#Preparing venue models for EVT3D

This is the production pipeline for taking a venue model from 3ds Max + V-Ray and getting it into the EVT3D library as a baked, lit, lightweight .glb — ready to drop into a project and design inside.

It is not a strict step-by-step recipe. The order and the granularity will shift with the size of the model and the complexity of the scene. Treat the sequence below as a checklist you adapt, not a script you follow.

#Color management

Before you do anything else, set the renderer's color workflow:

Mode — Gamma Workflow
Gamma — 2.2

Get this wrong and every bake comes out either too dark or washed out. Set it once at the start of the project and confirm it is still correct before each final bake.

#Modeling

You are usually starting from an existing CAD or photogrammetry pull of the venue. Before you start unwrapping, do a pass on the geometry itself.

Update or remodel the existing model where it makes sense — clean topology gives you cleaner UVs, which gives you cleaner bakes.
Import any existing venue kits we already have built. The standard ones to look for are doors, sconce lights, canned lights, and chandeliers.
Organize meshes into layers by surface type so you can bake and export in batches:
- Ceiling
- Floor
- Wall
- Props
The layer split varies with venue size. A small ballroom may collapse Ceiling + Walls into one layer; a convention center may split the floor by zone.
Frame a V-Ray Camera inside 4_VraySettings (the standard camera bookmark layer in our scene template). You will reuse this view for material testing and light adjustments throughout the pipeline.

Tip — copy V-Ray Lights as instances rather than copies. When you want to push every chandelier 6" up at the end of the day, you will be glad you did.

#UV setup

UVs are where this pipeline lives or dies. Two channels, in order:

Channel 1 — material textures (the day-to-day stuff)
Channel 2 — light baking (the whole reason we are here)

You must create Channel 2 explicitly. The bake will silently fall back to Channel 1 if you do not, and you will spend an hour wondering why your lighting looks like garbage.

#Process

Duplicate the working models into a dedicated UV layer. Always work on the duplicate. The bake will eat the originals if you let it.
If a model is repeated across the venue (e.g. identical wall panels, repeated chair backs), unwrap one instance only, then duplicate. Do not unwrap each one — you are wasting hours.
Unwrap UVs per layer group (Ceiling, Floor, Walls, Props). Group the meshes inside a layer before unwrapping so they share UV space.
Pack the UVs into 0–1 space:
- Enable Normalize
- Padding — 0.003
Combine objects that share the same UV space into a single mesh. This is what lets one baked texture cover multiple geometry pieces.
Duplicate the combined meshes one more time as a backup before you start the bake. Bakes can fail loudly or silently; the backup is your fallback.

Tip — for walls, place UV seams along 90° angles (e.g. door extrusions, corners). Seams along curves bake with visible bands; seams along sharp edges hide.

#Materials

Order matters here:

Use V-Ray Materials before baking. The bake reads V-Ray's lighting response, so the materials need to be V-Ray-native at bake time.
After combining meshes, switch to glTF Materials. This is what EVT3D understands. The geometry stays put; only the material assignment changes.

Doing it in the other order — glTF first, then bake — produces flat, ambient-only output. Don't.

#Baking

Two settings to get right before you ever press Bake:

The viewport must not be locked to the camera during baking. A camera-locked viewport will skew the bake's projection in ways that are very hard to diagnose after the fact.
Add a Projection Modifier to each object before baking. Set its Push value to 0.5. This gives the projector enough offset to catch surface detail without missing edges.

#Bake settings

Rendering → Bake to Texture. Add the following Bake Elements:

VrayDenoiserMap — primary output. Often this is the only element you need.
NormalMap — add if the model has surface relief that the diffuse pass alone won't sell.
ReflectionMap — add for reflective materials (glass, polished stone, metal).
VrayAOMap — optional, for added contact shadow.

Use these settings on the bake itself:

Projected From — Projection
UV Channel — 2
Image Size — 512×512 for test bakes, 4096×4096 for finals
Padding — 2
File Type — JPG

Open the Rendered Frame Window and click Bake. This takes a while. Plan around it; do not babysit it.

After the bake completes:

Rename the baked textures clearly. wall_north_bake.jpg is fine; Bake_RenderElement_VrayDenoiser_001.jpg is not.
Duplicate the baked meshes for final use. The originals stay in the UV layer as your fallback.

#Post-baking

This is where the model becomes a glTF asset.

Create a glTF Material for each baked object.
Assign the new material to its corresponding mesh.
Apply Unwrap UVW to each mesh and reroute the channels:
- Switch to Channel 2 → Abandon
- Switch to Channel 1 → Move
This collapses the bake (which lives in Channel 2) onto Channel 1 — which is the only channel glTF reads at runtime. After this step, all of your baked lighting is visible under a single material setup.

#Export

File → Export as glTF. The only setting that matters:

Binary (.glb) format — enabled.

EVT3D only ingests .glb. A .gltf + textures folder will be rejected at the upload gate.

#Hand-off

Once exported:

Spot-check the file size. A baked venue should land in the 20–80 MB range. If you are over 100 MB, your textures are probably 4K where they could be 2K — go back and re-bake.
Upload through the standard library flow. See Uploading a prop for the upload mechanics; the same uploader handles venues.
After upload, open the venue in EVT3D and confirm the baked lighting reads correctly under the runtime camera. If anything looks off, the fix is almost always in the UV channel routing — re-check the post-bake Channel 2 → Abandon, Channel 1 → Move step.

Author — Yiel Delos Reyes. This workflow is Yiel's; questions and refinements go to him.