How to bake with materials?

[LisaMarie McWinnie]

Hello! 

So, I heard that now you can use materials on SL right? I saw a picture comparing a normal baked mesh to a object with materials, and the difference is huge!

I am completely lost on how to use materials like that. I am making a mesh dress, and I would love to bake the shadows with silk materials. How do I do it? any good tutorials out there? I have zero knwoloegdment on how to use materials.

Thank you in advance!

[Nacy Nightfire]

Since this question has gone unanswered, I'll take the plunge here.

If you are looking to "bake shadows with silk materials" then you would not be  using the new material system.  Baking refers to setting up your scene in your 3d package and baking your arrangement of  lighting, shadow, specularity, reflection and other shader and material settings right into your 2D texture.  This results in a texture that has static/fixed light/shadow effect which will compete with the direction of shader system in SL (or any other game) since the specularity, for example, will always be in the same spot and at the same intensity because it's baked in.

Ideally for a game asset you would restrict your texture "baking" to baking in ambient occlusion since it's a non-directional effect and adds depth and realism to your object when not overdone.

On uploading your mesh  to SL you would apply the base texture and also optionally upload and  plug-in a normal map and/or a specularity map to control real-time lighting effects on your mesh, both of which rely on the game's  lighting and shadow system to dictate how the texture of the mesh looks at any given time.  The environment in which you are viewing it, in terms of light, shadow and their direction contributes to a more realistic appearance of the mesh.

The Normal map (shades of red, green and blue) assists in providing faux detail that isn't actually built into your uploaded mesh's geometry. The normal map causes your mesh to look  "as if"   detailed geometry exists  by influencing how the  mesh receives light and shadow, but on looking at the mesh in profile you can see its a bit of fakery.  You generally create this map in your 3d program via projecting the fine details of a complex version of your mesh onto a simpler, low poly "game friendly" mesh. Just do a search on YOUTUBE with the name of your 3d program and "normal map creation" and you will find plenty of tutorials to help you out.

Edited to add:  The normal map is designated as "bumpiness (normal) in the SL texture editor.  I believe what is generally referred to as a bump map is grey scale image and a Normal map is a rgb image.  Don't get confused here.  You need to input a Normal map, not a bump map.

The specularity map lets you determine which areas of the mesh look specular and "shiny" and to what degree (I'm not sure if tinting the map influences the color of  specularity in SL.)  Essentially, the map is a greyscale texture which indicates specularity that is on/white, off/black or some degree of grey to modulate the effect.  And it the effect only  appears when light in the game actually hits the areas designated to be "specular".  This map can be painted in Photoshop or Gimp, etc. using the UV template as a guide, or can be painted right on the model in your 3d program and saved out as a texture.

Nalates Urriah has an some excellent tutorials on this topic on her blog  http://blog.nalates.net/2013/03/26/second-life-normal-textures-tutorial/

If I'm off-base on any aspect of this explanation I hope someone will chime in and offer a better explanation and point out where I am in error.  I'm somewhat confused by the specularity map in SL and how much it is actually specularity vs. creating a mirror/metallic effect.  The uploader labels it "Shininess (specular)" but I think of those as two different attributes.

[Coby Foden]

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Nacy Nightfire wrote:

 

... (I'm not sure if tinting the map influences the color of  specularity in SL.)  Essentially, the map is a greyscale texture which indicates specularity that is on/white, off/black or some degree of grey to modulate the effect.

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Having the specular map as a colour image, then it tints the specularity shine accordingly.

If the the specular map is grey scale image then the specularity shine is pure white.

I made example images about this in here:

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/1790893-post465.html

 

[Nacy Nightfire]

Thanks Coby.  Very helpful