Vray Proxy / texture baking / mapping...advice needed

[CliveG]

I would like I'd like to bring together various component models into one editable poly to then export to a vraymesh / proxy, for repeating many times through a scene. I do this regularly and the final editable poly will be different each time.

 

I often get into a bit of a mess due to multi-sub mixing with multi-sub and un-necessarily replicating a number of materials and then, worse, I also start to lose any texture mapping on individual components.

 

Would I be right in thinking that I should experiment with baking the finishes onto my components for assembly later into the one editable poly, that this will maintain the unique mapping of each component and simplify the final multi-sub?

 

And if I'm heading in the right direction what's this shell material about, can I do without it? I've read the SPOT3D tut but this seems to assume some knowledge beforehand and not really explain it.

 

It seems like I need a whole lesson for the hard of thinking here, but I've not found many Vray specific tut's on this issue that joins the dots between texture baking / mapping / vray proxy's.

 

Your patience is appreciated!

 

Cheers

[BrianKitts]

No you don't want to get into texture baking is the short answer. If you do that you will bake a lighting solution on to your object, then if you convert that to a proxy and populate it around your scene it will look wrong.

 

What you need to do is manually build a multi/sub object material go in to edit mesh mode for the pieces of your model and assign it material ID's manually based on your new material. Then when you attach everything tell max not to assign ID's and to leave everything as is. This will give you more control and allow you to make multiple models (proxies) that all use the same multi/material. Do not allow max to assign ID's because as you've found you'll just end up with a random populated multimaterial.

 

If you want the control to have it clean like you're talking about you'll have to put in some work. But it's worth it to have a clean library of models. BTW, don't worry about the proxy part of the task till you get the models all built the way you want. Proxy creation is simple so save it for last so you can edit the models while you're working.

 

I'll answer the shell question even though since you aren't texture baking you won't need it. It allows you to setup a material that has two different display qualities. You can set it up so that is shows in the viewport one way, and when you hit render it uses a completely different material. This is useful when using texture baked maps so you can apply self illumination to maps in the viewport, but still maintain your scene so that it can be rendered without everything glowing against each other.

[CliveG]

Thanks Brian,

 

That's what I was afraid of... having to put in some work! Plus be methodical, rats I'm doomed to fail then!

 

I thought baking in the lighting was optional and this baking of a plain diffuse could reduce the volatility of these components and speed the render times.

 

How about nesting proxies from a proxy library then.... or is that even more doomed to fail?

 

I know.... work at it methodically and keep it simple!

 

Cheers