Is this workflow ok? Any tips

Daveyboy

I am modelling things in blender and trying to bake normals to a low poly mesh.

I struggled originally modelling because I had tris/ ngons in my low poly that made modifiers not work and I had other problems. So... Now I do this.

Start high poly model. Work all in quads using long ass edge loops to maintain quads. Add a subsurf and supporting geometry. Voila a high poly.

Low Poly = Remove sub surf and supporting loops basically,

This is likely basic for most people but does this sound ok? Any tips? I'm mostly making stuff like guns/ tables/ "hard surface" (?) stuff.

Obscura

Its a good starting point, but triangles are unavoidable in lowpoly, if you want a nicely optimized mesh.

Mark Dygert

Even in high poly work triangles and ngons are important so you don't have crazy unsustainable topology running all over your model. The all quad approach is a pointless rule that only hurts your end result and slows down your progress.

It is far better to work in "mostly quads" and leverage ngons when you need them and when you know they won't cause issues.

Also, sometimes its faster/easier to build a new low poly around your high poly, rather than trying to optimize a high poly back down into a low. But it really depends on the object.

Also don't forget about baking, final materials, shaders and rendering. I would add "Substance Painter" and some kind of realtime rendering like Marmoset or Unreal to your workflow because just getting a high and low poly "finished" is about half of the effort it takes to get those assets over the finish line. I would urge you to not do your materials and rendering in blender because it doesn't really function like other game engines do and that half of the experience is very important.

Daveyboy

Ok thanks for your tips