cleanup vs. rebaking maps

mobkon

Hey all -

Just wondering what general practice usually is regarding cleanup vs. re-baking maps? Sometimes instead of rebaking a map, I'll clean it up in PS. If there's some weirdness with an AO map for example, instead of trying to fix the geometry, a lot of times I'll just clean it up to the point where it's perfectly fine and not noticeable in the end result.

What's the general consensus on this?

oglu

cleanup in PS is most of the time faster...

Hayden Zammit

With normal maps, I never do any clean up in Photoshop. If I need to clean it up in PS, then I've obviously done something wrong prior. Much better to go back and fix the issue in the model, I think.

Obscura

It is really not recommended to edit a baked normalmap afterwards. You can mess up the shading very easily. But is is fine to edit ao and other baked maps.

thomasp

i edit normal maps all the time, paint out artifacts, overlay stuff, strengthen or weaken the bump effect, all in photoshop. on organic stuff you can normally not see a thing. hard surface can be another matter entirely though.

oglu

if you know what you are doing its no problem to paint stuff in normalmaps... and fixing them is no magic at all..

oglu

Hayden Zammit said:

With normal maps, I never do any clean up in Photoshop. If I need to clean it up in PS, then I've obviously done something wrong prior. Much better to go back and fix the issue in the model, I think.

if you have to bake complex CAD Data there is no way in hell to get clean bakes...

mobkon

Thanks guys. Yeah, I really meant *other* maps besides normal maps. Sometimes though, I do slight cleanup on normal maps, but not that often.

Dan Powell

Depends on circumstances.

If there's no chance you'll be asked to rebake the asset, such as if your art director has asked you to change something, then just paint it out.

If you might have to bake it out again, fix the error - you don't want to have to be painting out the error over and over again.

The best practice however is to just get it right, and not have to do any hacky fixes like painting errors out.

Farfarer

I prefer not to. Especially if it might need rebaking or editing later (epsecially if someone else has to do tweaks to your asset).

m4dcow

With one asset it might be easier to fix in photoshop... but in reality that same asset might have many revisions which force you to rebake and thus fix again in photoshop, then multiply that by 20 assets... Get the bake right initially and it will save you headache down the line.

oglu

i agree that fixing the geometry should be the way to go... but if fixing the CAD Data will take half a day and paintig will take you 5min its better to go the other way... 

if you have done hundreds of game assets you will get a feeling how to deal with baking errors...