Max Frontal and Rear Distance
Ray length settings in Painter baking
Also known as: Max Frontal Distance · Max Rear Distance · Ray distance · Painter bake distance · Bake ray length
Definition
Max Frontal Distance and Max Rear Distance are baking settings in Substance Painter that limit how far the rays travel when projecting detail from the high-poly onto the low-poly. Frontal is the distance outward from the low-poly surface, and Rear is the distance inward. Rays only pick up detail inside that range, so too small a value misses detail and too large a value catches neighbouring parts and creates streaks.
In production
Start with small values and increase them until all the detail of the high-poly appears. For a low-poly close to the high-poly, a very small distance is enough. Watch the corners and thin parts, where a large distance makes rays hit the wrong surface. Combining a sensible distance with Match by Mesh Name solves most baking artifacts. Other tools, such as Marmoset Toolbag and Blender, have equivalent settings called ray distance, cage extrusion or max ray distance.
Tools that use Max Frontal and Rear Distance
See also
Baking
High-poly detail → low-poly texture
Bake Cage
Envelope mesh that controls ray distance
Match by Mesh Name
Bake setting that pairs low and high poly parts
High-Poly Model
The detail source for baking
Low-Poly Model
Game-ready mesh
Bake Artifacts in Substance Painter
Spots, streaks and skewed detail after baking