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Baking to textures and vertices |
You can bake to textures and vertices in mental ray for Maya.
Baking to textures
When you bake to textures (as opposed to vertices) an image file called a light map is created. You can use this light map, which contains the material(s), texture(s), and illumination of the baked objects, as a file texture to apply to the object.
Find this light map image file (by default) in the following location: Maya\projects\mentalray\lightMap
Baking to vertices
When you bake to vertices (as opposed to a texture) data is created and automatically stored in the polygon mesh’s vertex colors.
A sample can either be stored as color-per-vertex, or used to displace the position of a vertex.
- If stored as a color-per-vertex-per-face color, RGB color and alpha (transparency) is stored.
- For displacement, the X,Y,Z coordinates of the vertex position changes. Since a sample contains four channels (RGBA), the displacement uses the luminance value of the color.
You can export this data as a texture map.
Baking Occlusion
Baking occlusion (using the Occlusion Color Mode in Texture Bake Set or Vertex Bake Set) is controlled by the corresponding attributes in the Texture Bake Set or Vertex Bake Set.
When baking to a texture, occlusion is also computed differently depending on whether Final Gathering is enabled. When final gathering is disabled, occlusion is computed for every pixel in the texture. When it is enabled, occlusion is precomputed at a few selected pixels and then interpolated.
The first method (where final gathering is disabled) is slower by comparison; however, it captures small details in your scene. The interpolation method (where final gathering is enabled) is usually faster and produces smoother images. It is particularly useful for baking textures on low-res poly meshes.
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