I'm doing all this for the first time and translating what a video tutorial in Max 2021 is doing, to what I see in the Bake Texture dialog in Max2023... and there are issues.
Backstory: I have a 8M poly mesh from an Artec Leo scanner that output a 16K texture map, obj and mtl file. Importing that into Max, I have a mesh that nicely displays the texture in a shaded viewport and renders sharply due to the 16K texture map. Adding a UVW Unwrap modifier on the imported mesh, the UV editor shows a layout that matches the texture map used in the material. As it must.
I used Max2023 Retopology and have a nice 100K mesh. I want to get a diffuse map and normal map from the high-res mesh onto the low-res mesh. The tutorial video used a Normal map in scanline mode as a quick method for normal map baking, but that map is missing in the Bake options Scanline section now. Max2023 help states for the Arnold section of the Bake dialog: "Normals: bakes either the normals of the current object or the normal maps from high resolution to low resolution using a projection. Note: Do not use Arnold_N map for baking normals in Arnold. Use the Normals map."
Problem: There is no normals map in the Arnold section. There is Arnold_N, but it says not to use it. So now what to do?
The other part is getting the UVW Unwrap hi-res mesh diffuse map onto the low-res mesh.
I assume this is all doable. What say ye?
Buck Wyckoff
