so get up your seat an jump around...

Have you used that new texture baker yet? Yeah, sure you have, and you love it I'll wager. No? Well me too! I don't like the way you can't set up multiple object at the same time, I don't like the way you can't share setting on channels across objects, I don't like the way it want's you to use the auto unwrap - dang dab it! I just don't like the varmint!

So it's a jolly good job I wrote this then isn't it?

jump around.....

wallop! have that! Look I know it's a little big, but I just got carried away, all right? Not really (well a little) but I liked the way that it was all there. Just there, with no scrolling or looking for the stuff you need, and once your in it you don't need to go back and forth to the viewport to do stuff. So it's OK really.

Just a little bit on how this thing works. What you do is assign bake channels to objects, think of it the same as materials. Many objects can have the same material right? or they can have their own, or a bit of both. That's how this works. You add channels to objects, like in the discreet version, but you can also share them between other objects. The settings for that channel only have to be done once and all objects that use it will get the new settings. Now that's a better way of doing it, right?

I'll go through the UI, so's that no one gets lost...

 

1	This is the listbox that contains all the nodes in the scene that have baking enabled on them. When you first open the baker it will find these for you. The buttons at the bottom allow you to add objects to this list. "Add nodes" just opens the standard sel by name dialog. "Add selected" grabs the current selection from the view port and "Delete nodes", er..... delete the nodes from the list. Rocket science this aint' The list allows you to make multiple selections.
2	This is the channels list. This shows you the channels that are currently on the nodes selected in the list on the left (1) . It only shows the common channels that all the selected nodes share. (e.g node1 has channels 1,2 on it. Node2 has channel 1. Only channel 1 will be show in the list). It shows you the stuff you need to know like the type and it's name.
3	These are the channel management buttons. This is where you make and delete channels. "Add channel" brings up this box:- Choose the channel you'd like to add, then click ok. "Delete channel" deletes the currently selected channel from the objects. But if the channel is still used on another object somewhere then it's not gotten rid of completely. Those objects will still keep it. Only the objects selected in the node list (1) will be effected. If no other objects use the channel, then it is totally deleted. "Link channel" This is how you point an object at a channel that already exists. Press this and this dialog appears:- This is a list of all the channel currently available. Click a channel and then OK to link that channel to the selected nodes in the node list (1) "Purge channel" This scrubs all instances of a channel from all objects and the link list.
4	This is your target dir. This is where all your maps will go. At the moment it is shared between all objects.
5	Mapping channel and edge padding. Same as the original baker. But as this one doesn't set up auto unwrapping then it warns you if an object doesn't have mapping in that channel. This setting is per object.
6	These are the channel setup areas. I'll come to these in a minute.
7	Some global settings. The save full render, saves the image from the VFB. Sort of negating the use of the complete map, but hey. Logging controls and bake selected controls.
8	naming controls. Because the names are built on the fly you need a way to control what goes in them. Check the checkboxes to add all the info you'll need. The order is:- 1.prefix 2.channel type 3.channel index 4.channel name 5.object name 6.suffix 7.extension So if you had it all check on, then that's the order that the name is built. Just omit the ones that aren't checked.
9	bake button - press to do

Now I'll come back a bit to the bake channel area. When you select a channel from the channel list, then the corresponding channel options roll opens and allows you to select the options. It kinda looks like this:-

Now, this is for a light map. But only the checkboxes on the right change for different map types. Changing the channel name changes the name in the channel list also. This is the name that could be built in to the filename. Along with the render size. Unlike the standard baker, this one allows each channel to be rendered to it's own res and the size can go wayyyyy up. Check the properties on the right according to your needs.

jump up, jump up, and get down

To install this bad boy just copy it to your "ui\macroscripts" dir and it will appear in the render category.

If anyone has comment or suggestions you know where to send em.

av it!

Release history:-

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