I think it should work on any hard surface model. Or not?
Also, I'm wondering why you would ever want to do it like on the second example on this image. Those internal edges inside the supporting seems unnecessary to me as it would give you the same result with only the actual support loops next to the mesh edge.
At a certain point, it's not worth the effort and you should just put a few cuts to reduce scewing. I think EQ has posted an image with a vert being placed in the middle of a place that had scewing.
So basically it would work on any hard surface, its just doesn't worth the time if we are talking about something complex. Yeah I know that cut in a vert technique.
I think edge loops or 5 would be the easiest to quickly add and remove, but yeah it could work on any surface, but the more complex the mesh, the more work it becomes for less of an improvement.
I guess you could linear subdivide the whole mesh instead of using support loops? I don't know how well that would work, I might give it a go, but would need a much more complicated test mesh to make sure it works well. But I think that would change the normals on top of your custom normals, so that really would work unless you just did it to areas where you could not affect the normals, but that sounds way too messy.
I guess you could linear subdivide the whole mesh instead of using support loops? I don't know how well that would work, I might give it a go, but would need a much more complicated test mesh to make sure it works well. But I think that would change the normals on top of your custom normals, so that really would work unless you just did it to areas where you could not affect the normals, but that sounds way too messy.
Don't people usually bake object space maps on the linearly subdivided mesh and then convert them for the lighter lowpoly?
I think it's called "skewmesh"
Makes sense. But you can't remove them on complex, curvy surfaces. I'm still wondering why people should ever do it like the example 2.
Because it is the fastest way, especially with modifier stacks like "tesselation" or "turbosmooth based on smoothing groups". Why should you spend time in any manually step for a mesh you will only use for baking purpose?
Im not sure if this was mentioned, but does anyone use surface normal bake for floaters and then Geo normal bake for bevels? Its been working good for me. After baking both I mask paint the surface Normal over the Geo Normal bake . the process takes longer but the results are great
Bumping this thread to the top of the stickies to bring attention to the fact that all of the images for the first page are missing now. The Wayback Machine has them, and there's some good info in here, so hopefully they can be put back up.
@PolyHertz fixed now, all the images should be there. They got lost when dropbox nuked the public folder feature, but should be saved onto Polycount's servers now.
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Also, I'm wondering why you would ever want to do it like on the second example on this image. Those internal edges inside the supporting seems unnecessary to me as it would give you the same result with only the actual support loops next to the mesh edge.
Don't people usually bake object space maps on the linearly subdivided mesh and then convert them for the lighter lowpoly?
I think it's called "skewmesh"
Ah quick question Earthquake. Are you using Modo to bake?
Why should you spend time in any manually step for a mesh you will only use for baking purpose?
thats pretty much what the marmoset baker is doing internally, you can mask the skewing before baking. it's pretty kickass