Well, render times baking lightmaps depends on the amount of samples, bounces and material complexity, its just like with a render. In order to bake a nice clean lightmap into a 4096px image I usually have to go up to 2000 samples and that could take around 2hours, which is not that much but I need to bake lots of maps and of course scene complexity will also affect baking times. The issue with baking lightmaps outside Unity is that is very hard to match both lighting enviroments therefore I was searching the way to get fast bakes in order to go back and foward between both softwares.
I've done distributed baking before with Vray and works very smooth but right now we are out of resources for new licenses for 3dsmax and vray.
I can understand texture baking is not the most demanded feature but with all the new game engines, where textures have a big role, I think it would be a nice feature to include.
Hi Juan, well if you are aiming to make baking faster with more computers, I'm afraid that isn't possible. At least not with Crowdrender, we accelerate rendering. So as I explained above, if you wanted to bake data for rendering then CR could help accelerate a render using your baked data.
But it seems like you're trying to accelerate baking? I hope that my understanding is correct there? So if that is the case then you'll not be able to make the baking faster with our addon, only rendering that uses the baked data.
I am curious though, if you are looking to accelerate baking, how long does the baking take?
Basically I'm trying to bake lightmaps to export them to other softwares such as Unity. The process is basically the same as Baking just the diffuse color into a texture map, I'm no completely sure if the data is stored the same way as a render but it is kept in the .blend until is saved externally.
I'll give a try this afternoon and check if it does work, but I think baking is somehow different from rendering.
The short answer is, I am not sure, I'll need to look into it, if you're still with me, read on, there's a bit more to it as far as I can see.
Ok, so I am assuming you're referring to baking textures to accelerate rendering? If I'm wrong then I'd appreciate a quick lesson from you on texture baking as I myself am no expert in this area :S I'm still learning CG in a few areas and this is one I've not personally explored.
So, if you are baking textures for faster renders, there's a couple of things I'd like to mention.
1. It may be possible to do this with CR right now, if you can bake textures and they are stored in the blend file afterwards (which I am not sure of), then it is possible to upload the blend file to each render node you have and render with the baked data. This is done by simply pressing the "resync" button once you've baked your textures. BUT, this depends on how blender stores baked data. If the baked data is stored in the blend file, then you are good, it should work, otherwise, it gets complicated, but still could work. You'd basically need to manually transfer the bake data to each node. We've already done this with physics caches, so we know that works.
2. In the future, we are looking at distributing more tasks, like baking, simulations and so on. Baking is one that looks like it would be fairly simple for us to implement. I guess I would love to hear from the community if there is a big need for this, it would make using baked data much simpler in combination with crowdrender.
So, thanks very much for posting, I really hope you reply, looking forward to hearing what you have to say :)
Hello,
Coming back here hoping for a positive update on texture baking. I also need it for lightmaps like @Juan Manuel Lynch does
Cheers
Thanks @James Crowther !
Hi @alexandrupopoviciioan not at the moment, we'll let you know if that changes though :)
Hello,
I'm interested to know if anything changed regarding support for texture baking.
Thanks!
Oh... sad to know its not posible.
Yes, reduce baking time is my main objective.
Well, render times baking lightmaps depends on the amount of samples, bounces and material complexity, its just like with a render. In order to bake a nice clean lightmap into a 4096px image I usually have to go up to 2000 samples and that could take around 2hours, which is not that much but I need to bake lots of maps and of course scene complexity will also affect baking times. The issue with baking lightmaps outside Unity is that is very hard to match both lighting enviroments therefore I was searching the way to get fast bakes in order to go back and foward between both softwares.
I've done distributed baking before with Vray and works very smooth but right now we are out of resources for new licenses for 3dsmax and vray.
I can understand texture baking is not the most demanded feature but with all the new game engines, where textures have a big role, I think it would be a nice feature to include.
Hi Juan, well if you are aiming to make baking faster with more computers, I'm afraid that isn't possible. At least not with Crowdrender, we accelerate rendering. So as I explained above, if you wanted to bake data for rendering then CR could help accelerate a render using your baked data.
But it seems like you're trying to accelerate baking? I hope that my understanding is correct there? So if that is the case then you'll not be able to make the baking faster with our addon, only rendering that uses the baked data.
I am curious though, if you are looking to accelerate baking, how long does the baking take?
Hi James, thanks for answering.
Basically I'm trying to bake lightmaps to export them to other softwares such as Unity. The process is basically the same as Baking just the diffuse color into a texture map, I'm no completely sure if the data is stored the same way as a render but it is kept in the .blend until is saved externally.
I'll give a try this afternoon and check if it does work, but I think baking is somehow different from rendering.
Hope you guys get to keep developing this addon!
Hi Juan, thanks for posting :).
The short answer is, I am not sure, I'll need to look into it, if you're still with me, read on, there's a bit more to it as far as I can see.
Ok, so I am assuming you're referring to baking textures to accelerate rendering? If I'm wrong then I'd appreciate a quick lesson from you on texture baking as I myself am no expert in this area :S I'm still learning CG in a few areas and this is one I've not personally explored.
So, if you are baking textures for faster renders, there's a couple of things I'd like to mention.
1. It may be possible to do this with CR right now, if you can bake textures and they are stored in the blend file afterwards (which I am not sure of), then it is possible to upload the blend file to each render node you have and render with the baked data. This is done by simply pressing the "resync" button once you've baked your textures. BUT, this depends on how blender stores baked data. If the baked data is stored in the blend file, then you are good, it should work, otherwise, it gets complicated, but still could work. You'd basically need to manually transfer the bake data to each node. We've already done this with physics caches, so we know that works.
2. In the future, we are looking at distributing more tasks, like baking, simulations and so on. Baking is one that looks like it would be fairly simple for us to implement. I guess I would love to hear from the community if there is a big need for this, it would make using baked data much simpler in combination with crowdrender.
So, thanks very much for posting, I really hope you reply, looking forward to hearing what you have to say :)