Rendering my AO map doesn't give me any shadows

[Chase]

Awwwwww see I did renove all the uvs but inly the symmetrical uvs, not the uvs from the holes. It didnt even dawn on me. When I think overlapping uvs I think the ones that come from using symmetry. Urgh I feel like an idiot lol. How does this rule apply if I have my uvs outside ghe 0-1 uv space for tiling textures of something lije that?

[maxthebest685]

You have overlapped uvs of that hole's inner part and also symmetry. You have to bake it without symmetry. and software only calculate for 0-1 uv space. it will not calculate anything while baking out of 0-1 uvs.
it calculates data for all the faces on model. then when it compose it in uv space. it overlap data of baking on overlapped uvs . so it gives errors on uvs.and it avoid data of uvs outside 0-1. did you got me ??

[kanga]

Originally Posted by Chase

For xnormal do you have to worry about cages? I just downloaded it but haven't had a go yet

Yes you do if the model is anything more complex than a box. Just make a projection cage in max and use the xnormal exporter. Your model is really very devoid of any kind of detail so it is a very difficult model to bake for I think.
AO can be incredibly powerful but it cannot put detail where there is none. Below is an xnormal baked AO map that is a very important part of the model.

[Chase]

Max - It all makes sense, well everything except for AO and being stuck to the 0-1 UV space. The idea makes sense, it's just when I think of having my texture sheet split up into let's say 4 parts. I have a brick, wood, stone, and some props in these 4 sections. When I unwrap the model and am placing the UVs around a lot of the sometime I'll move some UVs outside the bounding UV box as to keep my organization clean instead of having multiple UVs covering the same area. You're saying no overlapping UVs yet everything needs to remain in the UV space so how does that work with my method?

Kanga - I know it doesn't really have much detail to it :/ The reference being sparse and this is one of my first props, but xNormal seems to be what everyone uses. I've baked with 3ds Max, Topogun, and now I'll have xNormal to compare it to. I've been keeping track of how people edit the AO in photoshop. Like copying the blue channel of a normal map and setting it to Multiply over the AO. Weird things like that. One thing I'm unfamiliar with is putting UVs in a second map channel that is dedicated to Light Maps and the AO. I know Light Maps can't have any overlapping and any mirroring must be contained within the 0-1 UV space, but aren't AO maps suppose to be based off of the Diffuse since it's overlayed in photoshop?

[maxthebest685]

I said no overlapping while Baking.. Make uvs with overlapping. but move overlapped uvvs aside while bake.. then you can again put uvs back to it's place after baking.

[Chase]

I was more talking about the uvs I would already have outside the uv space. So for that method I could save the unwrap and apply it to another map channel to fit intothe uv sspace just for the bake

[maxthebest685]

see let me tell you the way i work.
After finishing Unwrappe. I duplicate the model. Then move all overlapped uvs out of 0.1 space. then do a bake. after getting desired bake. I delete that object that i used for bake.(that not overlapped uvs object) and apply map on original model.

[Chase]

I had a question about bake an AO map in the second map channel. As I've seen it the AO is suppose to be overlayed or multiplied over the Diffuse. In this tutorial the guy creates 3 different sets of rubble piles using the same elements to construct each pile. The unwrap for the Diffuse is the same for each pile which makes sense, but then he bakes out different AO's for each pile. He puts these 3 AO maps into the R, G, and B color channels that he'll later refer to in UDK. What doesn't make sense is how the AO will interact with the Diffuse. He ends up spreading out the UVs in map channel 2 which I thought might be for his Light Maps but they were for the AO specifically. He still overlays the AO onto the Diffuse, just all 3 all are overlayed. It's the fact that the UVs don't match up. I thought that would be an issue. Is it not?

[kanga]

Mostly AO gets multiplied over the diffuse map and give a super effect but shaders that use and can apply AO I havent much experience with. Watching the latest UDK demo on realtime render effects is mindblowing so I reckon you should just do the tutorial and see what happens.

[Chase]

I was following along with it for awhile. It all makes sense, at the very least the process does. The explanation is what's lacking from the tutorial. It's the only tutorial I've seen this done in. I was following the Intro to Materials in UDK over at Eat3d. So is it common practice now a days or shall I just stick with what I've learned for now? As you know I'm just getting my feet wet so that shader process was like woah, what just happened haha