Real-time maps

Support Materials and Textures
1

Hi

Is there already a possibility in the new EEVEE GI to create real-time maps of: curvature, edge detect and cavity and other “edge map” features in Blender 4.2?

Thanks

2

You can try the Geometry node with the Pointiness output, but generally, I don’t believe so.

3

You can use the ambient occlusion node to get something that gets close. It has an “inside” option that inverts it, so you can get both cavity and edge out of it. You can adjust it with its own “distance” setting or with a color ramp or you can plug a texture in the distance to make it uneven.

The problem with this is that AO in Eevee is screen space, which means that the effect will change a bit depending on the visibility of each face. The best way to do it in Eevee is sadly to have those maps baked into textures.

4

I found a program that bakes a lot of resources for the mesh:

Is there an addon that does this within Blender?

image
image1163×803 135 KB

5

To my knowledge, there is nothing that will bake a curvature map in Blender, because Blender itself can’t produce them. The best Blender can do is fake them with inverted AO.

If Xnormal works for you, I can definitely recommend it.

1 Like
6

Goo Engine can bake curvature, as it has a curvature node, but that’s a custom build of Blender

1 Like
7

I found an addon that does all this:

1 Like
8

As you can see, this addon that I recommended bakes 36 types of maps.

Is there a tutorial that shows how each of these maps are used?
What are they for?

Thanks

9

Before anything, I should say that lots of the maps will be irrelevant most of the time. A complete material usually needs only a few of them.

I have found this documentation page that gives a list of the addon’s maps. There aren’t 36 maps, so I guess it must be an older list.

https://bakemaster-blender-addon.readthedocs.io/en/1.1.0/workflow/map/map.html#map-type

The maps in the “PBR-based” section are the most important ones that can contain a complete material which can be exported and plugged directly in an other software. They are the ones you really need to know. There is plenty of information about them online.

The maps in the “Special Masks” section contain masks which can be used for further material creation. AO, cavity and curvature can be used as dirt and edge wear masks.

Thickness maps seem to be used as fake SSS, but I’m having trouble finding people actually using that one.

XYZ Mask: Seems to give a mask containing all the faces pointing in a specific direction. This could be useful, as an example, to add snow to a model, by changing the color of only the faces that point up.

Gradient Mask: If I understand correctly, it just adds a gradient across the model. The use cases for this are very specific and situation dependant.

The maps in the “Default Cycles” section are the ones that are already in Blender without the addon. Most of them are the same as the PBR section and are redundant, or are there to bake the lighting rather than the texture. The position and UV maps are advanced stuff that I wouldn’t even know how to use or for what.

I see there is a complete list on this page. Let’s review the ones that weren’t mentionned.

https://bakemaster-blender-addon.readthedocs.io/en/latest/pages/start/maps.html#map-settings

  • Vector Displacement: a more advanced displacement that supports overhangs. The software you use this in needs to support it.

  • ID: used to select and identify the different parts of a model on the texture.

  • Wireframe Mask: Can be useful to showcase a model’s topology in a demo. Would rarely be used in an actual texture.

  • Decal Pass Normal: couldn’t find anything.

  • Mask: seems to turn a selection of face that you have pre-defined to a texture.

  • BSDF Pass: seems to be for baking aspects of a material not included in the other maps (couldn’t find information, so not sure).

  • Vertex Color Layer: seems to be for turning vertex colors or weights to texture.