Skylight+Light Tracer Issue

AtlusZMH · Aug 2011

So I am trying to bake my AO map using light tracer and a skylight like ive done multiple times before, but now when I plop my skylight down into the scene, anything that comes out of the RTT menu or even just rendering the scene comes out flat black.

Basically, when I am using Light tracer, my skylights wont work.

I have tried remaking the light, merging all my meshes into another scene and making a fresh set-up, fiddling around with every setting I could find, but nothing seems to help.

I have searched around here and google, but I havent seen anyone have my exact issue...

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

EarthQuake · Aug 2011

Make sure that when you add your skylight, and before you switch to light tracer, that you tick on "cast shadows" in your skylight. After you switch to light tracer, that option is grayed out. Maybe that is the problem?

AtlusZMH · Aug 2011

No beans.. I see what you are saying about it being grayed out, but I turned Light Tracer off, added a new light and ensured that box was checked, then enabled Light Tracer again to no avail...

Just renders the ray misses and then solid black.

I've been tearing away at issues with baking this damn thing all day haha I need a beer...

Ruz · Aug 2011

is the scene corrupt. try merging it on to a new scene?

AtlusZMH · Aug 2011

Tried that

And Just tried it again in case I messed up.. no beans still..

Could using RTTassist at some point have corrupted something?

Thats really the only thing I messed around with differently than my normal workflow.. And I ended up not really using it cause it kept having errors..

gsokol · Aug 2011

This might sound like a really dumb question, but did you make sure that you selected the meshes that you are projecting from? Usually when this happens to me its because I forgot to do something like that.

Try just rendering the scene itself....and see if light tracer is working for regular renders...if it is..its probably a setting in render to texture and not the skylight itself.

Stromberg90 · Aug 2011

I had some problems with rendering when using RTT Assist myself, so I just did it myself and everything was fine.

EQ: Just wondering, are you sure that it makes a diffrence, since I tried it myself with both settings and the renders are the same
I would think that the reason it's greyed out is because it makes no diffrence?

AtlusZMH · Aug 2011

@gsokol - Rendering the scene itself results in a flat black render also.. the skylight will not give off light at all. As soon as I take out the skylight and render, it works. Also, it works if I put in another type of light also.. but as far as I know, skylight is the only light that will get consistent and correct AO bakes...

@Stromberg90 - Did you have to uninstall RTT Assist in order for it to work again? I dropped it and did everything manually, but it still has the same issue.. maybe I should uninstall the plug-in?

thanks for the help btw guys! this is becoming quite frustrating.. :E

Stromberg90 · Aug 2011

I did not have to uninstall for it to work.

Does the skylight work in another scenes?

If so it might be a problem with that project, and you could try copying the meshes to a new scene if that is the case.

AtlusZMH · Aug 2011

Alrighty... interesting stuff.. I made a new scene.. added a sphere to it, turned on Light tracer with the skylight and rendered... works fine.. cool.. So i then merge in my meshes, try to render with no luck again.

BUT! If I have the sphere AND the meshes visible.. the sphere still renders.. so something is wrong with my meshes.. what could cause JUST my models to not want to render at all?

I should add that baking the normal maps worked like normal

Stromberg90 · Aug 2011

Well I thought it might be flipped faces or the materials, but I could not reproduce it myself, so I have no idea what it might be.

I hope that someone else has an answer for you

EarthQuake · Aug 2011

Stromberg90 wrote: »

I had some problems with rendering when using RTT Assist myself, so I just did it myself and everything was fine.

EQ: Just wondering, are you sure that it makes a diffrence, since I tried it myself with both settings and the renders are the same
I would think that the reason it's greyed out is because it makes no diffrence?

No I have no idea if it makes a difference, this is just something I obsessive compulsively do.

AtlusZMH · Aug 2011

I broke down and just used xNormal.. I was shying away from it because I like the idea of keeping it all in one package as much as I can. If I ever find out what happened, I will reply here in case anyone else has the same issue. I dont have enough time right now to troubleshoot it more

sprunghunt · Aug 2011

do your lowpoly or hipoly have "renderable" ticked off in their properties?

r_fletch_r · Aug 2011

EarthQuake wrote: »

No I have no idea if it makes a difference

it doesnt, just tested it

AtlusZMH: any modifiers above the projection modifier? that can cause problems.

Have you tried replacing all your materials with standard materials. sometimes i put an A&D material on a HP to do a render and forget that it borks Scanline.

AtlusZMH · Aug 2011

Yeah, they have renderable checked and I just tried applying a standard default shader with no luck..

Weird shit.

Ruz · Aug 2011

you should just start from scratch with stand in geometry, get that working then start replacing the standins with real geo.

AtlusZMH · Aug 2011

Any new meshes I make in the scene have no problems.. its something with the original meshes themselves.. its really odd and I have no idea what caused it lol

I had to make a bullet towards the end after I had messed with all this crap, and the new mesh I made for the bullet worked flawlessly.. I actually rendered out the normal map for the bullet along with the rest of the mesh, and in the RTT preview window the only thing that showed up was the bullet haha

EarthQuake · Aug 2011

export as obj, reimport?
reset xform
collapse modifiers

sorry if these have been mentioned before, but just basic oh shi- max stuff.

Ruz · Aug 2011

also try attaching meshes to a box on top of what EQ said.
aside from that if its possible just send one of us the scene and see if we can sort it out.
re the texture paths, are there any broken links in the rtt dialogue, but then i guess a warning would pop up.
check all the check boxes that need checking on , even in the options dialogue and including which objects to render.
also if all that fails trying rendering it out with 'totex' script. at least then you will rule out any rtt settings, same if you try render it out with mental ray.

AtlusZMH · Aug 2011

Well attaching it to a box worked!

Thats a pretty simple solution, but I hadn't thought of it really

Thanks a lot for all the help!

Unfortunately I can't send a scene file.. would be nice to know exactly what went wrong so the solution was a bit more precise(not saying attaching it to a box is a terrible solution :P)

Again, thank you guys for all the help

Glad its solved now!

r_fletch_r · Aug 2011

AtlusZMH wrote: »

Well attaching it to a box worked!

Thats a pretty simple solution, but I hadn't thought of it really

This is known as 'box tricking' its as old as max

Its funny how its still a common solution to problems.

Ruz · Aug 2011

cool, i have had nearly every issue imaginable with RTT ovr the years, so yeah pleased it worked.
I kind of guessed it was something like this after you mentioned that one of the items rendered out.
Odd though I thought reset xform would have worked. attaching to a box is really common.

AtlusZMH · Aug 2011

I will remember that :P

Reset xForms was my go-to wtf fixer, but even that didnt work this time.

Skylight+Light Tracer Issue

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