Help! Creating textures using your bake!?

bazz_boyy

Hi guys, I have a rather simple question

I've seen that a lot of people are using their 'bakes' in photoshop to create shadow on their model which saves a lot of time when texturing. I want to know how this is achieved.

First of all, does one use the normal map or the ambient occlusion map? I have tried both, however it is the blending I find difficult. If I am to use the normal map, I'll change the image to black and white and lower the opacity. With the light map I'll just lower the opacity however the white or grey colors rather will interfere with the colors which is what I don't want. I've also tried using the color select tool to delete the whites in the AO map but still it looks quite shite. I'm definitely doing something wrong here...

How exactly is this done? What is this method called? I have searched for tutorial but to no avail. I hope I have been able to explain myself well enough for you to understand.

THANKS! :>

gsokol

Set the layer style for your ambient occlusion map to multiply.

dazzerfong

Never multiply normal map onto your diffuse: a normal map is meant to be by itself (or maybe coupled with a height map to visualise high-frequency details, but nothing else). If you want, you can either multiply your AO map on top of your diffuse, or if you have a dedicated slot for AO maps like Marmoset Toolbag 2, separate it.

bazz_boyy

THANKS GUYS!. Wrong forum SORRY!

passerby

you can also use the cavity map in screen or overlay mode to add some edge highlights as well as using the green channel of a curvature map for masking edge details, and the red channel of it to mask in dirt and grime accumulation.

there are some other tricks like using different channels of a world space normal map to mask your mesh by face angles, for effects such as sun bleaching or snow only accumlating on up facing angles, but that is way more circumstantial and better done in the material shader.

trick to Photoshop blending modes, in the drop down they are arranged by what they do, so you can see all the ones that darken the image together like muliply darken, and color burn. which are great for one you need to apply shading from a texture.

than there is lighten, color dodge and screen which are great for when you want to bring out highlights in a layer.

screen and multiply are prolly the 2 most useful for doing this, and overlay is good for overlaying subtle photo ref detail.

you can also play around with the layer opacity for these blending modes, and levelling the image.

LRoy

There are different methods. I've seen a few floating around the forums.

This is striker's from the space whale dev thread.

Mask_Salesman

Gradient maps for the win. AVOID using multiply with a black n white AO, especially when texturing skin. It's good to get into the habit of changing your AO colours with a gradient map etc.