Blender Wiki really needs help, it’s getting out of date and lagging behind new features. So many new features since 2.43 and 2.44 are missing.
Please tell what you were looking for, so the volunteer writers can add it to our lists if needed.
Wonderful! I’m looking for information on use of the Baking feature. Best use of AO baking, etc. Seems like so much can be done I just don’t know the intention of the feature yet. I’ve seen the video, no real help other than a neat video.
The material nodes could have some docs as well.
We keep a list of known deficiencies here http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Wiki_Tasks. Please feel free to update the list and the wiki, Master Hoshi. If you update the list, BE SPECIFIC as to which page needs updating, and where to find the information needed to update it. thanks. In your example above, you need to reference the existing AO page and what is out of date about it. For that page specifically, I don’t see anything missing.
Im using the english manual a lot but there is one thing I try to do different in my own articles on german wikibook. Let me explain my ideas with an example. The new SSS function. We see this effekt in nature and we would like to have this effekt in Blender so the programmers have to think about a possebility to reproduce it. But this is only a tecnial approach of what we see in reality. All these buttons only give informations to the part of Blender, which is calculating the effekt. So describing the buttons not realy explains, what
s happenig “behind the scenes” and a realy deep understanding of this function also needs a simple explantion of the programmers work and their idea of faking SSS.
Reading the explanations is sometimes confusing, because instead of understand somthing I have more questions in the end. light blurring radius, path length, Index of Refraction, surrounding points, subsurface color, surface texture, frontscattering, backscattering…
All these words were used to expain the buttons, but I personaly didnt understand, what it realy realy means. Allthough it
s hard to understand, it`s even harder to make a translation.
I mentioned AO as in AO baking feature. The AO page wouldn’t describe baking.
Like for instance I’m looking for information that explains what to do with the baked AO image. How to map to materials, etc. This goes for all of the baked images.
I agree Toni, and it is even harder to explain, using text, to a non-technical person, what the buttons and options DO to a graphical image. Especially because a user could care less what the software is doing, they just want to know “If I fiddle with this control, what happens?” or “I want it to look more XXXXX, what do I do?”
So, for the SSS example, just today, in trying to make the grapes look better, I just fiddled with some of the buttons, and render and re-render and fiddle and render again, and then just compare the images after moving only one slider. Now after about three hours of fiddling, I can say, to a user, what that slider does. So far, I have only figured out the end-user effect on Front and Back sliders. I know what the other terms are, but no idea how to use them effectively or efficiently. So, you just write what you can.
As another good example, I just spent two days doing nothing but going through each and every shader (diffuse and specular), taking pictures and playing with the controls, and only then I could actually describe the changes and what each control actually has on the result. So now we have a LOT of images that a user can look at and see and compare to what they want, and then pick out which shader and which settings they want.
what a long road…
by the way, in doing the Grapes for the SSS, I actually went and looked at all my shader examples and used the images to find one that looked kinda fuzzy and soft like a grape…so I am eating my own dog food, as they say! Good documentation even helps the documenters!
um, I don’t know what you are talking about. sorry. How do you bake AO? AFAIK, you just click the Ambient Occlusion button and it Blender renders it when you click the Render button. Where is this AO baking feature you speak of? how do you get a baked AO image? Are you referring to Texture Baking, where you bake a material into an image texture?
[quote] I just spent two days doing nothing but going through each and every shader[quote]
I allways thougt, I was the only one doing those crazy things
Try unwrapping your mesh and assigning a new blan image - then bake AO and it will show up on your UV image. Better save it then, so you don’t lose it. As to how to apply this, I think you need to make sure you’re scene is lit the way you want it to look finished before using this, then you can use the baked map as a texture mapped to UV. I only started messing with these functions, so I may be way off
Now I am curious as to what to document. Craigomatic, when you say “then bake AO” do you mean use the Texture Baker script to create the TGA image? If so, it saves it automatically…or is there a script specifically for AO?
Hmm, think we hit the issue head on. The texture baking feature in 2.43 and above allows baking of AO of a mesh that is unwrapped. The thing I don’t understand is what is this for? I assumed you would bake the texture, then bake AO, then bake normals and map together. Question is…how. You have to assign it somehow but what do you do with the AO image.
This is an example of what I meant by not understanding the function of the feature. It’s one thing to say, click here and it does X. I know this already. But the idea of what it does is important. For a good example, take a look at the radiosity documentation. There is an nice example of it somewhere in there too.
And it may be the best person to answer this is the one who wrote it.
So your question, for the Python forum, is: Does the UV Texture Baker script factor in AO (if enabled in the world settings) when it produces the texture image? (I’m pretty sure the answer is yes, because it just invokes the render engine).
If not, how do you bake AO separately and then combine them?
and thirdly “In Blender, is this all there is to using and baking AO?”
and fourth “When I use the script in 2.44 after unwrapping my object using Smart Projections, why does it produce a texture that does not match my UV layout?”
So, yeah, the doc on the Texture Baker http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Using_UV_Textures#Texture_Baker does not specifically say that. Let me know and I will update it.
There is Bake AO under F10 Scene buttons, on the Bake tab. I unwrapped a mesh to a new image and hit Bake, and it spit out a buncha stuff on the tga i made. I saved it, but then I don’t know what to do with it- like, use it as a texture channel to make use in GE or what. I mean, I can figure how , but why is another question, and someone that has used this for something might offer better insight
I’m sure it points to a script anyway, but I didn’t access it from a script, so I thought it was more official, Papa. Sorry about that.
Aha! the plot thickens. so, not only is the Texture Baker script broken and doco vague, this Bake tab (which I have never used), is missing doco in the User Manual. And I see this tab has buttons of which Master spoke of. But this Bake you speak of, may have use only for the Game Engine. And I know that doco is…lacking.http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Game_Engine
So my specialty is the User Manual, not GE. I documented the Texture Baker script because it is useful to all. Does this Bake tab have utility to non-GE users?
PapaRoger: Not only game engine. Render baking actually creates a 2d image representing what the mesh would look like if you rendered it, then unwrapped it with the render data stuck to the UV coordinates. It requires two things: an unwrapped mesh and an open image in the UV editor. You can render-bake the full render (except specularity and SSS because those are camera-dependent), or just the AO, or just the textures, or just the color/diffuse. These can then be used as UV-mapped image textures and layered appropriately to create dirt maps etc. I think you can appreciate what a time-saver render baking can be.
Render baking is also somewhat buggy and touchy in 2.43 and 2.44. For example, I have never successfully baked the built-in checkerboard grid. Also it sometimes just plain refuses to work, even though you have done all the steps correctly.
You use them for ultra fast f_ _ _ _ _ g renders, of course!
Bake the image to a high resolution (if you want quality) .jpg. It doesn’t have to have any info in it to begin with cuz it’s just gonna be overwritten anyway. an initial blwack or white .jpg at quality of zero will do just fine. UV map the blank image to your mesh, rename it to something like “Mesh1 AOBake”, then bake with CTRL+ALT+B. When finished press the little button that looks like a present to pack it in the file, then save so you don’t end up losing anything.
You can use any texture image on any mesh without having to light the scene by pressing the shadeless option on the materials tab. At this point you can reload the original .jpg and rebake as many tiems as you want as long as you keep renaming it.
For the AO pass set it to multiply and you’ll get nice self shadowed renders of the mesh at blistering speed without any raytrace or lighting overhead what-so-ever. Baking a normal map will allow you to relight the mesh in the compositor with the normal dot which is a helluvalot faster than moving lights around and re-rendering. You can even bake normal maps of various meshes, apply them to the uv coordinates of other meshes via a uv pass and mamap uv node in the compositor and selectively relight the mesh based on the baked normal map from the other mesh. Baked maps are awesome even though they’re not entirely accurate and you don’t need to play with them much at all to begin getting a good feel for them.
As for AO maps you need to set the AO intensity higher than you normally would in order to get a good result. If you’re accustomed to leaving AO at the default intensity of 1 for descent lighting intensity then try running it up to about 1.5 or so for your bake. For some reason hte bake intensity is just not as intense as real AO.
Agreed!!!
Edit: Baking procedural textures to the mesh just plain sux, for lack of a better word. They pinch and stretch horribly in the areas where your mesh bends, twists, etc… They were so traumatic in 2.43 that I haven’t even tried them in 2.44.
evidently, cuz see result 4 below. Windows 2.44.
Bug tracker submission:
This came up in BA; I confess I have never used it, but what people say to do doesnt work, and they agree. Evidently
something broke around 2.42. Help?!
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Start Blender with default scene and select cube. Enter UV Face Select Mode.
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In UV window, Image->Open->(pick any existing file).
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In F10 Scene Bake panel, click Bake with Full Render enabled.
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Error: No images found to bake to.
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Start Blender with default scene and select cube. Enter UV Face Select Mode.
2a. Go back to Object mode. -
same action.
4 same result. -
Start Blender with default scene and select cube. Enter UV Face Select Mode.
2 or 2a. -
Select any other AO, Normals, Textures, and click Bake
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Same result.
If it DID work, would you MapTo Full Render to Col, Ambient Occlusion to Amb, Normals to Nor, and Textures to …???.. (fill in the blank for me).