How to...

[Josiah]

render to texture ambient occlusion, but keep the preexisting uv?

[GSH]

True ambient occlusion needs to know what's nearby. That's the whole definition of it. Anytime things move (i.e. vehicle points another way, or building is rotated before being built), you need to rebuild ambient occlusion. It's very computationally expensive, and not something you can prebake into your textures.

Tip: What you really trying to do here? Why not describe your goals? Don't get hung up on some detail 52 steps into a procedure that may or may not work. Get the big picture, see if it's even doable in BZ2 (tip: real ambient occlusion like I've mentioned above requires shaders, which BZ2 does NOT have) before committing yourself down 50 steps.

-- GSH

[Josiah]

True ambient occlusion needs to know what's nearby. That's the whole definition of it. Anytime things move (i.e. vehicle points another way, or building is rotated before being built), you need to rebuild ambient occlusion. It's very computationally expensive, and not something you can prebake into your textures.

Tip: What you really trying to do here? Why not describe your goals? Don't get hung up on some detail 52 steps into a procedure that may or may not work. Get the big picture, see if it's even doable in BZ2 (tip: real ambient occlusion like I've mentioned above requires shaders, which BZ2 does NOT have) before committing yourself down 50 steps.

-- GSH

sorry, I wanted something like what spAce has in ZEmod

[Nielk1]

He baked the ambient occlusion from other parts of the model onto itself. Basically, you just set up a render in your program of choice that has the power then do 'render to texture'. Only UV maps that don't reuse any of the same real-estate work well for this without a lot of work.

[Josiah]

He baked the ambient occlusion from other parts of the model onto itself. Basically, you just set up a render in your program of choice that has the power then do 'render to texture'. Only UV maps that don't reuse any of the same real-estate work well for this without a lot of work.

um, if the option is there, I can't find out how to keep the existing uv map. I don't want it to re-uv it.

[Nielk1]

In max you simply don't check the UVW box or whatever it is called. It might say 'unwrap model' or something of the sort. Just make sure it is not checked and it will use the existing UVMap. I personally suggest you apply a material of 225,225,225 white to the model and do the render, then lay the render over top of the original texture in Photoshop with the right layer effect to smooth it in and give you more control.