Surface baking is a way of combining materials and layered decals into a single multi-image decal.

Note: Surface baking can ONLY bake attributes for which maps exist: Opaque color, specular size/intensity, ambiance intensity, transparency, and bump. Any other material attributes aren't remembered by the baked decal.

How to bake a surface for a model:

- Open up the model in a window. (eg, the model editing window or a choreography)

-Right-click the model in the objects folder, and select "Bake Surface". It should take a few seconds to finish, depending on the size of the model. When done, it'll add a new decal called "BakedSurface" to your model.

-Delete the other materials/decals on your model, leaving only BakedSurface.

-Save the decal's images. Open up the images folder in the Project Workspace. At the bottom will be some new images named diffusecolor, specularintensity, specularsize, ambianceintensity and bump. Right-click each image and select "Save Animation As..." and choose a spot to save the image.

-Save and reload your project.

- Done!

Surface Baking sample from Stian <agep>

Sounds great

Sounds like someone has been busy. Great feature! Can't wait to try this one out.

I'm trying to think-up a reason why this would benefit me...the only thing I can think of would be to 'bake' a material, which would be a good 'pre-HA:MR' thing to do since HA:MR does not show materials... OR baking a mat would potentially speed up a render...riiight?

If the material were animated would this feature produce a sequence?
Is this a V15(subscription) feature?

Hm... If it bakes Materials to a texturefile, it will create UV-cordinates for that, right?
So can it be used as an Auto-Unwrapper-Tool?

@John: This can have an impact on the renderingtimes. If you use complex materials, they can render much longer than decals do... with a baked decal, renderingtimes can be much less...
The back site: The texture won't be resolutionindependent anymore

*Fuchur*

Surface Baking looks a lot like where I was heading with some of my experiments earlier this year.
Texturing of the Loon Pump was the only thing I posted.

I'm testing out Surface Baking to see how it fit into my workflow and I need to reconcile it with my preconcieve ideas.

I think what I'm ultimately looking for is a way to apply patch images to an entire model and export that out as a decal map. Is this even possible?

Using A:M Paint would be an option but I believe it also requires preexisting image maps.
I'm looking for a way to do it quickly in A:M.

I'm sure I'm approaching this wrong so... feel free to redirect me.
How does everyone else create their intial (blank) decal? Just apply one on?

From what I have read here Surface Baking has nothing to do with creating the UV maps. You still need to do the UV assignments yourself.

What Surface baking does seem to do however, if I understand correctly, is to allow you to turn any material effects that you have applied to your model into decal maps and then to save out those maps as opaque, specular, ambient, transparency and bump.

I look forward to seeing what enhancements A:M 15 has and what people can do with them.

Thanks Paul.

My interest here may be closer to a feature request. I don't yet know what I don't know.
I'm exploring a bit to find out what I can do with what is available before I submit one.

Surface Baking does look interesting as changing materials to image maps will save a lot of time in rendering.

Surface Baking creates everything: the decal images and the stamps (UV's). The quote that caused the confusion ("Surface baking can ONLY bake attributes for which maps exist") just says that A:M should support the map type (diffuse color, ambiance, bump...) in order for 'Surface baking' being able to create a map for it as not every surface property can be represented in a map.


A:M Paint can create stamps (UV's) and images or it can be used to paint on existing ones.

Filip

Thanks Filip.
You helped me break through this one.

I think I discovered what I was doing wrong. I really haven't worked with it enough yet.
I -believe- that working on an unsaved model was my culprit.
With a saved model it works just like I expected.

(lightbulb is turnin' on)
I love progress.

Edit: I'm liking this.

I'm not getting it. I can't seem to get anything other than a multi-colored patchwork decal. Probably need a tutorial or maybe it's because I'm using the beta.

That is it.
There should be an image for each of the various surface attributes mentioned; Specular, Specular Intensity, etc.
The materials applied to the model are baked into that multi-colored image.

Surface baking will probably be one of those things you do when nearing the final rendering stage in a production.
I would guess that using the decals created here would work well in A:M Paint but still haven't tried that.

Edit: There is a lot more to Surface Baking then just rendering enhancement. Sure wish I knew what I was doing! If I did I'd wip up a tutorial.

That's interesting, Filip! Thanks.

That's what's shown in the diffuse channel (multi-colored patches). But the material was a concrete grey. I must be missing something.

Pick (or create) a model with a lot of materials in it.

Some materials won't work for baking.
Effects like Keekat's fur will require the material to remain on the model.

My initial tests indicate the Bump percentage generally will need to be turned down a little.
Looks like Porceline needs to be removed as well.

It should be noted that surfaces don't require Materials to benefit from Surface Baking.

Slap a bunch of decals on a model and Surface Bake them all into one decal.

With the surface baking creating a decal, does the one big decal get saved as some sort of file that I can edit in say photoshop or Gimp? or is it a bit too cryptic like the dirt (weathering?) map (does that even exist anymore? I haven't used it in years)

That sounds awesome. Does the user have any control over resolution?

Its... a bit too cryptic like the dirt (weathering?) map

I can't see how anyone would use it in photoshop/Gimp except to apply blur etc. to the entire image.
I'm sure you could do interesting things with the images assigned to simple models though.

Its similar to what A:M Paint does when it creates the UV maps.



It was removed from A:M a few years ago. No one seemed to care for it.
Figures... just as I was exploring using it with layered images/transparencies to some fairly good effect.
I suspect Surface Baking makes it easier to program weathering (ala the old method) back into A:M.



Just as with regular decals I'm sure you could scale up/down the decal image used for the baked image.
I don't see an option to control the resolution while being baked out of A:M.
I suspect the resolution of the original decals matter.

I have just installed the V15 web subscription to try the surface baking. I noticed the size of the baked image is relative to the size of the model.
I'm working on a large and detailed theater at the moment and would like to have control over the baked decal size, because now the file sizes will get extremely large. Unless I make the model very small, but I don't want to do that. Would it be possible to make them smaller afterwards without affecting the UV data?

I could of course save them as JPEGs But I wonder, will that still consume the same amount of memory when rendering? I assume the total images are loaded into the memory as bitmaps during rendering. Or am I wrong?

You should be able to resize the image of the decal (texture) into any size you want, as long as the ratio isnt changed.
The uvs are saved with the decal, not with the image in anyway.
I did that with many decal-images before and it always worked fine. (You may have to reload the project so)

As far as I know, the compression-settings won't effect the memory which is used by A:M. It will only save you harddisc-space.

*Fuchur*

Yes. The only important things about the image are the quality (don't want artifacts) and proportions.

You're right, is does work. But not completely satisfying. I did a simple test with a resized baked surface decal and there are seams showing where the splines are.
Click to view attachment

I wonder what causes this. In the real time view the seams are so big that you can easily see through them.

Can you really see through them? Look at the UV-Editor (go to the decal, rightclick on it and click on "edit"...
I would say it is a antialising-effect/recalculation-effect from the decal, not something from the model itself.

Just go to your 2d-applikation and make a clean new map. Now try it again.

*Fuchur*

If surface baking is using tiles, then resizing them will cause areas around the seams to combine and "muddy". To resize them effectively, you'd need software that scaled the inside of each tile while respecting the boundaries.

I rescaled the image in Photoshop. I tried 50% and 25% both same problem. It's hard to tell of whether the UV map is correct or not because the UV editor show a very low quality version of the image. OF what I see the patches are bigger than the decal, but it looks the same with the original decal that doesn't give seams.



Do you know such software? If it doesn't exists yet maybe it's worth the effort to make it. Or we should just ask Hash to let the user decide in A:M how big the image should be. Since there already is a function for this in A:M it now should only be accessible by the user.

I don't know of any software that currently does this. 3DPainter allows you to specify the size of the tile image when you first create it, including a seam that assists with the tile joins but resizing the images afterwards has the same issues. I imagine the tiled image would have to be recreated at a smaller size rather than just scaled down.

What if you scaled up the model before using surface baking? Wouldn't that result in a higher resolution decal when it was scaled back down?

That would be a good work around (or scaling them down for large models) I placed a feature request for the size option. I hope they'll add it.

Am I doing baking right? Do I need to do any preparation?

I created a material - Fractal Sum black and white, and applied it to the primative Cube. This is what I got (with a 25 second render time):

Click to view attachment

I then baked it, and this is what I got (with a 32 second render time - I thought it would be smaller):

Click to view attachment

The edges are very stretched. This is a screen print of the image diffuse map which is stretched:
Click to view attachment

The image is created with a name diffusecolor, but when I save the project and close A:M the image map goes away - how do I save it as a real jpg?

Caroline,
How big is your cube in 3D Space?

Try surface baking with a small cube... then a huge cube... and maybe one inbetween.

Any difference?




Right Click on the Image shortcut in the PWS and chose 'Save As Animation'.
Then specific JPG.

That's an interesting thought, Rodney. It brings up a different problem.

It was 100cm, with the Fractal scaled to 500%. This is 10cm with 100% fractal scale.

It has definite cross lines in the middle of each face. And the stretching.

Click to view attachment

1000cm has the same stretching too.

Edit: 3d Paint recognises it correctly, then stretches when I paint, so maybe it is just that it is a straight surface. It seems to do curved surfaces (Thom) very well.

Jumping in late... just found this thread...

The stretching has nothing to do with the size of the model. It has to do with patch count.
The primitive cube has very few patches. Really just that BIG patch for each flat side, one patch for each bevel and a patch for each corner. The patches vary in size greatly. The sides are HUGE and the bevels are teeny tiny by comparison. The low patch count can be problematic when using decals even WITHOUT baking the surface. I often have to add in splines to increase patch count on low patch primitives that I plan to decal. For the primitive cube if you split it twice... adding a spline horizontally and vertically... it would reduce the stretching but you would probably still have some.

Your decals and image baking will probably look better if the patches are uniform in size. This is why models like Thom work well. If you look closely you see that all the patches are close in size... at least next to each other.

Materials don't give a darn about patch count/size.

I am guessing about this from past experience. I have not tested it with surface baking. I am basing this on decaling... which seems to be what the surface baking is ultimately doing.
I'm just guessing about the... technology for this behind the scenes in A:M... but that is what I've found over the years. My explanation might be missing something like... UV maps and how they work... I know nothing about the nuts and bolts... just the results.

-vern

Keep in mind also that one of Surface Baking's primary missions is to assist realtime rendering. (Think HAMR here... Materials don't render in realtime so converting materials to decals or combining layers or groups of decals addresses that goal.)

Using Surface Baking for high resolution, high quality rendering is going to work at odds with that.
In those cases its going to be better to render with Surfaces unbaked.

Surface baking can also shave a considerable amount of time off of rendertime/re-render time. (Think animation versus still imagery here)

Disclaimer: This is very much my own uninformed opinion here.

As far as size of patches I think Vern may have nailed that one.
Its should be easy to test that out.

Dont think so Rodney...

I just made a test:
1.) I made a material with a multi-combiner-material. That combiner-material has 2 other combiner-materials as attributes and these had two other combiner-materials as attributes too.
2.) I made a cube (without any bevels, etc.)...
3.) I attached the material to it.
4.) Then I baked the surface. and deleted the material.
5.) I copied the cube and made a new model where I pasted it. Now I deleted the decal and applied the material again.
6.) I rendered with two chors which where both the same but different cubes of course.

Renderingsettings:
- Resolution of 1024 px x 768 px
- TGA with Alpha On.
- No Multipass (standard AntiAliasing only)
- Shadows On
- Reflection (2) On.

Frame 0:
Cube with Decal (without material): 0:12 min
Cube with Material (without decal): 1:36 min

(I have only a quite old Athlon XP 2000+ with 1.5 GB RAM...)

The only problem I can see is, that we would need a higher resolution for the decal. I got only a map of 512px x 256 px which is a bit low for rendering-situations.
I think when you could define the size by yourself, it would be a really nice possibility to get the rendertimes down for complex material-situations.

I am aware of a increase in renderingtimes if you would render with higher resolution-decals so I made a test with a 1024 x 512px-map (original map resized in photoshop) to test out what increase in renderingtimes would be unavoidable. I rendered again with the higher-resolution-texture applied - 1:32 min

So it depends. If you go higher with the resolution for the map (for example 2048px x 1024px) the rendering of the decal will take longer - about 1:42min.

Remember: This is ONE Material... with more complex or more materials the renderingtime on one model will very likely increase. The time to render the decal wouldnt increase so.

Conclusion:
For background-objects, game-engines and very complex material-situations, textures are better suited than materials in other situations where you need a very high quality-output (forground-objects), materials are better suited...

*Fuchur*

It may be semantics here... but unless I'm misunderstanding your conclusion or typo'd something in my response I think we are in agreement. My only nitpick with the above quote would be where you say 'very complex material-situations, textures are better suited than materials'. I think a lot depends on the material-situation... which must be determined in each case.

For some of these cases it might be well worth the effort to create and render the material effect as an image (perhaps on a simple plane) and then use that image instead of using the original material. This can be a considerable timesaver but won't have the same resolution independence in the final render. With decals we can't render to a higher resolution than we begin with... well we can try but we generally won't like the results we get. With materials they are recalculated at rendertime and are resolution independent.

The Tech Ref says it much better than me:

QUOTE

I assumed it was clear that textures werent resolution-independed and that you of course had to be sure about what you wanted to do with the model. In general you should know in advance if you want to do a close-up of a model or if you want to have it in the background, etc...

*Fuhcur*

Every day is a first day for a new user of Animation:Master so I can never assume such things.
Add to that the fact that Surface Baking is new with v15 and a lot of users (old and new) are sure to be interested and want to explore the feature. Everyone doesn't know that material based textures aren't resolution-dependent... whereas image based textures are. Heck some don't yet know what textures are!

For me personally its just good to be reminded of the options and constraints from time to time.
I forget sometimes.

This will be solved in V15f (there was a open report about this...).
The stretching is coming from margins added to the decalstamps, they are around each patch in the stamp (Hint doubleclick the "BakedStamp" to view this margins).
In V15f You can prevent this margin with holding the Shift key down while hitting "Bake Surface"

This is pretty cool, as I am JUST getting around to trying it on a character... looks like it does NOT work on patch-images though, riiight?

Another thing I notice- regarding 'patch images' is that the new 'BAKED' decal seems to overwrite them... maybe I need to reapply them AFTER baking so that they are on TOP...?

EDIT--- No, that didn't work... looks like when you 'bake' your images you are forfeiting the usage of patch images... unless I figure out differently.

Patch images are the only images that don't appear to bake on the surface.
As I really like to use patch images... that makes me consider the options a little more carefully.

I've been hoping to develop a more efficient way of grabbing decals from a model's patch images but haven't devoted enough time to discover the optimum workflow. I really like using patch images so... less Surface Baking for me.

In general any decals will overwrite patch images.
I'm not sure that's a change to the status quo.

You can however still go into Decal/Baked surfaces and adjust the transparency (or change the image type) to let the underlying surfaces (however many layers upon layers of patch images, materials and surface colors) show through.