Bake Normals Map in 3ds Max 2021 (tutorial)

3ds Max 2021 introduced Bake to texture to replace the old "Render to texture". New UI, cleaner, faster, and with even more options than before.
We will take a lowres model, and create a normal map from a hires scan to get much more detail.
Exclusive content on my patreon: / eloiandaluz
My webpage: www.andvfx.com/

[@leitecunha]

Some things this video did not cover: 1 - If you are baking with the scanline renderer (faster), it's nice to also apply on renderer settings "Enable Global SuperSampler - Max 2.5 Star". 2 - Also, put a temporary scanline material on both objects. It might sound a no brainer, but sometimes you are working with V-ray or Corona, and forget that... 3 - If you get strange green colors on your normal map, it may be that your object's normals are weird. So, for both objects, apply a Normal modifier, click on Unify Normals and also Flip normals. Add another Normal modifier and click again to Flip. Collapse the stack and apply some smoothing if you wish.

Of all the videos I found this is the best one. A workaround I have for difusse maps is using arnold render and using arnold propierties to hide the low poly object and their shadows to the render.

[@AlienKlaten]

Thanks for your tutorial

[@changsooeun]

Great as always! The low res mesh topology looks sweet. :)

[@AbbasKhan-dk5sb]

Glad they are working on this :D

[@katana2665]

Your tips are the best.

[@tvortsa]

Thank you very much!

[@Csavenables]

Amazing thank you!

[@swan3d]

What should I do to see the effect of the normal map in the viewport like you?

[@veditpoonia3429]

Thank you sir ❣️

[@FXPearStudio]

I'm glad they put a finger on this, but it's just a new window for the same code behind "render to texture", or am I missing something?

[@aiuhejvwvud8c99rjej]

There are added options. (mikkt, etc.) It is also more efficient for creating various textures. Users always want new things, but at the same time they want to improve on existing inconveniences. This update is close to the latter

[@andvfx]

The tool has been completely redesigned from scratch, its still in development, so more things are constantly being added. its easily scriptable as well (way easier to script with it that the old one), this is a tool done by changsoo using baketotexture, recreating a very simple interface: cganimator.com/simplemapbaker/

[@loganfoster7911]

It's completely rewritten from the ground up.

[@goheenbiswas1901]

Habsolutely terrifico!!

[@ryancounts8131]

Eloi, I followed along with your tut. Another great lesson by the way. That being said I was unable to duplicate your clean results. I baked out a normal, Occlusion, cavity and height. All except for the occlusion baked out with little to no decerable details. Are there any other settings that I should be aware of? However, out of the 20 something times I've tried baking textures in Max. I've only ever gotten it to work 2 or 3 times.

[@andvfx]

Thanks Ryan. What are you using for rendering? I usually just change "cage" projection to "raycast" but thats all.

[@ryancounts8131]

@@andvfx Thanks for the response. The cage was mangled. I mean wrinkled and warpped. I missed it the first time around because other pop-out menus were covering part of the model. I straightened it out by adjusting the 'percent' first and then increasing the 'Amount'. What could cause the cage to be jacked-up in such a way? Side note, I really appreciate you getting back to me. Of all the 3D programs I've used or use, Max is by far the only one I actually hate. Passionately. Nothing ever seems to work. Unfortunately, I just happen to be in the Architectural world and they all love Max. So any help I can get is deeply appreciated.

[@andvfx]

@@ryancounts8131 XD, give it some love, some things needs some "care" to work, hehe. So yeah, depending on your normals, if you use "Cage" can create a mangld caged. The easiest.... is not use cage! After you select your object to project on "Project from" you have a gear icon, select it, and change "cage" for "Raytrace", in my experience works much much better than the old "cage" system. I already asked to have raytrace as default.

[@ryancounts8131]

@@andvfx Ok. I'm gettin' what you're laying down about the "Raytrace" now. Thanks for the clarity. I have to present to the higher ups next week another way to create textures without the help of SubstancePainter. This was part of me getting back to the basics in 3ds Max. Again, I appreciate the help. Please keep the great content coming. If you're looking for ideas for topics to cover, I've been struggling to understand the uvw coordinates 'nodes' in arnold. I read through the documentation but half the time I don't understand. (food for thought) Happy Holidays.

[@danielblanco3d]

Thanks for this tutorial! Generally speaking, Would you say that this new 3dsmax bake tool could get similar results to the Substance baker or Marmomser baker?

[@punithaiu]

That's really helpfull. I thought of a workflow as i watched this. Instead of doing reotopology to get lowpoly model. Can i make it using QuadRemesher, then do Bake to Normals?

[@changsooeun]

What if that is not maually retopoed model?

[@sepehrrajabi1112]

Thanks for shareing helpful contents🤩😍

[@Xationch]

Do you have some video about the poly decimation” for creating a low poly of the scan?

[@andvfx]

I have one video ready that will be online in 2 weeks aprox.

[@Xationch]

@@andvfx Nice! Thank you

[@uBooldog]

Nice, but don’t recommend this type of UV unwrapping because it can cause problems with texturing later.

[@tedeusz83]

I wonder why Autodesk didn't delete the old render to texture option that doeas exactly the same, as well as other oldies like video post etc. they keep adding redundant options

[@andvfx]

The idea is to make the render to texture obsolete, but a lot of studios have scripts, and tools dependent of the old one so its not as easy. Also Bake to texture was introduced on 2021, but has been adding features/improvements on each new max update (and there is more to come), When its feature complete I think we will se the rendertotexture go away.

[@punithaiu]

Also, any idea about when we may get new Bifrost Engine for max, im dreaming about the realtime cloth/smoke/liquid solver in max. 3ds max needs to evolve. Cloth has been pretty much the same from so many years. MassFX tools too. I think they just dont care because people will use 3rd party plugins anyway.

[@MGernot1]

We will get it sooner or later but could you handle it?

[@mousse4493]

Bifrost full integration is on the roadmap. And unlike Maya’s devs, Max devs are actually passionate.

[@sevenseven31]

can you add tutorial for render surface map is very usefull but i see less tutorial about that and thanks for all tutorials

[@F.Grinder]

love it

[@zhiwei50]

Woah thanks!

[@irafnmalik4172]

Thank u so much ..👍🏻

[@irafnmalik4172]

that's a great idea to make better

[@aranguez3d261]

Its not available in max 2022

[@an1_mate]

Please ask Autodesk add bend and stretch to the CAT system finally

[@DiegoSynth]

They should just remake CAT and skin, they are a pain to work with. Very clunky and buggy, super tedious pipeline.

[@ExacoMvm]

I simply use xNormal - free, easy and fast ( supports CUDA and RTX i think ). 3ds Max baking sucks a bit, it's too complicated requiring some tweaking time and testing also the Scanline renderer is slow af especially with Hammersley, so some maps e.g. for displacement can bake for a half day easily, while in xNormal i get perfect results in less than 5mins.

[@matthewallum3513]

Max baking is great for almost everything I throw at it for environment work. Tho if you've got substance in your workflow then you might as well bake it in there

[@ExacoMvm]

@@matthewallum3513 xNormal is similar to substance's baker, but imo bit better, there's also alot of different maps and other features. But the workflow is pretty much as in Substance, just throw low and hi poly models, scan max distance and you're rdy to bake.