Question about Cage setup for hard edge bakes
polycounter lvl 8
Hey
For weapons I bake my hi onto my low with smoothing groups and UV splits along those lines etc etc.
I go from max to xnormal through the xnormal SBM exporter.
When I proceed to create a cage, I just grab my low poly, duplicate and push with a small value of say 0.5, and tweak some more in areas that still show the high res above the cage.
What I'm trying to figure out is, is poly push a good technique? since the model is hard edge, by pushing the model you create distortion around areas that have high amount of SGs.
Like, should I break (unweld) the low poly by smoothing group, and do the same to the cage, and then push so that you get more localized push?
Basically, what's the best practice for hard edge low res mesh and cage export from max?
Thank you!
For weapons I bake my hi onto my low with smoothing groups and UV splits along those lines etc etc.
I go from max to xnormal through the xnormal SBM exporter.
When I proceed to create a cage, I just grab my low poly, duplicate and push with a small value of say 0.5, and tweak some more in areas that still show the high res above the cage.
What I'm trying to figure out is, is poly push a good technique? since the model is hard edge, by pushing the model you create distortion around areas that have high amount of SGs.
Like, should I break (unweld) the low poly by smoothing group, and do the same to the cage, and then push so that you get more localized push?
Basically, what's the best practice for hard edge low res mesh and cage export from max?
Thank you!
Replies
Honestly I would just use the projection modifier in max to set up your cage.
Ah okay, so export the cage through the project modifier instead of exporting a duplicated push mesh.
Btw your (or your teammates, not sure exactly who) Brink weapon bakes are some of my favorites ever, very clean work.
If you want to only push a portion of the mesh, make a selection before adding the Push modifier and that modifier will only act on the selection. You don't need to unweld anything.
Thanks a lot! I did the high/low/bakes for something like half the guns in the game, so at least some of the assets you're thinking of are ones I did. =D
The real cool part of those assets(the materials) was mostly Per and Ben Garnell(Kimono on polycount).
If you're using SBM anyway, it will export any projection cages added to a mesh.