Trying to bake shadows, image comes up blank

[TH89]

I'm trying to render the shadows (ambient occlusion?) for this J10, and although it's lit up just fine in the view render...

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/7074/rendhu9.jpg

...when I do render to texture it just renders a black square:

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/2931/whatlr4.jpg

I'm sure I've done something wrong. but what could it be?

[Gavin]

Before you rendered your lighting map, did you enable light tracer? (Rendering>Advanced Lighting...>Light Tracer)

Gav

[Marcus Dublin]

Make sure it's going to the proper mapping coordinates / UV set as well, god luck!

[TH89]

thanks for the advice! I think the light tracer is on--

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/9796/lighttracerpy7.jpg

Marcus, I'm not sure how to do that. Can you elaborate?

[Marcus Dublin]

Yeah what I meant by that is to check and make sure that the UV coordinates are set to default which is "number one". When you were doing your Uv's you probably did them to the first mapping channel but sometimes it's possible to switch your mapping channel to 2 or any other number in error. One way to check it is to apply an Unwrap UVW modifier to the stack and under "Parameters" check to see what the mapping channel is set to. If the number is set to two then you know the reason why your texture is being rendered as a black square. The mapping coordinates in the Render to texture dialog box should match up to the parameters in the Unwrap UVW modifier stack. For the most part it's pretty unlikely that this is the case but it's good to make sure you have all of the bases covered. Hopefully I didn't confuse you too much!:) Let us know if you made any progress!

[TH89]

Update!

I had imported the UV mapped mesh into 3D Studio from Cinema 4D, using an "FBX" format after I discovered that using 3DS ruined the coordinates. Apparently the FBX format offset all the UV maps by one texture size, so that they were no longer inside 3D Studio's little UV mapping box.

So I decided to try OBJ. But it somehow flipped half the normals on all my meshes, so if I try to invert them it just flips around the other half and would require a bunch of work to get them all facing the right way round, even if I knew how.

So I tried this VRML format. It kept the normals this time, but removed all the UV maps.

I'm on the verge of pulling my hair out D:

[Marcus Dublin]

Hmmm, well I'm not familiar with Cinema 4D and or it's export settings but what I can say is that if it's a UV issue then you could take the UV chunks and scale/fit them into the UV 0 to 1 space. This is a crappy work around I know but if you have to get it done then it's the only thing I can think of out side of playing with each FBX and or OBJ setting. By the way you may want to make sure you have the latest FBX plug-ins for both Cinema 4D and Max! Good Luck TH89!

PS: Don't forget to "Reset Xform" when you import into Max, it's a long shot but may fix some issues!

[TH89]

I solved the UV issue by moving it all back up to the regular working area. And, several crashes later, I think I'm really close!

but now, it doesn't seem to want to render any shadows at all:

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/5852/fullbrightum7.jpg

THE MYSTERY DEEPENS.

[Marcus Dublin]

Make sure to hit "8" on the key board "this brings up Environment and effects" and turn your ambient all the way down to pure black, then try and render it again. I think that should work!:) By the way, make sure to apply a pure white material to the mesh and not the default grey.

[TH89]

turned down the ambient...no dice! XD

[Marcus Dublin]

Hmm, well here's a few bullet points:

1. Make sure the self-Illumination is turned down to zero.

2. Make sure your sky light is on "it's an easy oversight"

3. Make sure on the Skylight that you have shadows turned on / you can do this by turning off the light tracer then under the "Skylight parameters" check shadows. Once you do that you can then turn on the Light tracer again.

4. Add a target light to the scene and point it away from the jet, this will kill 3d max default lighting.

5. Make sure you don't have the DX display checked, this is located in the "DirectX Manager in the material editor.

If I think of anything else I'll let you know. I've been trying to replicate your problem but my set up seems to be working for me, weird:uhh:. Keep us updated!:think:

[TH89]

Success! The skylight shadows bit did the trick. :D

After 4 or 5 crashes and a couple hours I got it to do right!

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/9106/woogc9.jpg

[Marcus Dublin]

Great success, glad to hear you got things worked out!:D

[TH89]

Thanks a lot for the help :D