Can I prevent shadows being baked to maps?

[RobH2]

I've had 3DC for years but never did anything with it but retopo. I've now dived in and am learning all of it. As such, I'm running across issues that I don't have enough experience yet to solve.

FYI, I'm bouncing back and forth between V4.1 and Beta 4.5 as I learn. I realize Beta 4.5 may not be functioning properly in a few areas, but, being new, I'm again ill equipped to know what's normal and what's a bug.

 

1. [beta 4.5] When I place the 'default: paint_old_rust' on a shader ball, all is well. It looks good and everything is fine. I can swap it and that's OK too. When I render out the textures and then use them in Max with VRay, the UV map is perfect and the textures look good except the shadows are baked in. The upper surface of the shader ball's base is completely black in the 'color map' and also black in the 'diffuse map' that I rendered out. So no matter how much light I throw on it, it stays black. I've attached an image.

 

Is it possible to render out the diffuse or color map without the shadows?

 

 

[digman]

The shadows are not being baked in... I do not use VRay so I do know how to setup for PBR rendering or how well Vray supports PBR rendering.

Check your settings in VRay and the export settings in 3DC.

I use the Roughness / Metalness export.  There are 3 export methods. 2 are for PBR and one is I believe for the old way of using a regular specular map if you desire to render the old fashion way but that would not a true PBR material. I could be wrong on that, I have not tested it.

 

Also in 3DC view menu, you have 3 type of shaders to view your model. I use GGX.

 

Now In Blender, I use the PBR shader connecting the right texture nodes to the correct input nodes... 

Albedo, which in 3DC is call color in the export settings.

Metalness

Normal map

Roughness

I do not need a regular specular map as that is not needed in a PBR setup even though it is included in the Blender PBR shader.

I get pretty much get what I see in 3DC's viewport in my blender render according the strengths of my light setup. In my scene I have a fairly strong hdr image adding light to the scene and a sun light so my ball is brighter than in 3DC.

 

Note: I answered your question about auto-retopo in the thread you posted it in if you have not read it yet...

 

Just in case you have not read this information before...

http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice

Edited February 24, 2015 by digman

[RobH2]

Thanks 'digman', you are very helpful. I'll explore your suggestions and get back to you here.

[ajz3d]

Maybe you baked in ambient occlusion that this shader uses (and generates if it's not present)? Calculate Occlusion leaves the AO layer visible, which, if not hidden before textures are exported, will be baked into base colour. Just guessing.

[digman]

@ ajz3d, sometime a group of 3DC users should have a round table skype meeting to discuss PBR in general and how it also functions in 3DC...

 

 I also should say a specular map is not necessarily required in the metalness / roughness workflow... Though it can be use to adjust the F0 of a dielectric material for real world values... darn my head hurts... LOL... still learning after all these years, keeps the brain flowing...

Edited February 24, 2015 by digman

[RobH2]

Thanks guys. 'ajz3d' you make a good point. I might be baking that AO into my diffuse. I hadn't considered that.

[digman]

I added some metal under the rust... it had none. LOL..

[RobH2]

See, your render looks great of that shader ball. I can't get there.

 

I finally noticed that particular shader was very dark under the ball by default. It was essentially black. I used a different shader and things began to look normal. I'm still plugging away but I can't get anything close to the texture and glossy variations that I see in 3DC to transfer to VRay in Max. I've tried every combination of wiring I can think of and even doing crazy and intentionally wrong things to try to get something to snap. I've tried all three texture workflows and all three shader environments. I'm now reading the "PBR Encyclopedia" that Brian Yu cobbled together. That has some interesting info in it. It's a bit disjointed because it's Frankensteined together and some thoughts are left dangling or unfulfilled but if you read between the lines you can tease out some helpful info.

 

I'll keep at it. It will happen eventually. I'll eventually go, "hey, that wasn't so hard"....but, why did it take me 4 days to figure it out...lol...

 

This looks like a beginner's render in Max. I've been doing photoreal 3D work for decades and this is embarrassing.

 

Edited February 24, 2015 by RobH2