This drop-down list includes the TurtleDefaultBakeLayer, plus any other layers you've created. (See Set up layers for baking with Turtle.)
When working in Maya, all bake operations are performed on this currently active bake layer.
All other settings displayed in the Baking tab update to display the settings for this current bake layer.
These settings let you specify which objects you want to bake to for the current layer.
When on, bakes the objects selected in the scene view, overriding the objects that are set up in the current bake layer. You can select multiple objects to bake at the same time. The bake settings for the current bake layer are still used for baking. (Surface Transfer is not supported in this mode.)
Lets you add the surfaces you want to bake to. Click Add Selected to add surfaces to the list. Click Remove Selected to remove surfaces from the list. Click Clear All to clear the list.
If Surface Transfer is requested, this is where you add links to source surfaces for each target surface. To make a new link to a source surface from a target surface, first mark the target surface in the Target Surfaces list above. Then select the source surfaces and click Add Selected. Click Remove Selected to remove links from the list, and click Clear All to clear all links.
When using Surface Transfer without an envelope mesh, the sampling rays are sent from the low res surface to the high res surface. Sometimes this process fails if the high res mesh and the low res mesh are too different. This problem can be alleviated by using an envelope mesh. The envelope mesh works as the ray origin mesh and the best intersection on the high res surface is decided according to the Sampling Preset mode you select. The hit is then transferred to the low res surface. Select from the following modes:
Finds the closest point on the high res surface.
Considers hit points on the high res surface that are inside the envelope mesh.
Considers hit points on the outside of the envelope mesh.
Sets the max distance that will be traced in front of the target surface when searching for source surfaces. If surfaces are found both in front of and behind, the closest one will be used.
Sets the max distance that will be traced behind the target surface when searching for source surfaces. If surfaces are found both in front of and behind, the closest one will be used.
Sets an offset distance for the origin of the front/back probe ray when searching for source surfaces. Can also be negative to make an offset in the opposite direction.
Selects whether the objects should be sampled from world space or object space. If the objects are in world space, they must be placed in the same position, as opposed to object space, where target and source objects can be positioned side by side for instance, as long as the respective object spaces match.
Chooses the closest surface and flips the normal if the direction is backwards.
Shades and returns the color of the lowres intersection.
(On by default.) With this option you can choose to ignore intersections where the normals of the high res and low res surfaces are inconsistent (pointing in opposite directions). The search will then continue until a surface with consistent normal is found (or no surface is found). This helps you to pick the right surface intersection in areas with both front facing and back facing surfaces, such as around the ears or in the armpits of a character.
Turtle defaults to only sampling the first surface hit when making a surface transfer. If you have a set of transparent objects that should be accumulated, turn on Consider Transparency. The Transparency Threshold decides when Turtle will continue sampling through a semi-transparent surface.
These settings apply for both texture and vertex baking.
Controls in which direction the normals of the objects to be baked should be pointing. If the normal faces away from the camera the baking will be completely black. Select from the following options:
Flips all normals.
Enables baking of shadows.
Controls whether the alpha channel is saved.
Sets the background color. All unsampled texels or vertices receive this color.
These settings are valid only for texture baking.
Controls how to handle cases where there are multiple objects in one bake layer. When on, all objects are baked into the same map. When off, objects are baked into separate maps.
Store the image in the Texture Baking View, keeping it in the set of saved images in the drag bar.
Store the image in the directory specified by Directory and File Name.
The directory where you want to store baked textures.
The name of the baked texture. Use the following predefined variables to construct file names:
When these variables are found in the file name they are replaced with the corresponding text string. For example:
“lightmap $m $s.$e” translates to “lightmap lambert1SG meshShape1.tif”
“lightmap $t.$f.$e” translates to “lightmap mesh1 meshShape1.42.tif”
“normalmap $s $u.$e” translates to “normalmap meshShape1 uvSet1.tif”
Sets in which format the baked texture will be stored. Supported formats are TGA, OpenEXR, TIFF, MAYA IFF, OpenEXR MultiLayer, and PNG.
Vertex baking is a technique often used in games and other real-time applications, where illumination is saved to each vertex in the mesh. Here you find settings that are only valid for vertex baking.
Selects what sampling mode to use for vertex baking.
Takes one sample per polygon vertex.
Takes a number of samples over each triangle and accumulates the results to the vertices. The number of samples taken is adaptive and depends no the size of the triangle.
Sets the minimum number of samples to take for each triangle if Sampling Mode is set to Triangle Subdiv.
Sets the maximum number of samples to take for each triangle if Sampling Mode is set to Triangle Subdiv.
Used to move the sample points a small amount for each vertex color. The sample points are moved from the vertex towards the center of the polygon. If set to 0.0 the sample point is exactly at the vertex, if set to 1.0 the sample point is at the polygon center. This is very useful to alleviate Final Gather artifacts when baking to vertices.
When on, the baked vertex colors are saved to a color set in the mesh.
When on, overwrites an existing color set. (If there is no existing color set, creates a new color set.)
The name of the vertex color set to use when baking. If this is not specified, Turtle uses the current color set. If the specified color set cannot be found, a new color set is created. Use the following variables to construct the name:
When these variables are found in the name they are replaced with a corresponding text string. For example:
“baked $p $s” produces “baked tpIllumination meshShape1”
“$b $p” produces “ilrBakeLayer1 tpIndirectIllumination”
Controls if and how blending should be used.
Disables blending and new colors will replace any existing colors.
Blends the new colors with old colors, if there exists a color set with the same name.
If used together with multiple output passes, it blends between the passes, creating a single new color set.
Controls which blending mode to use.
Replaces the old color with the new one.
Adds the new color to the old one.
Subtracts the new color from the old. If the result is less than zero, the result is clamped to zero.
Multiplies the new value with the old.
Divides the new value with the old.
Averages the new and the old color.
Do nothing. Useful if you want to rebake the color but not the alpha.
Scales the RGB and Alpha values with the given scaling factor.
When on, the RGB and Alpha values are clamped to the given RGB Min/RGB Max and Alpha Min/Alpha Max values.
Enables filtering of the vertex values to give a smoother appearance.
Sets the size of the filter kernel, given in fraction of object size. 0.0 means no filtering, 1.0 means 'filter size' = 'object size'.
Sets the filter shape, which affects the filtering appearance. A higher value gives a wider filter.
Sets how much a vertex’s normal can deviate before the vertex is ignored by the filter. Given in degrees.
Here you control which bake passes Turtle produces. If several passes are enabled, Turtle renders several textures (or vertex color sets).
Can be used to output various components from a shader to separate passes.
Turn on if you want to set options and bake a normal map.
Sets the coordinate system for normals when creating normal maps.
The resulting map will be in tangent space. The tangent space created can be changed by altering the tangent overrides in the Options tab of the Texture Baking Settings.
Produces a map in object space.
Produces a map in world space.
Turn on if you want to set options and bake a displacement map.
Scale the displacement to [0,1] range.
Scales the sampled displacement value. Can be used to set the displacement map values to a valid range.
Adds an offset to the sampled displacement value. Can be used to set the displacement map values to a valid range.
Turn on to set options and bake a directional occlusion map.
The minimum number of samples to use when gathering illumination.
The exponent is used during computations to define the ’sharpness’ of the occlusion values. Higher values may produce a more pronounced effect.
Basis vectors to use for the four different channels.
For this technique we define four vectors in tangent space. Each one is used by one color channel of the resulting texture as a surface normal vector to compute an occlusion value.
Baking a Radiosity Normal Map (RNM) will result in three textures, each containing information about incoming light computed based on one of the three RNM normals. The RNM can either be sampled using brute force or by using Final Gather with Cache Type Radiance Cache. Using this cache usually gives faster render times and better quality.
Turn on to set options and bake a radiosity normal map.
When on, Turtle tries to match the intensity calculated for the surface normal by the RNM with the intensity value one would get using a standard light map. This function is used when different tangent spaces on the mesh produces seams in the RNM.
Type of illumination to gather.
The minimum number of samples to use when gathering illumination. This value is only used in brute force mode.
Baking a Polynomial Texture Map (PTM) generates a number of coefficients for a second degree bivariate polynomial, which is used to approximate the incoming light function over the hemisphere. When baking a PTM, the output file format must be set to a format capable of storing float values (OpenEXR, OpenEXR MultiLayer or TIFF32). Also make sure clamping of output is disabled in the Anti-Aliasing settings.
Turn on to set options and bake a polynomial texture map.
The minimum number of samples to use when gathering illumination.
Type of illumination to gather.
Whether to use the intensity of the gathered illumination to generate one PTM or generate one PTM for each color channel.
Lets you generate textures containing spherical harmonics coefficients.
Since the values of these coefficients can lie outside the range [0; 1], the same recommendations as for PTMs apply: use float textures (OpenEXR, OpenEXR MultiLayer or TIFF32) and disable any clamping.
The number of bands to use for the spherical harmonics basis function. The number of actual basis functions used will equal the number of bands squared (nBands2).
The minimum number of samples to use when gathering illumination.
Type of illumination to gather.
Space to gather information in.
Sets whether to use the intensity of the gathered illumination to generate one set of SH coefficients or to generate one set of SH coefficients for each color channel.