DCC bake pipeline checklist
Bake Ray Distance Artifact Checklist
Direct answer: Set cage, Front Distance, and Rear Distance from measured high-to-low separation, then bake a tangent-space normal test before changing smoothing; use an Exploded Bake only when naming and cage isolation cannot prevent neighboring parts from capturing the wrong surface.
Bake PresetExploded BakeFront DistanceRay DistanceRear Distance
1. Normalize transforms and match the bake basis
Freeze mesh scale, align world position, triangulate the low mesh consistently, and use the target renderer’s tangent basis. Negative scale or distinct triangulation can resemble a Ray Distance fault. Match _high and _low suffixes for name pairing. Bake a flat test normal map first; gradients that change after import indicate a tangent or normal-format mismatch before cage tuning.
2. Build a cage that follows the low silhouette
A useful cage is an outward envelope of the low mesh whose vertices correspond to the low topology. Push it just beyond the furthest high-poly detail while preventing it from crossing neighboring surfaces. Do not smooth a cage into a new silhouette or let automatic inflation bridge concave gaps. Inspect front, side, and section views. Red projection misses require more reach; colored detail from an unrelated part means the cage or matching groups include geometry they should exclude.
3. Measure front and rear projection separately
Front Distance reaches outward along the low normal; Rear Distance reaches behind it. Start from the maximum measured offset in object units, add only a small safety margin, and keep the values asymmetric when the high mesh is mostly outside the low. For a 100 mm prop with 1.8 mm raised bolts and 0.4 mm recesses, try 2.0 mm front and 0.6 mm rear rather than a 10 mm universal distance. Excess range captures backfaces and neighboring panels.
4. Use the Bake Preset as a recorded contract
Store resolution, sampling, normal orientation, tangent-space mode, dilation, matching mode, cage source, and map list in the Bake Preset. Start review at 2K, 4x samples, and 16 px dilation, then follow texel-density and mip needs. Unrecorded changes make comparisons unreliable. Include normal, ambient occlusion, curvature, thickness, position, and ID only when downstream materials consume them.
5. Decide when an exploded bake is justified
Prefer mesh-name matching and dedicated cages because they preserve bake pipeline placement. Use an Exploded Bake when interlocking parts still project onto each other or the baker cannot isolate groups. Translate high, low, and cage parts by identical offsets, bake, then restore them without altering UVs or normals. Keep an offset manifest so reruns are deterministic. Explosion is not a fix for an oversized cage: broad rays can still hit the wrong surface inside each group.
6. Resolve waviness at broad curved surfaces
A Waviness Artifact appears as bent highlights or ripples where the high surface is smooth. Common causes are a faceted low silhouette, cage normals that diverge from the intended projection, gradients forced throughout large low polygons, or insufficient supporting geometry. First compare the high mesh, low vertex normals, and cage rays. Add low-poly segments where silhouette or curvature changes demand them; do not merely blur the normal map. Hard edges require matching UV splits to avoid unfilterable seams.
7. Make one controlled projection decision
A pistol slide test shows clean bolts but dark streaks inside a 0.5 mm groove. The current preset uses 3 mm for both directions. Reduce Rear Distance to 0.5 mm, retain 2.2 mm Front Distance for the raised details, and isolate the barrel by mesh name. If streaks remain, inspect the cage in section view before exploding the bake. Accept the revision only when the normal, AO, and curvature maps agree and a rotating engine light shows no new waviness.
8. Package symptoms, fixes, and acceptance evidence
Record low/high filenames, scale, triangulation, tangent basis, normal orientation, cage file, front and rear values, matching groups, Bake Preset version, and offsets. Attach cage-overlap views, final normal/AO/curvature outputs, and a turntable under a narrow moving light. The table keeps multilingual review focused on the same projection control and artifact.
| zh | en | ja | bake pipeline circumstance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 烘焙预设 | Bake Preset | ベイクプリセット | Repeatable map and projection configuration |
| 爆炸烘焙 | Exploded Bake | 爆発ベイク | Spatial isolation of matched bake groups |
| 正面距离 | Front Distance | 前方距離 | Outward projection reach |
| 射线距离 | Ray Distance | レイ距離 | Total projection search range |
| 背面距离 | Rear Distance | 後方距離 | Inward projection reach |
| 波纹伪影 | Waviness Artifact | 波状アーティファクト | Bent highlight or broad-surface ripple |
Bake Ray Distance Artifact Checklist FAQ
How should front and rear bake distances differ?
Measure them independently. Raised detail usually needs more Front Distance, while a small Rear Distance prevents rays from crossing the low mesh and capturing interior or opposite surfaces.
Does an exploded bake replace a projection cage?
No. Explosion isolates parts, but each low mesh still needs controlled projection. An oversized or malformed cage can capture incorrect surfaces even after the parts are moved apart.
Why does a normal bake look wavy on a smooth panel?
Inspect low-poly segmentation, vertex normals, cage-ray direction, triangulation, and tangent basis. Waviness often comes from forcing curved high-poly information through an insufficient low surface, not from texture resolution.