clone, not to element). and doing 1 piece at a time.. still getting horrible shadowing.. I tried several different colors and orange seems to be the best result for the medial details that did show good.

SO a few questions and hopefully someone can provide me with a successful setup and what settings, and or process I need to do to get a very similar texture map to the defualt green normal map..

1. Can 3ds Max recreate a normal map that looks as good as the default green Normal map?
2. If so, what is the correct process, settings, etc that will get this result?
3. If Not then what program will give me the desired result that I want to create the closest match to the default green normal map?
4. If you have downloaded and scrutinized my 3d model, what did i do incorrectly to get unsatisfactory results?
5. What is needed to correct this issue to get clean and clear results that are close to the parameters of the defualt map?

If need be and willing to do so.. I'm happy to some $$ on a paypal.me if needed if someone could just provide me with the correct settings that i can save and use..

Hoping for some positive results..  after several months of watching countless videos, tuts, learning new stuff in 3ds max, I want to be able to continue the fun, but I'm to the point of giving up and losing hope :(...

Forgot to mention...

Unit setup is in centimeter.. 1 to 10 Ratio

[madsd]

The biggest champions are those who fail the hardest in the start. This is how the world works, so you are in good shape.

You are baking the yellow with some kind of light, so where ever there is no light, there will be black, and black means the face is occluded or partially occluded due to your light scenario.

I would move you to Arnold and leave scanlines behind. You will find many superior workflows when working with 3dsmax using Arnold compared to scanlines, especially with custom baked maps and lightning as well and just in general.

You can bake a normal map from a highres model and project it back to a lowpoly model and get good results so its possible for sure.

The thing is, you need to split your actions into sub tasks, you have to define the normal bake and the diffuse bake seperatly through the bake window and you need to make sure that if you need Ambient occlusion on the diffuse pass, that your range is realistic and not too constrasting, blacks eating up everything easily, so these things are easy to adjust.

[Anonymous]

tyvm for the appreciate response and the hopefully intro.. does ease the tension of my frustration some, but yet not enough information to solve the delimma that I am still trying to resolve to create the maps I am wanting for my model..

ok use arnold for baking, understood.

break down model into seperate objects to bake one at a time, ok cool tyvm..

However I am having no luck finding any kind of tutorials that cover the information that i need in order to do so using arnold and 3ds max to render my normal, ao, and or diffuse maps.. Been googling 3ds max MaxtoA render to texture, oa, baking maps, etc.. and I keep getting maya results more then anything and nothing that shows me what settings i should use..

So...

what settings should i use?

projection yes or no?

high poly to low poly?

low poly to high poly?

lighting yes or no? if yes then which one? photometric, standard, omni? etc...

If anyone could please provide me with the needed settings, setup, and or video tutorial walkthoughs..

I would be greatly appreicated and be even willing to "donate" to a paypal.me of choice.. Yes I am to that point.. I just need the info and how to create the maps so i can finally move forward with my 3d modeling project and more projects to come..

[madsd]

Try watch attached video, I just made it.

You may hear golf commentators in background from the live transmission from RBC Heritage.

So I set up from scratch. A model with a shader, and extract a diffuse and a normal pass.

Then swap to make a CUSTOM shader ( this shader can have any types of normals, diffuse, whatever you can think of in it ) and render that out with AO.

As you can see, its actually not that difficult to get things going.

Note that lightning has no impact on normal pass or diffuse pass.

You can then chose to create MaterialX exports you can quickly load and use to mange render jobs with overrides, but lets not go down that path, because that is not needed for your case, its just a powerful side feature in Arnold.

[Anonymous]

so when i goto render setup and choose Arnold..  and then goto Render to texture, i keep getting message about not able to render textures and reverts.. what am i missing? what should the render setup be? I do not get all those arnold_ options to choose from like what you have in your video?

I think I managed to get it to work a little bit better on the results, but not sure what I've done wrong.

In Render setup, i chose Arnold. selected Active shade? Is this correct?

Went to render to texture.. followed your video.. I got better results but now the Maps are rainbow colored and or have a severe dark shaded area on the tread face vs. my original attempt is 1 color base and no dark shadow area.

Top one is the Diffuse map.. Dark shadow area.. And yes my wheel model is Above the 0,0,0 xyz.. thought it would be the cause.. was wrong. what should my settings be for diffuse to remove the heavy shadowing?

and this one is with the arnold_N map.. multicolored.. the overall details is way better..  how do i get it to a single primary color?

[madsd]

You may suffer from having a rather old version of Arnold on the system.

Get up to date here.

https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/arnold/download/#3dsmax

The most recent public build number shows in the top of the Arnold renderer tab, it will check online and state a newer version is available, if you are indeed sitting with an older version.

[Anonymous]

realized that and updated.. reread my last reply.. I had to modify and edit it for more details..

[madsd]

Your diffuse map looks like its collectiong the default shading from max when there are no lights in the scene.

You can see the tire that is unwrapped that you get some kind of lightning baked into it.

If you want to experiment you can also try to feed any map to the selfillumination slots color and set strength to 1.0.

While having all lights off.

You wont get all lights off when just rendering, you actually need to add a light and then disable it. Then you can use a self illumination slot to get complete uniform output, no shadows.

Im just wondering why you get shadows baked into the diffuse, it almoste looks like you attempt to bake a complete map or a RGBA map. The diffuse channel would do fine alone.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

@madsd 

Thanks to your post i found earlier this morning and the video you linked, I have managed to get the result i was after.

Arnold Ambient Occlusion Render to Texture

And I Learned ALOT more with the settings 🙂 I'm barely scratching the surface of the arnold Rendering but I am slowly getting the hang of it.

Here is my end result that I'm absolutely 100% Happy with.

After watching your video, i used it as a base and started reading what each setting does and within an hour, i had it dialed in 🙂

Arnold_RGBA and Complete map are an exact match overall. Padding set to 3

and I am attaching my slate editor and Arnold render settings as well for others to use.

WARNING! Samples @ 6 passes and camera AA settings at 8.. takes about 30 seconds or more pending on PC for render, but the Overall look is **** near perfect.

You will have to adjust the Far clip and black / white colors accordingly pending on the size of 3d model and color profile.

[mgmcgill]

I love the way everyone cheered when you chose "Use Existing Map Channel".  I was excited about that too.  😜