MAX 5 Bake to texture question

[mouj]

Howdy,

Indeed Max has a texture baking feature ("render to texture"), and it works pretty well imo.

As far as rendering times, well i don't have that much experience with the Radiosity engine, but i guess solution calculation depends on your scene and setup, guess it does need to calculate a new solution every frame when you have animated objects, parameters changing over time; if on the contrary your scene is a "still" and you want to create a flythrough, then i think the Radiosity engine will calculate a single solution and use it all along - in which case rendering should be pretty fast.

I think the network rendering of texture baking is due to be released in the upcoming version of Max, might be wrong but i think i saw it in the features lists.
The baking itself seems pretty easy to use, help files and tutorials describe it pretty well, but then again you never know : )
I have tried it a couple times and never had a problem with it.

mouj

[TimWoods]

in max 5 radiosity the solution is done once, you can then fly the camera around the scene. moving anything will cause the solution for that object to be lost. As radiosity doesnt get calculated every frame then the rendering times arnt much more than normal. Our full arch scenes take around 2 mins a frame at 400x300. baking textures is neat, but it doesnt save any time really. Means you can move objects but the light wont change.
It should network render because its applied as a texture.
quick note... you cant animate radioisty, else you have to calculate every frame, then you get flickering because the render doesnt see the next frame. the light is always slightly different. so if you wanted a door opening, forget it. Even with a baked texture the light will look odd as soon as you move it from its static position.
the process of using baked textures is a pain. because when you have a scene you use exposure control. If you only bake one or two objects the bitmap on them will be effected by the exposure control. so you either have to bake the entire scene, which takes ages. this way you can ditch all the lights and the texture colours wont get altered.

hope that helped. and made sense.

:wavey:

[DJ-Wood]

Tim and mouj,

Thanks for your responses. I should have said that I only plan to use 'static' scenes with no animated objects - purely an animated camera and nothing else.

Tim, could you expand a little on your comments about the exposure control and its effects on render time? I am guessing that the render to texture feature works like this (please correct me if my assumptions are wrong):

* I process the 'meshed' and 'refine iterations' solution as normal.

* I "render to texture", meaning that the solution is now baked in to the mesh.

* Does this mean I can now delete the light sources? Will they not cause the scene to burn out if the lighting effect is now embedded in the mesh?

* I render my animation at 720x576, with the 'compute radiosity when required' box left unchecked. What about 'Use radiosity'?

* I am guessing that if the scene is calculating a baked texture only and not shadows / light distribution (because these are stored), then the render time should only be the same as if I were rendering the scene out with no radiosity and no shadow casting light sources? In what way does the exposure control slow this down? Is there a way round it?

*How long does it take to bake an entire scene? Could it tick over during my lunch break, or do I have to leave it overnight?

Forgive me if I am flogging this subject a bit, but I have to justify an upgrade to MAX 5 to the finance people here ... want to make sure that it does everything I think it can do!

[TimWoods]

exposure control has no effect on render time. it sorts out the radiosity when the solution has been completed. a bit like photoshop you can alter the contrast and brightness. its a major part of max and viz 4. especially with photometric lights.

we use radiosity for animations, static that is, and dont really feel the need for the texture baker. it can take a long time to do the entire scene, and render times are that much quicker. But we upgraded from viz because of reactor, edit poly tools, and particles and other more advanced features.

baking its does mean you dont need any lights in the scene. and the render time will be quicker, but remember every object will have a large texture on it, and i suppose will take slightly longer than rendering a scene with no textures. but only marginally.

the compute radiosity button will compute the radiosity if an object has moved. it shouldnt do anything if the solution remains intact.

as for doing it over your lunch, it depends how complicated your scene is. when you render to texture it renders like a normal render, then saves the file and then unwraps the object and applies the material to the object. so it could take a while.
;)

[DJ-Wood]

Thanks for your responses!

A large part of the work I do is visualising lighting design concepts, using IES data from manufacturers ... so the 'render to texture' facility is probably the one and only reason I think I need to upgrade to MAX 5 (for radiosity animations)

I guess 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating' in this case ... I'll let you know once I get the upgrade!

Thanks again for your help

David

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