Bump maps without lights

[Jonathan]

Is it possible to bake a 'complete map' in Max (including GI, shadows etc) then delete all lighting and still render bump or normals? I've been trying to figure out a workflow for some time.

[Devin Johnston]

You used to be able to do something like this with Lightscape but now all GI engines need the lights even after the baking process is complete.

[Jonathan]

I presume what's needed is a light which provides no illumination and only picks up normals information?

[John Dollus]

I used to do this all of the time with baked lightscape data like Devin mentioned. I seem to recall there had to be a light in the scene to trigger the bump map calcs even if that light was off in the distance with attenuation set so that it didn't really hit anything like what Jonathan mentioned above.