Set up the scene

1. Open the starting scene. It contains a number of objects (the parts that make up the helmet, the stand and the ground) and 4 light sources (4 V-Ray Plane lights). V-Ray materials are assigned to all objects that make up the helmets.
   
   The light sources are situated to the left and right of the helmet, with two further lights above . The light to the right of the helmet has a Multiplier of 10.0, the light to the left of the helmet has a Multiplier of 20.0, and the two lights above have Multipliers of 15.0 and 5.0 respectively. The light to the left has a VRaySoftbox texture applied to it.

   

2. Assign V-Ray as the current renderer.

   

3. Open the Material Editor (M) to assure the materials are properly set and assigned.

   

Test Render

1. Before we do our first rendering, turn on the Frame Stamp option in the System rollout so we can see render times.

   

2. Render.

   

   That is what we get with all default V-Ray Settings. To make the lighting a little more interesting, add global illumination and area shadows to the rendering.

Set Up GI and Shadows

1. Go to the Image sampler rollout and set the Image sampler type to Progressive.

   

2. In the Global illumination rollout , turn on Enable GI. Set both Primary engine and Secondary engine to Brute force.

   

3. Render the scene.

   

4. If V-Ray lights are not being used, then turn on the Area Shadow of the light. As all lights within this scene are V-Ray lights, this step isn't needed in this case.
   
   
   
   Now we have the area shadow.

Reduce Noise

The image in this case looks good. If the shadows are too grainy, the noise can be reduced through the DMC sampler parameters.

In the Global DMC rollout, set Noise threshold to 0.001.



Now our scene is ready for baking.

It is recommended that you set the Secondary rays bias from the Global Switches rollout to small positive values to avoid some artifacts on the edge padding. V-Ray will automatically assume 0.001 as a Secondary rays bias if you have accidentally left it to 0.0 in texture baking mode.

Disable the Frame Stamp

1. Before continuing, disable Frame Stamp in the System rollout. Otherwise we will get the frame stamp on our baked textures as well, which we do not want.

   

Set Up Output Folder

1. Now open the Render to Texture window from the Rendering Menu, or use shortcut key 0.

2. Choose your Output folder, where the new baked textures will be saved.

   

Select Object to Bake

1. Select the helmet from the scene (object named Helmet).

2. In the Mapping Coordinates section, select Use Existing Channel.

   

   Notice that the Helmet object was automatically added in the table of Objects to Bake.

Set Up Output Settings

1. In the Output rollout, click Add... and select a VRayCompleteMap bake element. This bake element outputs the equivalent of the RGB_Color Render Element. Choose 2048x2048 for the size, turn on Enable (if necessary), and set File Name and Type so that the map is exported as a .png file.

   It is important to choose the VRayCompleteMap or other V-Ray compatible bake element, because using one of the standard 3ds Max bake elements may cause a crash. You may have to scroll down in the Add Texture Element dialog in order to see the V-Ray bake elements.

   For example, in our case the baked map of our helmet object will have the name: paint_1001VRayCompleteMap.png.
   
   

2. In the Baked Material rollout, choose Save Source (Create Shell).

3. Select the Create New Baked option and choose Standard: Blinn from the pop-up menu.

4. Select Keep Source Materials.

   

   Now the helmet is ready for baking (rendering).

If Enable Gamma/LUT Correction is not enabled in the 3ds Max Preference Settings Gamma and LUT tab, then the exported maps may render too dark.

Locate Shell Materials

1. Open the Material Editor (M) and choose an empty slot.

2. Click on the Get Material icon to open the Material/Map Browser.

3. Select Browse From:Scene. You will notice that there are two new materials. They are Shell Materials and contain both the original V-Ray Material and the new Baked Material in them, as we specified in earlier steps.

Edit Shell Material Parameters

1. Drag the new materials into the Material Editor as shown.

2. In the new Shell Material Parameters, choose the Baked Material for Viewport, and Original Material for Render.
   
   This simply means two things: First, if we do a new fresh render (F9), the objects will use their original material (VRayMtl). Second, in all the viewports, the objects will use their baked material (Standard).

   

Set Self-Illumination

1. Select the new Ground Shell Material called HelmetBlend_mtl[paint_1001].
   
   

2. Turn on Self-Illumination and select a pure white Color (255, 255, 255). See that there we already have the Baked Map attached.

3. Go to the Self-Illumination Map, and turn on the Show Map in Viewport icon.

Viewport Results

1. In the viewport, you should be able to see the helmet with its already baked map.

   

   Note: if you forget to turn on the Show Map in Viewport icon, the viewport would look just like this:

   

2. Repeat steps from 4.7 to 4.9. for the other materials in the scene.

   Now the viewport should look like something like the image below--notice how the Edged Faces (F4) can be also shown along with the baked maps.

   
   Shade + Edged Faces On

   Shade + Edged Faces Off

   Differences between the baked version and the previous renders are due to the fact that reflection is not baked into VRayCompleteMap.

   Here are some additional views of the scene from different positions:

   

Final Render Settings

1. Open the Material Editor (M). Choose the Baked Material in the Render option for both our Shell Materials.
   
   

2. Open the V-Ray Light Lister and switch off all the lights in the scene. Actually we can even delete the lights from the scene, and it will still render fine. We have all the lighting baked into the textures already.

   

3. In the V-Ray settings, turn GI off, Environment (Skylight) off, Default Lights off.

4. Render.

   

   Notice the render time. In the first rendering we made, the render time was 5m:09.6s compared to 19.5 seconds that we get now. That is simply because with the baked textures, V-Ray is not doing any lighting calculations. You can even switch to the default Scanline render and still get the same result.

   Having all this in mind, you can animate a camera and render a whole fly-through animation with very short render times per frame.

You can download the resulting scene and assets here.