Texture baking

[david.jones]

Hi all,

I am thinking of using texture baking for the first time for an upcoming animation projetct. It is all going to be exeternal shots of a small stadium.

 

I really want anyones advice on the best way of going about this. I wish to use biped people models, some walk animations etc, so i still will need the to cast direct light shadows.

 

I do run vray, but i'm not too keen on the fact i'll need to render for each individual element, unlike the queue abiltity in scanline rebndering of baked textures. All i really want is a softer lighting effect, hence thinking of using the standard ies skylight lighting.

 

I can't decide if the best way is to render a lighting map, and add it to the self illumination channel, linked to a seperate uvw channel, therefore keeping a higher detail in my diffuse map, (i have big areas of paving etc, all achived with textures)

 

OR, render to the diffuse channel directly...

 

I'd want a direct light, to cast direct shadows, to enable shadow casting from moving characters. This lends itself to the first option doesnt it?

 

Any suggestions most welcome.