Mid-poly baking (production practices) ?
polycounter lvl 6
Hey all, I have a question about something I recently came across regarding workflow with baking normals.
I understand the full workflow of high, retpo, unwrapping, and baking, but I've always seen problems with normals on cylinders and tight concave areas. When playing MGS:PP, I noticed that Sahelanthropus has very clean normals, that I couldn't imagine how to get with just a standard workflow.
I recently saw Arrimus 3D's video on the topic for cylinders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnuK6xyi-qY
He makes a high poly, a UV'd midpoly, and then then creates a low poly from that midpoly after baking, where the UVs don't shift. That's great for simple assets, but making a full mech with this workflow seems like a nightmare. And the more I look at mechs in games with these kind of features, the more I'm noticing really clean normals on some, and the less clean ones that we expect with a simple high to low bake.
I have circled in red some curved surfaces that suggest these things were baked from a high poly. But then in red, i've circled spots that could easily just be face weighted normal for the asset's mesh, meaning all the normals could just be done in something like NDO.
What do you all know of this kind of high, mid, and low workflow? Can you share some resources? How do you think Sahelanthropus was made? A lot of it looks face weighted.
I understand the full workflow of high, retpo, unwrapping, and baking, but I've always seen problems with normals on cylinders and tight concave areas. When playing MGS:PP, I noticed that Sahelanthropus has very clean normals, that I couldn't imagine how to get with just a standard workflow.
I recently saw Arrimus 3D's video on the topic for cylinders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnuK6xyi-qYHe makes a high poly, a UV'd midpoly, and then then creates a low poly from that midpoly after baking, where the UVs don't shift. That's great for simple assets, but making a full mech with this workflow seems like a nightmare. And the more I look at mechs in games with these kind of features, the more I'm noticing really clean normals on some, and the less clean ones that we expect with a simple high to low bake.
I have circled in red some curved surfaces that suggest these things were baked from a high poly. But then in red, i've circled spots that could easily just be face weighted normal for the asset's mesh, meaning all the normals could just be done in something like NDO.
What do you all know of this kind of high, mid, and low workflow? Can you share some resources? How do you think Sahelanthropus was made? A lot of it looks face weighted.