I just can't seem to get this right. I am using Blender 2.62 and I want to sculpt some wrinkles on V4's face and then bake a normal map to use in Poser. Or it could be any other Poser figure - but I am stuck. I apply a multires modifier to the head. I sculpt the facial details. I create an image for the normal map, from the UV-image editor window. Then I try to bake from multires and I just don't get it right. I get error messages saying that "the bake must happend (sic) to an image with an image buffer" or something like that.

When I try to have both a high-res and low-res version of the head and bake from the high-res to the low-res head, I get the message that Blender could not find an object or an image to bake to. I have tried various methods and I am just confusing myself now...

Things I am unsure of:

Must the texture I want to bake to be attached to a material?

Is the output file path relevant? Some of the tutorials I have watched put nothing in the output file path and it still works. It doesn't work for me.

Any help would be so appreciated. I really want to use normal maps to make my Poser characters more realistic.

 

 

 

 

Not sure if this may help you or not:

http://cgcookie.com/blender/2010/06/30/normal_maps_blender_2_5/

That's one of the tutorials I tried - Jonathan doesn't seem to have a texture attached to a material in that - he just creates the image file in the uv-editor and bakes. I think I am doing the same thing, but I get an error.

It is not necessary to have any materials assigned, but you have to make sure that your uv/image window contains the image you want to bake to. For me the most often made error is to forget that, trying to bake with no image in the uv/image editor. To make sure setup the windows that you see the image and the baking panel at the same time. The screenshot shows a complete setup i used for baking the normals from the multires plane, with the options needed to modify resp. verify marked in red. Do not forget to unwrap the plane, of course.

This is my screen. The only difference I can see is that I am using Catmull-Clark subdivision. And that it is V4's head, not a plane. I was able to bake from a plane earlier today. Could it be something to do with the head mesh itself? My error message says: "Baking must happend to an image with image buffer". I don't understand it.

Ugh! The forum keeps rejecting my image.

 

YouTube tutes

Perhaps you could try one of these and find what you're looking for?

Laurie

make 100% sure that the number of vetricies has not changed between the heads

 

I am using the same object with a multires modifier. I think for baking normals one of the meshes will always have more vertices.

I don't remember well, but once some time ago I tryed to do the same with a displacement map and I think the problem was the small dimention of poser figures, repeat, that was some time ago with older Blender versions, but you could check that. Hope it help

Thank you ima70, I am going to try your suggestion.