Below are a series of issues that you may observe after processing your model for the first time.
Geometry Issues
Black Triangles
Black Triangles
Sometimes the back face of a mesh will penetrate through the mesh and will stop light from hitting the correct side of the object.
Example:
Solution #1: Optimize after baking
In the 'Processing Layers' section, undo the optimization
Make sure the layer is unwrapped
Bake in the 'Bake Lighting' section
Then in 'Processing Layers' optimize
In many cases this will resolve the issue. Sometimes it is optimization that causes this face intersection. Therefore, if you bake before optimizing the light will be baked correctly and the intersecting faces that are caused by optimizing will not be able to cast shadows.
Solution #2: Move/delete
You can resolve this my moving/deleting the geometry that intersects with the correct facing part of the model. Since it won't be seen anyway this should resolve the issue.
See through objects: single sided objects
See through objects: single sided objects
This is common with curtains and plants. The only way to resolve this is to double the geometry.
Example below:
Here we have a curtain that only shows 1 side because the other side is it's backface which can only be viewed with backface culling on.
The backface culling is automatically applied when using Enviz Pro however it can also be found by selecting a group of objects, right-clicking and click on Object properties.
Note: If you've billboarded plants in the vegetation section this should not be necessary.
Warning: If you're planning on doubling plants that are a mesh just be aware that you are doubling the triangle count. So you may want to optimize the mesh further or consider billboarding it.
How to double geometry:
Select your object .
Duplicate/clone the object by using CTRL+V.
Select the objects you have just duplicated, locate the Editable Poly options in the modifier tab and select the polygon option. You can now select all the polygons by pressing CTRL+A and pressing the flip button that is highlighted below.
This will allow your object to be double sided by duplicating the geometry and flipping the backface.
Texture Issues
Texture looks blurry or pixelated
Texture looks blurry or pixelated
Issue #1: Blurred Bump Map
Check your material doesn't have a high blur level applied as this will blur the texture.
Issue #2: Bake setting too low for specific layer
Assuming you are not already over your texture usage budget.
Open the light baking tab
Press undo on the layer you are unhappy with
Select a higher resolution. e.g. change it from 2K to 4K
Press 'Mark for bake'
Press 'Bake All'
Issue #3: Layer with very high surface area
If you have a layer, say a ground and it is very large 8K may not be enough. You could break it up into multiple objects in different layers and bake x2 8K's instead. Just be aware that every 8K takes up 8% of the total scene budget so you may instead want to reduce the size of the plane if it isn't critical to the model
100% texture usage, but texture quality is still too low
100% texture usage, but texture quality is still too low
Suggestion #1: Cut back quality in other places
We automatically select resolution based on surface area. But each layer will fall into a different bracket depending on their surface area.
These are the brackets:
Surface Area (m²) | Map size |
3.125 m² | 1024 x 1024 |
12.5 m² | 2048 x 2048 |
50 m² | 4096 x 4096 |
200 m² | 8192 x 8192 |
Because these are brackets, experiment with lowering the quality of some layers and re-baking as you may believe the quality difference is negligible depending on the layer.
Suggestion #2: Reduce surface area of unseen objects
Unless modeled intentionally, it is likely that your model contains geometry that the user will never see. If you delete faces that can't be seen that will leave more texture space for the rest of the layer. It's particularly good to be thinking about large flat areas that are not visible to someone exploring the space; e.g. the insides of walls, the underside of a roof, the bottom of a large ground plane around the model.
If you look at the baked PNG's in the sub folder next to your max file you can identify layers with lots of non-visible wasted texture space by looking for things that are entirely black/unlit (see example below).
Process Example: Say there is a roof layer where 50% of the surface area is just the inside of the roof of a house that is not accessible by the user. The steps below are also applicable to improving texture quality by not editing the resolution
Delete the faces on the inside of the roof
Drop the resolution from 8K to 4K for the object
Re-unwrap the object
Re-bake the object
You will get a similar level of quality now you've reduced the surface area by half. Leaving more texture space for other more important layers.
Output (bake) comes out incorrect
Output (bake) comes out incorrect
Potential reasons:
Falloff map only applying 1 bitmap instead of the 2 - Falloff is not supported due to the material being based off camera angle so it is tied to only 1 of the colors chosen
Displacement was turned on - This is located in the Render settings under the Common tab
Lighting was not properly checked - This is a common mistake after altering parts of your scene, there may be unwanted objects that may be visible or the lights themselves may be hidden. It is highly advised to check your render before baking the scene so you can identify if there are any issues.
Overlapping UV islands - This is a highly rare occurrence and there may be other underlying issues. The best solution to overlapping (wrong) UVs is reverting back to the beginning of a layer via the Undo buttons, split up your layer further and re-process the layer
Note: When your Baking (rendering) is complete, you will have multiple images located in your “Bake” folder (you can view these image at any time to adjust/edit and check for issues). Currently the baking feature does not support Displacement or Fall-off maps and the displacement option will produce a black map if it is not turned off in the Render settings, however it is automatically turned off as part of the EnvizPro Process. Rarely does the unwrapping process make mistakes but you can make edits to the UV map located as the highest channel if you need to.
Solutions:
If you have maps that obviously don’t look correct, then the first point of action will be to check the UV channel for overlapping UVs. These are colliding UV islands that can create fractured images and are obvious to identify.
Next you can double check the displacement is turn off in the Render Settings > Common tab.
Lighting can always be a factor that can affect the final output i.e.: missing or turned off lights. You should always double checking your lighting before rendering if you’re not confidant in your scene or the scene being too large to manage.
Performance Issues
Stutters or the app freezes (common in VR or low-end mobile)
Stutters or the app freezes (common in VR or low-end mobile)
Issue #1: Performance is bad everywhere in the scene
You should probably focus on trying to just get the general scene triangle count down. You will likely have to look at 'issue #2' in this section once you have some parts of the model functioning well enough.
Identifying the highest triangle layers in the scene:
Use the 'Compatibility Tools' 'Mesh limits' calculator to find which objects are the highest poly in the scene.
Use the 'Processing Layers' tab to optimise the layer further. You can deselect the auto-optimise button and pick specific percentages in which to target optimising the layer.
Issue #2: Specific spots in the scene stutter
Use the view based triangle counter to judge the view.
To do this:
Create a camera and put it in the position and make it face the direction where you observed the stutter.
Select the camera in the UI
Press 'Check Camera View'
Device "crashing" issues
Model crashes the app when opened
Model crashes the app when opened
Check the 'Validate & Export' tab in the plugin. If your scene exceeds the total triangle count or texture usage you will likely experience crashing on some platforms.
Total triangle count is too high:
Use the 'Compatibility Tools' 'Mesh limits' calculator to find which objects are the highest poly in the scene.
Use the 'Processing Layers' tab to optimize the layer further. You can deselect the auto-optimize button and pick specific percentages in which to target optimizing the layer.
Total texture usage is too high:
Use the 'Bake Lighting' tab to modify the resolution values of specific layers to reduce the total texture usage below 100%
Re-bake any layers with where you changed the values
Reach out to [email protected] if you are within budget and crashing is still occurring.
Plugin Issues
Layer was submitted in 'Processing Layers' tab is now gone
Layer was submitted in 'Processing Layers' tab is now gone
This is normal, when layers are submitted to the cloud we remove them from your scene so things cannot be submitted twice, this also prevents users from modifying their layer. When the layer is processed it will be returned to the scene. If anything goes wrong we store a backup of the layer in a sub-folder next to your max file that we will automatically restore from if the cloud fails to process a layer.
Disappearing layers while processing
Disappearing layers while processing
As a 3dsMax artist, you may be used to clearing your hierarchy of layers while using the software. When you are processing, this can remove the layers from your EnvizPro plugin.
As shown above, the image has the 150_BLD_Ceiling Lights layer processing and while this is happening, the plugin will remove the layer from the scene whilst being processed in the background. Clearing the hierarchy (Remove empty layers) while a layer is being processed and the layer will disappear from the plugin, however if you recreate the layer with the same name "150_BLD_Ceiling Lights" and click refresh list it will then return to the listbox.
Portal Issues