Create lightmaps by baking textures and vertices

Note:

When baking light maps using mental ray some of the built-in texture filtering features in Maya can be of great help. For example, when a texture bake operation has been performed, go to the File Texture node in the shader network (by default connected to the outColor channel of the assigned SurfaceShader) and under the Effects tab in the Attribute Editor adjust interactively using the Filter and Filter Offset controls (the Filter Offset control is very sensitive and is effective with values in the 0.05 range) to get the required smoothness. This may then be converted to an unfiltered texture by using the ConvertToFileTexture procedure.

Bake vertices

To bake vertices with mental ray for Maya

1. Select the objects for which you want to bake vertices.
2. Do either of the following:
   • In the Rendering menu set, click Lighting/shading > Batch Bake (mental ray) >
   • In the Polygons menu set, click Mesh Display > Batch Bake (mental ray) >
3. Adjust any attributes, then click Convert and Close or Convert.

   For a description of the options, see Lighting/shading > Batch Bake (mental ray) > .

Bake textures

To bake a texture

1. Select one or more objects you want to bake.
2. Click Lighting/shading > Batch Bake (mental ray) >
3. Set any options, then click Convert and Close or Convert.

   For a description of the options, see Lighting/shading > Batch Bake (mental ray) > .

   Tip:

   In texture baking (Occlusion color mode), turning on Final Gather may provide performance benefits.