How to get Shader Baker to work?

Ati

Hi,

I'm experimenting with shader baker. 3Delight. I have a shader set up on a surface, it renders fine. I would like to save it as a material. I go to shader baker, and have this setup:



I've tried with "Bake Illumination" both on and off, makes no difference. I also tried different shaders. I click "Bake", it seems to do something, but the file is not saved. This is what I get in the log file:

Baking image
Baking material_0...
WARNING: dzshaderbaker.cpp(354): Texture Baker (manual): Baked in 0 min 0.5 sec.
WARNING: dzshaderbaker.cpp(359): Texture Baker (manual): bake file name is E:/Users/Ati/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio4/temp/material_0.bake
WARNING: dzshaderbaker.cpp(360): Texture Baker (manual): image file name is C:/Users/Ati/Desktop/material_0.tif
ERROR: 3Delight Process exited abnormally: "E:/Program Files/DAZ 3D/DAZStudio4/bin/tdlmake.exe -ushort -bakeres 512 -nomipmap E:/Users/Ati/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio4/temp/material_0.bake C:/Users/Ati/Desktop/material_0.tif"
    tdlmake: cannot open input file 'E:/Users/Ati/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio4/temp/material_0.bake'
tdlmake: error while making texture file
WARNING: rendering\dztexturebaker.cpp(1233): AbstractTextureBaker can't find baked texture: C:/Users/Ati/Desktop/material_0.tif

What am I doing wrong?

Ati

... or am I completely missing the point here? :)

If I give the surface a texture, the shader baker works fine. If I give it a shader, it doesn't. Doesn't the name apply that I can bake the results of shaders? I'm getting confused...

patience55

To save a Shader's adjustments on your material, File > Save as > Shader Preset AND/OR File > Save as > Material Preset.

The Shader Baker I have used a few times to bake images of patterns [not shaders] to new .png files.

Ati

patience55 said:

The Shader Baker I have used a few times to bake images of patterns [not shaders] to new .png files.

Can it save images of shader results? I would like to save the shader result, the visual texture. Not the render, but the flat texture it applies to the surface.

Ati

"Shader Baker makes it possible to bake many of the properties of a shader down to a texture map. While the results will not always look exactly like the original shader, this feature will allow you to roughly see what the content will look like in its final render. If the baked textures are good enough, they can also be exported for use in other applications, such as for games, with no visible loss in quality." (http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/software/shaderbaker/start)

This is what I would like to do with it (not for games), but I haven't figured out how to do it yet because it cannot find the .bake file.

mjc1016

I don't have any idea what's up...trying to run it and it is either not creating the temp bake file or it's not finding the one it does create.  And without the bake file converting it to a texture will fail.

Ati

mjc1016 said:

I don't have any idea what's up...trying to run it and it is either not creating the temp bake file or it's not finding the one it does create.  And without the bake file converting it to a texture will fail.

It doesn't seem to create the bake file at all if the shader is anything other than the DAZ Studio Default. Should it? I mean, should I keep trying, or is it not even supposed to do it for anything other than the default shader?

Bejaymac

It's always been hit or miss on what it will work with, even back in the early public beta testing days of DS3 when it was called Texture Baker.

It's been a while but iirc it will only bake using the Default Surface Shader, 3rd party shaders like HSS or USS wont work, and for anything from the ShaderMixer you need to connect in the Baker brick, but even then the results can be poor.

Ati

Bejaymac said:

It's always been hit or miss on what it will work with, even back in the early public beta testing days of DS3 when it was called Texture Baker.

It's been a while but iirc it will only bake using the Default Surface Shader, 3rd party shaders like HSS or USS wont work, and for anything from the ShaderMixer you need to connect in the Baker brick, but even then the results can be poor.

Oh, I see. Thank you. I won't mess around with it then. :)