Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Aardwolf on June 22, 2008, 12:42:13 pm

Title: Baking ambient occlusion maps as a means of error detecting
Post by: Aardwolf on June 22, 2008, 12:42:13 pm

A tip for everyone who models: Baking an ambient occlusion map is a good way of testing for geometry errors.

Do this BEFORE uv-mapping, OR use the existing uv maps and save a backup of your base texture.

1. First, what I did is autouv in Wings3D using projection normal to determine segments and projection normal to unwrap.

2. Then I exported it (3ds, in my case) and opened it in Blender.

3. Next, I baked an ambient occlusion map (the texture must exist and must be decent resolution, in my case for a ~10k asteroid model it was 2048x2048)

4. Then, I saved the texture.

5. Open it up in your modeling program of choice.

6. Here is what to look for:

• Black spots (these are geometry errors)
• Other miscolored spots (these are often uv overlaps)

NOTE: this only applies to models that don't have really deep holes in them... I imagine the HTL GTD Titan, seen in Blue Planet, would get pretty dark ambient occlusion maps inside the fighterbays.

Title: Re: Baking ambient occlusion maps as a means of error detecting
Post by: Water on June 22, 2008, 03:00:51 pm

Since you are using Blender, an easier way is Select>Non-Manifold (Ctrl Alt Shift M) in edit mode.

Anything highlighted that is not at the edges of the mesh can be a problem. An internal face will show up as three highlighted vertexes.

Title: Re: Baking ambient occlusion maps as a means of error detecting
Post by: Aardwolf on June 22, 2008, 04:05:44 pm

That works too, I guess  :ick:



Edit: I'm not all that familiar with Blender... but it seems to select more than half of my model! How do I read the results?

Title: Re: Baking ambient occlusion maps as a means of error detecting
Post by: Colonol Dekker on June 22, 2008, 04:44:23 pm

I don't even know what "baking" a texture means :)