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Cycles: Bake Environment to geometry Error
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Description

System Information
Windows 10 version 1803
Intel Core i7 3770k
Nvidia GTX 1080Ti

Blender Version
2.79b 2018-03-22 14:10

Description
Baking an HDRI environment to a plane creates unexpected results.

Exact steps for others to reproduce the error
Blender scene with an HDRI environment. Set up a ground plane and generate a UV. Add a material and associate a blank texture. Select Cycles bake environment with plane selected. Resulting bake of the HDRI environment appears stretched to a single center point.

To partly workaround the error - extrude the plane to a cube, recreate UVs with cube map or similar. Pack UVs then re-bake environment. This time three sides of the cube will bake the environment correctly, one side will fail per above

See attached image while shows a baked extruded plane with three sides correct, one (lower-left) showing the unexpected error.

Related Objects

Event Timeline

Paul Chambers (paulchambers3d) renamed this task from Cycles: Bake Environment to geometry to Cycles: Bake Environment to geometry Error.Sep 23 2018, 8:12 PM
Paul Chambers (paulchambers3d) created this task.
Brecht Van Lommel (brecht) lowered the priority of this task from 90 to 30.Sep 24 2018, 8:47 AM
Brecht Van Lommel (brecht) added a subscriber: Brecht Van Lommel (brecht).

Please always attach a .blend file to reproduce the problem.

Paul Chambers (paulchambers3d) added a comment.Sep 24 2018, 2:02 PM

Apologies @Brecht Van Lommel (brecht)

HDRI_baking_bug_report.zip64 MBDownload
- please see attached.

Brecht Van Lommel (brecht) raised the priority of this task from 30 to Normal.Sep 24 2018, 2:33 PM

The idea behind the "Environment" bake is that you set up e.g. a sphere or cube, to bake to a spherical or cube mapping. It basically traces ray from 0,0,0 through the current shading point towards the environment. So if you have a plane that goes through the origin you get this weird result.

What are you trying to bake onto this plane exactly? If you want to bake the reflection of the environment, it should be done by baking a Glossy pass, and the result will then depend on the specific BSDF and its roughness.

Brecht Van Lommel (brecht) triaged this task as 30 priority.Sep 24 2018, 2:34 PM
Paul Chambers (paulchambers3d) added a comment.Sep 24 2018, 3:19 PM

Good to know. I've been working with a few folks on an idea for a shadow catcher material that not only catches the shadow but also accurately reflects the environment and any shadows cast (see chrome sphere lower left in attached example and node network) This method requires a ground plane shadow catcher that's baked with a 32bit environmental bake. I was able to achieve this by - as you say - creating a cube and deleting all but one side but had assumed it would work just with a plane.

Brecht Van Lommel (brecht) changed the task status from Unknown Status to Unknown Status.Sep 24 2018, 3:33 PM
Brecht Van Lommel (brecht) claimed this task.

Ok, interesting! I don't think there's a bug here then.

K Hsiao (iceblue) mentioned this in D5721: Corrected description of Cycles' environment baking.Sep 9 2019, 8:39 AM