Baking for Scans

In the scan workflow, Bake does two jobs: it moves a scan's detail onto a lighter mesh, and it makes tiling bark textures from the scan. For the Bake settings themselves, see Baking.

Bake a scan onto its graft mesh

This is step 3 of Trunk Extension. Wire the first two outputs of Create Graft Mesh into Bake's first two inputs (Proxy and Bake Target), and press Bake All. Bake projects the scan's colour, height and normal onto the graft mesh's UVs. The result goes into a Trunk Decoration.

Blending the tiling texture at the join

Where grown branches meet the scan, the scan's unique texture has to fade into the tiling bark texture the branches wear. This happens in the same bake. Create Graft Mesh builds a mesh for each opening you picked and gives it the tiling texture from Graft Textures (or the Surface Resource, in Resource mode). Bake then blends that texture into the scan's texture over the Graft Blend Region.

A longer Graft Blend Region spreads the blend further. To match both sides of the join, see step 4 of Trunk Extension.

Extract a tiling texture from a scan

Trees wrap around their own axis, so a tube cut from a trunk already tiles around it. To make a tiling texture:

1. Import the scan with Import Highpoly.
2. With Scan to Parts, select the region to keep.
3. Use Scan Rig to set up the tube section.
4. Scan to Tube turns it into a cleanly UVed tube.
5. Optionally, Scan to Patch picks a smaller square region of the tube, for a single feature such as a knot hole or a scar, or a square texture that is easier to combine with other materials.
6. Wire Scan to Tube (or Scan to Patch) into Bake's first input (Proxy) and Scan to Parts into its second (Bake Target). Turn on Make it Tile and press Bake All.

Scan to Tube lists which output goes into which input at each step.

Tiling Mode sets how it tiles: Tile V, Tile U, Tile Cross or Tile Diamond. Double-click the Bake to edit the tiling texture in Copernicus.

Status

Scan Rig and Scan to Tube are experimental. Scan Rig is only useful for tube sections for now.